California teen EricJames Borges, a Trevor Project intern, killed himself this week after a lifetime of relentless assaults on his physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health that included an attack in school, an exorcism by his mother, and an expulsion from his home.
American culture and the people in his life failed EricJames. Words fail me.
[h/t Towleroad]
Bloody hell. How many more? How many more gentle, harmless kids, desperate for love and acceptance will choose death because their lives are so terrible?
The so called pro-family groups have the blood of these kids on their hands, and the blood of young people beaten and killed by gay bashes who get their fun identifying and set about someone they decide looks homosexual, after years of being fed by these pro family types that LB are somehow less and deserving of harm.
What really sticks in my craw is his own Mother didn’t give him unconditional love. I came out to my Mum and the first thing she did was stop trying to find me a nice young man and started trying to find me a nice you woman! My (ex) girlfriend couldn’t tell her parents and was amazed and delighted that my Mum accepted her, even to the point of allowing her to call her Mum. Because she’s my Mum and she loves me no matter what.
But for this young man the one he should be able to turn to, for love, assurance, turned her back on him, forcing him to go through hell to win the love that should have been inbuilt in her and came out as soon as she saw his face. The damage was probably already done by that b***h by the time he struck out to try and find love.
You just KNOW that a big ol’ portion of Religious Rightists consider this a victory.
…Jesus.
What about all the suicides because of a type of bullying called gangstalking where they harass and bully and abuse their victims all their lives and never let up. Even the cops and firemen are in on this bullying and harassing innocent people. Somehow the person gets put on a list of some kind and then they are targets.
Horrible. The sad thing is, as someone who was also raised in religion I know how insidious it is. Even when you’ve taken steps to move toward health it can still creep up on you. This is really tragic.
You are not wrong Daniel…but remember, there is religion, and there is religion. It can be a source of strength and aid…Mandella…Tutu, etc. And not all branches are like the rotten poison this poor soul had to endure. Somewhere, in New Hampshire, there is a 24 year old who came of age as a gay person in a supportive family of Episcopalians who had V Gene Robinson as their openly gay Bishop.
That this poor young mans story is entirely tragic, and that it was poisoned by religion, is, sadly, very true. How the people who did what they did to him in the name of faith live with themselves, I truly do not know.
@Margaret
“Gangstalking” isn’t real — it was made up by a bunch of paranoid idiots to justify their delusions of “everyone’s out to get me.”
Gene, great, some people get strength from religion. That makes all the bad it does okay.
Gene, just to continue on because I realize my previous post was more sarcastic than I’m happy with. Every time it’s pointed out that religion justifies the shame that many gay people feel and which poisons their lives (possibly forever) someone comes on and says “we’re not all like that.” Great, I know. But you know what–all the strenght that people get from their religions doesn’t make up for the suicidal feelings and shame that I almost succombed to. It’s great that Eugene Robinson is a reasonable voice in the sea of nastiness that spews out of what seems like most of religion. Your “there’s religion and there’s religion” just comes off as denial to me. The fact is the Bible–Old and New Testaments have vile anti-gay tracts in them and that’s a fact and it’s used as a justification for the horrors that go on. Sorry, your words seem hollow to me.