So sad. News has been circulating the past couple days of the suicide of eighth grader Phillip Parker from Gordonsville, Tennessee:
A Gordonsville boy’s parents say bullying caused their son to take his own life. Phillip Parker, 14, died this week. His parents said he was constantly bullied for being gay.
More than 100 people gathered in Gordonsville on Saturday night, grieving the loss of Phillip.
“He was fun, he was energetic, he was happy,” said Gena Parker, Phillip’s mother.
To his many friends, Phillip was known as the boy who told everyone they’re beautiful.
“He kept telling me he had a rock on his chest,” said Ruby Harris, Phillip’s grandmother. “He just wanted to take the rock off where he could breathe.”
Phillip’s family said they reported their concerns over their son’s bullying to Gordonsville High School on multiple occasions, but the bullying by a group of students just got worse.
Like many kids who are bullied, it seems that Phillip did his best to shoulder the burden alone, so his family didn’t really know the extent of what he was going through. This past weekend, representatives from the Tennessee Equality Project met some current and former teachers at Phillip’s school, and what they found was sadly unexpected. The bullying in school was systemic, and on top of that, Phillip heard religious bullying from pastors, and presumably from fellow churchgoers:
While attending Saturday’s conference, H.G. Stovall and I met a former teacher who knew Phillip while he attended Gordonsville Elementary School. Tears flowed as she told us that Philip had endured years of anti-gay bullying at the school and that bullying in general at Gordonsville Elementary School often goes unaddressed by faculty and staff. She knew of several students who had to transfer to other schools to escape the harassment. This educator also knew Phillip had endured anti-gay preaching from the pulpit of his church.
[...]
We were able to speak to one of Phillip’s teachers. Sadly, she confirmed the same stories we had heard the day before about Philip’s experience at school and at church. She recalled learning that his pastor had recently told him to “pray the devil out him, so he could be straight.” His teacher also remembered that beneath his inner turmoil Philip was always smiling and would often tell his peers how beautiful they were.
For a while now, I’ve been making the point, probably at least once a week, that the message of the Religious Right to LGBT people IS bullying, and it’s not just the icing on the cake. Without the messages coming from the pulpit and from other adults who unfortunately command respect, kids in the schoolyard wouldn’t automatically equate “gay” with “bad,” and wouldn’t feel such a license to make another child’s life a living hell over their sexuality. Sure, kids will always be kids, and no anti-bullying program will eliminate all schoolyard taunts. But the sooner we make the solid connection, as a society, that the kind of bullying that causes gay and questioning kids to feel such despair that they end their young lives, comes directly from adult bullies like the pastor who urged Phillip to “pray away the gay” [to think that people think we're being hyperbolic when we use that phrase...], the sooner we’ll reach a time when I won’t have to write articles about kids killing themselves every damned week.
Yet another study confirming that the Religious Right’s nonsense about gays being unfit parents is just that — nonsense:
A new study has found that teens raised by lesbian parents report the same quality of life as teens raised by heterosexual parents.
[...]
Researchers followed 78 17 year olds with lesbian mothers who were matched on gender, age, parental education and ethnic background with adolescents in heterosexual-parent families that were drawn from a representative statewide sample.
The adolescents in both groups gave a numerical score (on a scale of zero to 10) to each of a series of statements such as, “I feel I’m getting along with my parents/guardians,” “I look forward to the future’’ and “I feel good about myself.” The adolescents with lesbian mothers responded generally in the same way as the teenagers with heterosexual parents.
“Our new data demonstrate that 17-year-olds raised from birth by lesbian mothers are as happy as their peers,” the study’s co-author, Loes van Gelderen, wrote.
Unsurprising, but good to have yet more confirmation.
The other day a video from a young kid named Jonah Mowry, where he told the story of the relentless bullying he experiences on a daily basis, went viral. Here’s that video again if you haven’t seen it:
When I posted it, I described Jonah as a specific example of a kid that Linda Harvey and the rest of the Religious Right refuses to protect, and asked what was more valuable: that child, or their dogma?
