From CNN.com:
Positive forces such as TV role models and support groups such as The Trevor Project have brought acceptance issues to the forefront for youth in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. The federal government is paying more attention as well: The first-ever Federal LGBT Youth Summit took place in Washington this month, emphasizing the gravity of bullying and the many forms it may take.
Should our government be investing in the mental health of LGBT youth? Most definitely. The suicide rate amongst kids who are LGBT is extremely high when compared to straight kids. Additionally, even the slightest perception that a person is ‘gay’ brings out the hounds of Hell in the bullying department. Youth that are LGBTnot only have to protect themselves at school or in sports, they also have to ward off problems within their nuclear family where siblings and even parents can make life a living hell. Most parents simply don’t have the skills to deal best with a child who doesn’t fit into what society deems ‘normal.’
Some parents are in denial until the day they die. I knew a set like this. My mother’s best friend growing up had a son who was gay. I think I first understood the concept of gay from knowing ‘Bart.’ He was about 2 years younger then I was. He has a sister my age. Yet I just knew, without having the words for it. He grew up and has a life partner, yet his parents always referred to the partner as his roommate. The parents left the Episcopalian Church over the ordaination of gay priests. The mother jumped all over my mother for reading Rita Mae Brown who she considered perverted. Brown was one of my mother’s favorite authors. Having parents this much in denial can’t be a healthy way to grow up.
Volumes have been written about LGBT youth who have been bullied. Many a youth has been a scapegoat for an entire classroom and sometimes a scapegoat for an entire school. that is simply no way to have to go through school. Many churches are simply not acceptant of LGBT people. They back up their beliefs with Old Testament scripture. New Testament scriptures are less definitive. Church can be a very inhospitable place for an LGBT kid.
While many more opportunities are available to LGBT kids than in the past, even more can be done. Good for President Obama for recognizing this need. All kids need a safe haven where they can feel acceptance. If school, church and home aren’t safe havens, then what is? If statistics are correct, 1 in 10 kids are LGBT. That’s a lot of kids to have an unhappy childhood!
Is the issue here LGBT or bullying? Because, bullying happens to straight kids as well.
From the above, “Youth that are LGBT not only have to protect themselves at school…” maybe the author is on to something. Maybe because we’ve been pushing kids to not get involved, to not fight back, to contact a teacher or administrator for help. Maybe we’ve made the bullying problem in school worse? Maybe we should teach more about the concepts of personal responsibility, self defense, and anti-bystander event training.
Personally, I don’t think it’s the governments job to tell kids that LGBT is normal or abnormal. Leave it alone. Let the parents deal with it in the way they want to.
In the meantime, fat kids, ugly kids, shy kids, kids who stutter or wear cheap clothing will continue to get bullied because they don’t fit in and are not seen as “normal.” I don’t see the government rushing in to invest in their mental health.
I suppose it depends on how much of an investment is made. I have push me/pull me feelings on this one.
And God help the kid who is fat/ugly/skinny/wears glasses/has zits and is gay.
“fat kids, ugly kids, shy kids, kids who stutter”
Sounds like the start of a song….
Perhaps the real critical element here is that the govt NOT be the main contributor to bullying and non-acceptance.
It’s called human nature, and nature unaffected by outside influences operates by natural selection. Perhaps there’s a reason why two of the same sex can’t produce offspring. Bullying aside, nature just didn’t intend it to be. As they say, it’s not nice to fool with mother nature!
@Second Alamo I find it hard to believe that anyone would make the very difficult “choice” to be gay. I may be conservative on many issues, but I truly believe people are wired one way or the other.
SA, are you one of those folks who believes being gay is a choice?
@Emma, I agree.
People who are gay have a rough time. Why would anyone willingly ‘choose’ to be gay?
You obviously haven’t met my wife. HAHAHAHA
Emma, one difference between being gay or being fat/ugly/poor/or a stutterer is that most of those traits can be overcome and a person can usually find and marry a mate. So far there is still discrimination in that department for gays and lesbians. Society,and particularly the government, still acts the bully in that respect.
As I am well aware.@Censored bybvbl
Censored, if I was ugly and single would you propose that the governments solution should be to force an attractive woman to marry me?
