Since the tragic suicide of college freshman Tyler Clementi after being publicly shamed and humiliated when his roommate broadcast a sexual encounter he had with another man, the mainstream media and the Internet have been pouring out story after story about other recent suicides of other gay youths, one as young as eleven years old. The common thread has been the issue of bullying in schools, colleges, and, for that matter, everyday life.
Teens and pre-teens who realize that they are gay are immediately put into a state of fear. A fear born out of the other realization that being gay means they will face the approbation of their churches and synagogues, the taunting and harassment from their classmates and peers, and the ultimate fear which is that their parents will reject them. Is it any wonder that so many LGBT youths have considered or even attempted suicide? And will the Tyler Clementi's tragedy be the turning point? If history holds true, I doubt it.
Twelve years ago this Tuesday, on a cold windswept plain in Wyoming, the almost lifeless body of Matthew Shepard was found tied to a fence post where he had been left to die after being beaten and robbed by two other young men who thought killing a gay was fair sport. That sensational case also drew national and world-wide attention. The media followed it all the way through the trials, judgment, and imprisonment of the perpetrators. The death of Matthew Shepard sparked an intense focus on the life most LGBT persons, young and old, faced in America. There where new demands made that attacks on them be considered a hate crime both on the federal and the state level. Leading LGBT advocacy groups and organizations used the tragedy as an opportunity to educate the straight population on what it meant to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.
But with time, the efforts to achieve equality and understanding became lost in the "family values" crowd's all out efforts to deny any recognition or granting of equal rights by inflaming public opinion against them.
They used the explosive issue of same-sex marriage as the cudgel with which to beat down any and all attempts to achieve the goals of the LGBT minority. The Republicans seized the opportunity to turn the anti-gay rights movement into an extremely successful tool in turning out the vote in their election campaigns. They managed to get anti-gay/same-sex marriage initiatives and propositions put on ballots in numerous states. The federal government had already managed to pass the Defense of Marriage Act back in the 90's which Bill Clinton so cravenly signed. And the push was still on for a Constitutional amendment which would be the first time bigotry would become codified in that great document.
And even with that fierce opposition, some great advancements have been made.
Quick facts on key states:
Issues marriage licenses to same-sex couples: Massachusetts, Connecticut, California*, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, District of Columbia
Recognizes same-sex marriages from other states: Rhode Island, New York, Maryland
Allows civil unions, providing state-level spousal rights to same-sex couples: New Jersey (Note: In Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire, same-sex marriage has replaced civil unions.)
Statewide law provides nearly all state-level spousal rights to unmarried couples
Statewide law provides some state-level spousal rights to unmarried couples (domestic partnerships): Hawaii, Maine, District of Columbia, Wisconsin.
But as long as politicians use LGBT Americans as red meat for their election campaigns and most mainstream organized religions continue to condemn homosexuality, to stigmatize LGBT people, to fight any effort to legitimize the rights of these people then tragedies like Matthew Shepard's and Tyler Clementi's will continue to occur. Tyler's death has compelled some religious leaders to come to grips with the fact that they themselves have contributed to this toxic environment of violence and hate.
In today's New York Times was this article.
"(T)he suicides of Mr. Clementi and three other gay teenagers over the course of three weeks have mobilized and galvanized liberal Christian and Jewish clergy members. While many already offered pastoral support to gay congregants and endorsed gay rights, the drumbeat of young deaths, all of them following on the harassment and humiliation of the victims, has driven up clergy activism.
As a result, it has also intensified the intrareligious strife over homosexuality. While there is no indication that Mr. Clementi or the other teenagers — Seth Walsh, 13, Billy Lucas, 15, and Asher Brown, 13 — had been personally assailed by religious leaders, liberal clergy members firmly believe that the traditional condemnation of homosexuals and homosexuality in organized religion enables, indeed ratifies, the bigotry inflicted by peers."
"And yet, for liberal clergy members, the coincidental confluence of events has given them cause to mobilize. The Rev. Cody J. Sanders, a Baptist minister in Fort Worth, framed antigay bullying as a theological issue. "With dualistic conceptions of good and evil and hierarchical notions of values and worth," Mr. Sanders wrote in an essay for the Web site Religion Dispatches, "it becomes easy to know who it is O.K. to hate or bully, or, seemingly more benignly, to ignore. And no institutions have done more to create and perpetuate the public disapproval of gay and lesbian people than churches.""
"Clergy have a key role," said the Rev. Pat Bumgardner, pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church in Manhattan. "We have a chance to shape public opinion, people’s willingness to wrestle with the diversity of God’s creation. Pastors need to step up to the plate and speak about the wrongness of bullying, the wrongness of cruelty.
"There’s no religion on the face of the earth that countenances the taunting to death of children."
You will find this article on page A19.
And this is what you will find on the front page of the same edition.
Lured Into a Trap, Then Tortured for Being Gay
A gay man was tortured in the house, at left, at 1910 OsbornePlace in the Bronx, the police said.
All punishment, the police said Friday, for being gay.
There were nine attackers, ranging from 16 to 23 years old and calling themselves the Latin King Goonies, the police said. Before setting upon their 30-year-old victim, they had snatched up two teenage boys whom they beat, the police said — until the boys — one of whom was sodomized with a plunger — admitted to having had sex with the man.
And so it continues.