Christian writer John Shore took that idea a lot further than I did, and he took the gloves off. Quoting it almost in its entirety, because John likes me and won’t get mad:
Tell me that your belief system didn’t help put the hot tears on this kid’s cheeks. Tell me that the bullies who torment this kid aren’t in any way encouraged or empowered by your tacit approval of their actions. Tell me that the shame this kid feels about himself has nothing to do with the shame that you believe all gay people should feel for themselves.
Tell me that you can’t comprehend the connection between your conviction that God finds homosexuals repulsive, and the fact that this kid finds himself so repulsive that he habitually cuts his own flesh.
Tell me, please, how you love this kid. Tell me how you understand his pain. Tell me how when he cries, you cry.
Tell me how you want to do everything in your power to make sure that no one, ever again, feels free to in any way victimize a young gay person.
A Christian myself, I am pleading with you to be honest with me about this.
Tell me, please, how none of this kid’s anguish has anything to do with you.
I’m listening. I really am.
We all are.
All ears. You first, Linda Harvey. Then Tony Perkins. And then we can go alphabetically through America’s bigot leaders after that. Explain how your bigotry is worth more than this or any other child’s suffering.
Jim Burroway summarizes the end of this tragic story:
Brandon McInerney, who was a fourteen-year-old Oxnard Middle School student when he shot Larry King in school at point blank range in 2008, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and the use of a fire arm in a plea deal which will result in a 21 year prison term in addition to time served. Under the terms of his plea deal, McInerney, who is now 17, will be released shortly before his 39th birthday. McInerney will be formally sentenced on December 19.
McInerney’s plea deal comes after a mistrial was declared in his first trial after jurors were unable to reach a verdict. They had deadlocked at 7 to 5 in favor of finding McInerney guilty of voluntary manslaughter, with the five holding out for either second or first degree murder.
One boy’s life is over and another one’s life might as well be, as [let's be real here] when Brandon gets out of jail, the likelihood of him going on to a really successful life is slim. Jim goes on to quote Eliza Byard of the Gay & Lesbian Education Network, who captures some of my feelings about this in pointing out that, though the sentence for McInerney is necessary, the underlying problems that led to this event are not solved. Fear and hatred ended Larry King’s life, and kids aren’t born with that. Here’s part of Eliza’s quote:
Homophobia and transphobia, compounded by the lack of counseling and other supports for struggling young people, resulted in Larry King’s death and the effective end of Brandon McInerney’s life. As adults and as a society, we must find the resolve to fix the broken systems that lost two young lives to hate and fear.
This just didn’t have to happen, and my heart breaks for everyone involved.
This came across the wires yesterday, but I didn’t get to it. Lady Gaga and her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, have just launched the Born This Way Foundation:
“My mother and I have initiated a passion project. We call it the Born This Way Foundation,” Gaga said in a statement about the foundation, which takes its name from her hit single and album. “Together we hope to establish a standard of Bravery and Kindness, as well as a community worldwide that protects and nurtures others in the face of bullying and abandonment.”
The foundation will work with a number of partners, including the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the California Endowment and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. According to the statement, the foundation will focus on “youth empowerment and equality by addressing issues like self-confidence, well-being, anti-bullying, mentoring and career development and will utilize digital mobilization as one of the means to create positive change.”
Lady Gaga has already made her voice heard on bullying, and it’s awesome to see her mother and her going even further to lead in this fight. Their website is here and you can follow them on Twitter here.
The San Francisco Giants told SF Weekly today that the team will make an iconic “It Gets Better” video to encourage LGBT youth across the nation. The Giants will be the first professional sports team to join the spirited campaign aimed at curbing LGBT bullying and teen suicides.
According to Staci Slaughter, spokeswoman for the Giants, the team was already considering creating a video even before the change.org petition circulated last week, which requested that the Giants be the first sports team to join the campaign. More than 6,500 people have signed the petition. The It Gets Better Project started in 2010 after a slew of LGBT suicides across the nation. Since then, thousands of ordinary people, celebrities, and politicians have made videos.