What if I’m discriminated against (or I feel I am) because I’m short. Should the govt be forced to make me taller? Give me free lifts? Cut everyone down in size?
To what extent is the govt involved in evening out this playing field?
Shouldn’t I as Joe Sixpack be given the same equal shot at Julia Roberts as George Cloony?
I’m just trying to understand. Am I as a latino hetro being discriminated against and how do I get my govt funded make over? If I weren’t married could Obama get me Sofía Vergara?? 🙂
@marin,
An argument can be made that the government either implicitly or explicitly is compliant in some of the descrimination. If the government won’t protect against descrimination, such as Virginia, what does that imply? How about protection on college campuses? I think that is sort of a big deal.
Marinm, the difference is that the government isn’t forcing you to do anything. It does force gay or lesbian couples to accept fewer rights at this point.
So, how do I get my state mandated wife? If I am ugly and can’t get one on my own because society is discriminating against me. Shouldn’t the govt force a woman to be my wife? I guess I just don’t understand where y’all are going on this one. Is this about LGBT or bullying?
The Commonwealth of Virginia has no duty to protect a student while on campus. Did you read about Mr. Cummings nephew? “The more I’ve learned about this, I think some of these kids are in a situation where they’re almost like sitting ducks,” Cummings said. “There are a lot of students who I really wonder about as far as their safety is concerned.”
Marinm, Playboy or a good “women’s” magazine will tell you how to attract a wife. But, boy, will you be in trouble with your present one!!
I would not like to be in Congressman Weiners shoes when his wife comes home.. 😉
I think you can see the absurdity of the government trying to figure out a solution to every form of ‘discrimination’ that could present itself. And, sometimes we just don’t have a good solid answer.
I think this topic fails because it only looks to bullying as something that happens to the LGBT community and ignores that it happens to hetro’s. It can happen to fat people, ugly people, pretty people, skinny people, whatever. Bullying in that way is an equal opportunity activity.
Put simply, I want parents to provide a more proactive education on those topics better left to family discussions and less reliance on the government doing it because when you get the govt involved it just becomes a huge mess and no one is ever satisifed.
The closer I get to fatherhood the more angry I get with parents (especially fathers) that won’t man up (MH, you can change that if you find it offensive) and do whats right. Teach their kids to read, write and do some math. Play with them. Hell, be a flippin’ grown-up.
@marin, what is it you want me to fix? I don’t see anything offensive. It is your opinion. We are all free to agree or disagree.
I would be happy if fathers taught their kids to be decent human beings. The reading, writing, and rithmetic is handled by the schools. The being decent human beings is really far more important.
Too many kids have to grow up without the guidance of a father.
Marinm, yes, bullying can occur within any group, but by discriminating against gays and lesbians, governments seem to give indirect approval by implying that they’re not worthy of the same legal rights. Really, why should I care whether two men want to marry or two women want to adopt a child. Why shouldn’t government just let those two individuals enter into the same agreements/benefits that my spouse and I enjoy?
Do you think that parents are worse than they used to be or are the stupid or egocentric ones just getting more press?
That is exactly my point! Those who are gay due to some genetic defect, and not by choice, are destined to not reproduce and carry forth the defective trait if they maintain a purely homosexual relationship throughout their lives. Hence, natural selection removes those defective genes from the pool after one generation. An island populated by devout homosexuals would die out after only one generation, whereas a population of heterosexuals would multiple to continue the human race as nature intended.
@Censored bybvbl
I’m with you in that I don’t care about if two men want to share the same bed or two women. It’s really none of my business. However, from the perspective of the word marriage Virginia has already decided the issue. It was given to the voters and the voters came back with ‘NO’.
“Why shouldn’t government just let those two individuals enter into the same agreements/benefits that my spouse and I enjoy?”
That’s an interesting question but I would turn that around and ask you. Do you have an issue with me carrying my firearm in plain view at a K-12 school? Why or why not? If I have a human right to defend my own life than should I be denied such by the government? If we concede that the government has the power to override my right than I think that you’ve answered your own question. We’ve given the government the power to decide, by regulation, who is the winner and who is the loser in a multitude of situations.
