Dear Friends,

Jason Pitzl-Waters over at The Wild Hunt had recently posted an article (both on his main site and on his On Faith Panel blog ) on the recent spate of Gay teen suicides, or at least how the media is suddenly paying attention to gay teen suicides since they are sadly not all that uncommon.  He discusses how the empowerment of a culture of self-hate must end.

Now while there has been a lot of confusion over the years about the exact percentages and numbers, to the delight of far right fanatics, there is no doubt that queer or even queer perceived (meaning that others think they might be) youth are twice to three times as likely to experience bullying as their straight counterparts.

I never attempted suicide.  One of the things that held me back was the conviction that if I did kill myself, I would just have to come back in another life and deal with the same sort of BS again until I had truly learned from it.  I sure as hell thought about it though…pills usually, mom had a lot of health problems and so there were mad amounts of pills in the house.   I held back, partly out of not wanting to cause my loved ones grief and partly out of not wanting the bastards to win.

It. Gets. Better.

Others are saying it with much more eloquence, and courage, and willingness to face personal and professional repercussions and worse… like Fort Worth, Texas, City Councilman Joel Burns…

He is a hero, at the very least send him a polite thank you now.

Peace,

Pax