I’m already a baseball fan, and the Giants just went way up in my book. When the current World Series champions are gearing up to loudly tell LGBT kids that It Gets Better, I’d say things have changed, people. Things have changed.
Suicide attempts by gay teens — and even straight kids — are more common in politically conservative areas where schools don’t have programs supporting gay rights, a study involving nearly 32,000 high school students found.
Those factors raised the odds and were a substantial influence on suicide attempts even when known risk contributors like depression and being bullied were considered, said study author Mark Hatzenbuehler, a Columbia University psychologist and researcher.
His study found a higher rate of suicide attempts even among kids who weren’t bullied or depressed when they lived in counties less supportive of gays and with relatively few Democrats. A high proportion of Democrats was a measure used as a proxy for a more liberal environment.
[...]
“Is it surprising? No. Is it important? Yes,” said Dr. Robert Blum of Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health.
A dirty little secret about the Religious Right’s opposition to inclusive anti-bullying policies, and gay rights in general, is that they’re not just hurting gay kids, which is their goal, but also straight kids. We’ve said it many times, but when gay rights groups push for laws and policies which respect all students equally, we’re trying to protect all kids, but, quite frankly, it’s not our kids that need protecting as much. It’s kids who are trapped in social conservative hinterlands, gay or straight, who need our help, because they’re not getting it from their own communities. Climates that foster support and respect for gay kids are naturally also climates that foster support for everyone. Of course, many TWO readers will see this story and say, “Duh.” But it’s nice to have a solid study to back up what we all intuitively know.
As you all know, Apple pulled the bigoted Exodus iPhone app after our petition drew over 150,000 signatures from customers demanding that the company treat anti-gay apps the same way they would racist or anti-Semitic apps. In reality, it never should have been approved in the first place, but mistakes are made sometimes, and Apple has corrected it. Unfortunately, a writer at another gay blog seems to have a problem with that, so I’d like to take a few minutes to set the record straight by responding to any misunderstandings they may have about what this was and was not about, starting with our old, original logo, with its completely wrongheaded accompanying caption:
Here is the oh-so-cute caption they placed beneath that graphic: “…But only if opposing viewpoints are effectively silenced?”
Um, no. The entire Religious Right has a louder voice in this country than their numbers would suggest, and no one is taking anything from them that falls under the category of “freedom of speech.” But more on that later. Let’s have a look-see at the article:
So why are we not exactly celebrating here at AfterElton? First, we’re bracing for the inevitable: complaints from groups like Exodus, AFA and NOM that this is yet another example of “gay activists” bullying and trying to silence Christians.
Yes, that’s what they say every single time their fee fees get hurt, on every loud speaker they can find. Their views, somehow, are never silenced, especially by Truth Wins Out and the other gay news sources which actually are experts on the Religious Right, who make a daily practice of quoting these people’s words verbatim. If we were trying to “silence” their voices, we’d hide under a rock and hope that makes them go away. Moving on:
Second, and more importantly, as vehemently as we might disagree with Exodus International’s mission and beliefs, we think they should be allowed to express them.
And they do. Moving on:
Exodus International’s smartphone app was basically a platform for their blogs, podcasts, latest news and FAQs – essentially the same material you could find if you went to their website. It’s not as if the thing was marketed as some sort of magical/religious gay cure in and of itself.
AND what does Exodus International do for a living?! They market “freedom from the homosexual lifestyle!” If one spent any time with the app itself, one would have found that the app opened up a world of false information and defamation of LGBT people. Indeed, Dr. Gary Remafedi specifically wrote a letter to Apple, stating that the Exodus app featured misrepresentations of his own scientific research, and that therefore they should remove the app.
And even if it was, anybody offended and yes, disgusted even, by the Exodus International app could of course choose not to download and install it.
Ah, yes. Freedom of choice. Just like you can choose not to go to a website you don’t like/are disgusted by. We’re winding up to the smackdown here, folks, give me two more paragraphs.