I think more people (parents) are getting [bad] press but I also think that because people rely more on government than themselves they trend to make dumb/bad decisions for future generations.
Marinm, I think Virginia will have to change its law. The feds can’t continue to accept a hodge-podge of laws for something as basic as marriage – perhaps an age at which one could be married without parental consent or a residency requirement will remain for states to determine but I think the states will be forced to recognize marriages legally performed in other states. We’re too mobile a society and large corporations have employees’ benefits to consider when they’re transferred.
Schoolyards may have bullies, but I hope you’re not afraid to enter an elementary school unarmed. Actually, a gun might scare the kiddos. Just because something can be done legally or you feel that the law should allow an action doesn’t mean that it’s the prudent thing to do. I once knew a professor who planned an evening out at the university theatre. Midway through the play, some actor pulled out a gun and shot another character. My prof went running from the theatre. Her brother had been killed by an armed robber the year prior. You might flippantly say that he would have been a survivor had he been armed, but I doubt it. So…you can never know how rationally or irrationally people will react to the sight of a gun. My father was a federal LEO and I never saw him unnecessarily openly carry a gun.
“The feds can’t continue to accept a hodge-podge of laws for something as basic as marriage…”
How about something more basic, like life? I have a pistol. I carry it in Virginia. Even have a little card that says I can carry it under a jacket if I’m so inclined. Applying your logic should I not be able to then go into Maryland or Washington DC and use that Virginia card to assert my rights in those localities? Shouldn’t they bow to this card granted by a legislature, a judiciary, an executive and an electorate that doesn’t represent them by virtue of it just being right? Perhaps but that’s not how our country works..right now.
I think we ought to be very careful about wanting the federal government to go against the wishes of the people of a state who have voted to change it’s own constitution. The process to do so in Virginia is not easy and was done so that we would deliberate on a topic before quickly changing our state’s framework. I think the appropriate venue is by the Virginian electorate and not a federal judiciary.
The point about guns was not to show that I want to bring them in [I do but that’s not my aim here] but to show that your arguement fails to be consistent. If you think the govt discriminates and should atone for it then you need to look at every way the govt discriminates and then seek to overturn those as well. A police officer by virtue of his badge of office has an ability to do something that us mere mortals would get charged with a felony over. The govt picked out it’s winner (police) and the loser (the people).
I make the same arguement when people say guns should be regulated but abortion clinics not so much.
If you can have ‘reasonable regulations’ for one…why not the other? Why draw the line on that?
I guess this really goes into. What do you think are rights reserved by the people and what are or should be the powers granted to government? ..but that can be a topic all on it’s own. 😉
http://vimeo.com/10203916
@Second Alamo
You are kidding, right?
So why do you think homosexuality and gender issues are the result of a defective gene? Do you have scientific proof of this theory?
You are aware that homosexuality existed in stoneage cultures and it exists in the animal kingdom?
@marin, what is it about abortion that is like a gun? Whittling away of rights is about the only link I see.
Having said that, I think gun laws and abortion laws should be uniform.
@MH, yes both are rights.
Uniform in what respect? Should Washington DC adopt Virginia’s laws? Should Virginia adopt Alaska’s?
If we used gay marriage as an example of uniformity should Maryland be forced to adopt Virginia’s law? Should Virginia be forced to adopt California’s?
Again on marriage but let’s pick something else. Marriage between cousins. Virginia allows marriage between first cousins. Arkansas does not. Who’s law should stand within the uniform system? Arkansas or Virginia’s?
Here is my theory on homosexuality. It has no basis in evidence but is only an exercise in logic to answer the question, “how can homosexuality be passed on as a genetic condition”?
My premise is that every reflex, etc, that we do has to have a survival trait.
1) By it’s own condition, homosexuality should not be transferable by genetics.
2) Therefor, what survival trait makes those with homosexual genes viable?
3) The likelihood of male homosexuality being passed on is less than a “homosexual” gene being carried by a woman.
4) Men generally are repulsed by male homosexuality and ……less so by female homosexuality. In fact, straight men can be and are turned on by women having sex with each other.
5) In prehistoric times, moral taboos against homosexuality probably were less or did not exist. Evidence of that is the mores of earlier civilizations.
