Over the years I have been known for my rants about human and civil rights. Due to the many requests of my friends, I began to keep them to myself and they became less frequent. However, now I find there is a situation I can NOT keep quiet about: the events at Rutgers occurring over the last few weeks.
Having numbers of friends who belong to the LGBT community, I find it revolting and inhuman the treatment Tyler Clementi due to his sexuality. To mock someone for the who they love, find attractive or desire is so incompressible to me, I find it impossible to express myself on this subject. In the past decade or so the number of hate crimes against LGBT people, especially teens and young adults, seem to have skyrocketed. While I understand this has to due with it becoming, at least in part, a far more acceptable "lifestyle", I still am at a loss for words on why or how someone could think it is okay to so blatantly invade someone's life like that. Being an adolescent and young adult is difficult enough as it is. Why people feel the need to make such a difficult time even harder for those who don't feel as if they fit into a society which, while far better than it once was, is still puritanical at best, completely baffles me?
When I think about what this world would be like with out the many artists, writers, musicians etc. who were gay and creative, there is a sadness that weighs on me. A world without the Peita, any Oscar Wilde witticisms, or Swan Lake, seems to me the bleakest of places.
So, what I am asking of you all in the states to do is get involved. Find your local LAMBDA centers, volunteer for gay rights causes, donate time to help these people who feel like they have no place else to turn find an option other than taking their own lives. Being chastised, humiliated, and bullied because of who you love is unacceptable in a world with enough hate. Let's do our best to stand up and fight against ignorance.
Thanks for speaking out against hate. There have been five kids in the states in the past several weeks who have committed suicide because of either being or perceived as gay...my heart is breaking. I have cried a lot the past week when every time I go on the internet there is something more. I'm angry, and sad, and fighting the creeping cynicism. Just to cheer you up a little, have you heard about the "it gets better project"? If you haven't, check it out. (ha! *check* it out)! Anyway, thanks for speaking out against hate. I'm so thankful for all of my straight allies. It warms my heart. that was not sarcasm.
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