But honestly, how many people were offended by the application itself? How many people even saw the thing? Certainly not 150,000. It’s more likely that most of the people signing that Change.org petition simply didn’t like Exodus International and all that they stand for.
Would 150,000 people signing a petition against a KKK app need to actually see/download it to express their outrage?
Apple says the app was removed because it was “offensive to large groups of people.” But lots of things are offensive to large groups of people. Does the GLBT community really want that to be the standard for what is allowed on Apple’s increasingly pivotal app store? How soon until Apple gets a petition to remove Grindr? What if The Trevor Project tried to release an app to assist gay teens?
Indeed, and I wish Apple had worded that better, but the reason we petitioned for its removal is because it went against Apple’s own corporate policies in that it was defamatory against an entire minority group, and moreover, it spread false information about that group. So, if a bunch of wingnuts whine and start a petition against Grindr, they’re going to have to prove that Grindr defames them in some way, and it doesn’t. There are thousands of Christian apps available, and it’s important to note why we petitioned against this app. It has nothing to do with “opposing viewpoints,” and it certainly doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the First freaking Amendment.
Speaking of gay teens, Truth Wins Out claimed that a key rationale for the petition was “stopping a virulently anti-gay organization from peddling false speech at the expense of vulnerable LGBT youth.” This has an ironically familiar ring to it. The right is forever saying it is teens and children who should be protected from gay content. With this precedent established those Christian activists can now make the exact same case in opposing any gay apps they don’t like.
Oh, well, I don’t know how much time you spend covering things like gay teen suicide and the damage religious extremists do to gay teens and young adults, because I don’t read your blog, but we’re sort of the experts on that, seeing as it’s in our Mission Statement. So you might think it sounds “ironically familiar,” but whereas the Right doesn’t have the moral authority or the concrete evidence to show that they have a good reason to protect youth from gay people, we have both the moral authority and the concrete evidence, and the statistics on bullying and suicide, and a treasure trove of testimony and reporting on the effects of so-called “reparative therapy,” and unlike the Religious Right, we can back up our assertions with the findings of every single major medical and mental health organization in the United States.
Earlier this month the Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision ruled that the Westboro Baptist Church had a First Amendment Right to wave their vile “God Hates Fags” signs outside of military funerals.
And the court got it exactly right.
Of course, you can distinguish the Westboro decision from the facts here in that Westboro was spewing their hateful message in a public space. Apple’s online app store is a private space, and thus they have the right to include/exclude whatever organizations and applications they want.
Well, if I had known you were going to win my side of the argument for me, I wouldn’t have wasted all this time.
But it seems clear that Apple’s dominance in the smartphone and tablet markets means that their App store has become a substantial channel for communication. How confident are you that the next public outcry and petition that Apple responds to won’t be to kick off a pro-Gay app?
We’re not very confident at all.
Are you scared? I mean, we’ll be there to fight it if that happens, but I’m a bit stunned that a blog purporting to represent the interests of the LGBT community is so willing to defend an organization with a proven track record of hurting gay people and their families. Yes, the App store is a “substantial channel for communication.” It’s also a private corporation, and as long as their policies are what they are, we will fight for people to recognize that true defamation against LGBT people has no place where racism, anti-semitism and other forms of bigotry would otherwise not be tolerated.
It is really that simple. I will allow that Apple often applies its policies inconsistently, and that this is a situation that will probably be revisited at some point in the future, for some reason, but that is not an excuse to tuck tail and run when something as egregious as this slips by their filters. Obviously over 150,000 petition signers agree.
UPDATE: If anyone is not quite clear on who the victims of reparative therapy are, what it does to them, and why Exodus’s “ministry” is really just a front for a hate organization against the LGBT community, please read this in its entirety. An excerpt:
Being an ex-gay survivor myself and personally speaking with over 1,500 fellow survivors, I can say that [Exodus's Jeff] Buchanan is correct on one point—Exodus has no cure to offer. Instead they issue a curse for those who submit or are forced to submit to their teachings. They offer harm—psychological, emotional, and spiritual damage. They tamper with their clients’ relationships, careers, personal development, and finances. They make a mess of our lives in Jesus’ name.