6) Is it possible that women, long ago, in order to compete with an alpha female, for an alpha male’s attention, would have sex to attract said male? If so, those with a genetic disposition for attraction to the same sex, or at least, a non-repulsion, would pass on those genes.
7) This gene is passed to both sexes. In general observation, I find that women are more tolerant of homosexuality than men, including bisexuality. Gay men tend towards staying with men, while bisexuality seems to be more prevalent within the female population.
This is the only scenario that seems to meet the logic behind a genetic cause for homosexuality.
Of course, if attraction to same sex is genetic, repulsion to that is also genetic. In fact, natural selection would choose for that, as those least likely to be a male homosexual would pass on the genes.
Marinm, I see a difference between gun rights and abortions and whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry. I think that people’s bodies (reproductive systems and sexual orientation) are quite different than something like a gun – unless a male was born with an actual Colt instead of the figurative one. To me, comparing gun rights and the rights of women and African-Americans to vote is not the same. One involves actual human dignity and one involves a tool quite separate from personhood with all its genetic variations.
Why are so many Conservatives so scared that they worry about the ability to carry guns? What effort has been made in the recent past to confiscate the average law-abiding guys’ or gals’ guns? I’ve only fired a gun once in my life and don’t worry about having to carry the ones I own. I worry about gun confiscation about as much as I worry about being struck by a meteor on my morning walk. Who’s the enemy? Whom do we have to be prepared to fight? You’ll have to help me here as I’m clueless in seeing the physical threat that I should be preparing to guard myself against.
Cargo, I think women are more tolerant in general than men despite a reputation of cattiness. My good friend, a bi, said that although she finds both males and females attractive, there’s an emotional component to her associations with women that is lacking with her relationships with men. Ha ha . I think a lot of straight women would agree with that.
As for repulsion being genetic, I think you’d have to weed out a lot of church dogma/stigma and fear of the different to conclude that. How about age differences in how people accept different sexual orientations? Maybe it’s generally old folks that are more bigoted because they lacked exposure to different groups that earlier generations had driven into the closet. Genetic differences couldn’t account for such quick acceptance generally of that which was taboo only a generation or two ago.
@Censored bybvbl
“Marinm, I see a difference between gun rights and abortions and whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry.”
So, to you rights can be abrogated if you (or someone else) doesn’t agree with them. How exactly is that different from Second Alamo’s points?
Marinm, I’m not convinced that we’re allowed to own enough guns of whatever firepower can be produced to maintain the equivalent of our own private militia. I know you’re a gun rights advocate. What about the questions I posed. Of what is there to be so fearful? Who’s the big bad enemy?
Those questions are out of the scope of this thread. I was simply showing that you have no problem discriminating when it suits you.
Cato, the video was funny. My wife has the DVD but I haven’t been able to watch the entire thing in one sitting. I’m a fan of Broderick.
“Genetic differences couldn’t account for such quick acceptance generally of that which was taboo only a generation or two ago.”
You’re right, it is our PC society and the tremendous pressure by organized groups to not say anything negative about any minority group that has caused the rapid, but false, acceptance of behavior that was taboo not too many years ago. Be careful what you wish for, for there are many taboo groups waiting in the wings for their turn to glide down that slippery slope.
I must admit I am a homophobe, particularly as it applies to men. The things they do to one another are just not natural (see the book, “The Boys in the Band”). I know a few homosexual men and while I tolerate them, I do not count them as “friends”. I guess I am a little more tolerant of lesbians but I more or less feel the same way about them. Try as we might, claiming that this is “natural” is, IMHO, just not so. I don’t know what makes homosexuals become homosexuals–nature or nuture–but don’t try to make me accept them and grant them the same standing as heterosexuals. It ain’t gonna happen. If they wish to live that life that’s fine, just don’t demand that heterosexuals must accept them or that the government must acquiesce to their demands for equality.
P.S. I wish to hell homosexual men would come up with some other term than “gay” for their lifestyle. They took a perfectly good word and turned it into something sordid. I don’t know what the male equivalent of “lesbian” is but if there is one, can we use that?
@George S. Harris
There is another term. Homosexual.
@marinm ” I was simply showing that you have no problem discriminating when it suits you.”
Neither does George, apparently.