So what exactly does Exodus do? They now publicly admit that no one changes from gay to straight. They claim they don’t offer a cure. They say they don’t therapize. What services do they provide? Basically they will undermine your sense of self as they reinforce the notion that you are not good enough as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer person. They will demonize your desires, and will not even be satisfied if you choose to be celibate yet insist on honestly calling yourself lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer. To add insult to injury they have fought to deny happy homosexuals and transgender people legal rights and protections. They malign LGBTQ people, our relationships, our desires, our dreams, and then they export this message to Uganda, South Africa, Croatia, Singapore, Costa Rica and beyond.
As I said, read it all.
UPDATE DEUX: I just took a gander at AfterElton’s homepage, seeing as, as I said before, it’s never a blog that’s seemed remotely useful to me in any way. As I expected, their piece on this was the only one which even approached an attempt to speak about something of actual import to the LGBT community outside of pop culture or Lady GaGa or Glee or whatever the hell else. Ya know, there are some who can do both. Joe does. Andy does. But then there are some who can’t and shouldn’t try, those who should leave it to the grown-ups.
This amazing piece at The Good Men Project paints a scenario that would, for the Religious Right, be absolute hell. Not only is the gay kid in school not bullied, berated, or verbally/physically abused, the popular athletic boys talk to him and make friends with him:
Consider the scene: Tom, a small, shy, openly gay high school student, sat at the back of the school bus on his own. He saw three of the most popular, athletic boys get on the bus, fresh from soccer practice. As they made their way down the aisle, they saw Tom alone and moved toward him.
What happened next?
Not what you’d expect. The boys, in fact, sat down to talk with Tom. “I didn’t really know him well,” one later told me. “I knew he was the gay kid at school, that’s all. … He was all on his own. I mean, I couldn’t just let him sit there alone. Nobody should have to sit alone.”
When I started researching the gendered behaviors of 16- to 18-year-old male students at Standard High in the U.K. in 2008, I expected to document the ways that homophobia and aggression continued to stratify young men into a competitive, damaging hierarchy. This is, after all, what decades of research has told us: boys and men use homophobia to “prove” their heterosexuality, and in doing so they simultaneously marginalize other men who are more feminine, or less popular than themselves. This then causes a stratification of men with the athletic heterosexual boys at the top and gays at the bottom. Because this so accurately described my own school experience, it was with some trepidation that I first entered Standard High, the co-educational high school where I spent six months collecting data.
However, on first entering the social area where students socialized in their free time, the difference from my own school experience was palpable. In that large open space, full of students eating lunch and socializing, I was immediately struck by the physical closeness of the male students, and the affection they had for each other. These young men weren’t just close to each other, they were gently touching—and they were doing this as a sign of platonic love.
You will want to read all of this, as Mark McCormack details what comfortable, happy heterosexual teen guys are like, when they’re not taught from an early age that homosexuality is evil or less-than, when they know that gay men are not a threat to them; likewise, it’s very different for the gay kids, under this framework.
In all seriousness, the reason this is such a horrific picture for the Religious Right is that this is a picture of a more harmonious school [it's in the U.K.], and one of the primary reasons it’s more harmonious is that the Religious Right’s message of hatred, exclusion and the [ha ha] “love of Christ” seems to be entirely absent. Moreover, it’s a terrifying picture for them because it shows how much better things work out when they don’t try to help.
Also absent are the traditional strictures of the patriarchy, which encourage the social strata in high school as most of us remember it. In this school, the jocks aren’t necessarily the most popular kids and being dorky isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, McCormack identified the main components to popularity at this high school as being “charisma, authenticity, emotional support, and social fluidity.”
It’s fascinating what happens when kids are raised and schooled to value the important things, rather than worn out, failed notions of superiority and male privilege.
So sad. News has been circulating the past couple days of the suicide of eighth grader Phillip Parker from Gordonsville, Tennessee:
