Another one bites the dust.
This phrase is often used with an amusing connotation, but there is nothing funny about what is going on in Utah and - sadly - around the world.
Last week we lost another beautiful soul to the hate that flows so freely from our media and our neighbor's mouths. Seventeen-year-old Jack Reese is the latest in a disturbing line of LGBT-related suicides. And let me just say right off the bat - this is not to diminish in any way any other suicide of any other person, gay or straight, young or old. But there is a growing trend, and it is entirely preventable.
What kind of world have we created that these children see no other way out of their misery? (And by 'their misery' I am totally referring to the hate that is spewed at them on a daily basis, NOT the fact that their orientation is something other than straight.) How did we get here? How are we supposed to make any headway as a community with these kids when the other side pushes so hard they push innocent children right off a cliff?
Because make no mistake - that is what is happening here. There is an entire community of people, regardless of how loose-knit they may be, that have placed our children in their crosshairs and have gotten a little trigger happy. Now, I'm not talking about the crazies like Westboro Baptist. I'm talking about the quiet, sneaky ones who claim moral superiority and further claim they have a right to decide what rights we deserve based on their opinions of us.
The ones who sit around the dinner table with their children, discussing current events and how the gays are going to bring down civilization as we know it if they are allowed to participate as full members of society under the law. Who lament how sad the gays are, in their unnatural and sinful natures. How pitiful their attempts to create a fake family when everyone knows a family consists of one man, one woman, two point five children and a dog. How sick and disgusting their 'love' is. How the world would be a better place if they would just all go away and leave the 'decent' people in peace.
Here's the rub...
Children hear. Children listen. And most importantly...children repeat. Until young people see enough of the world to form their own opinions and beliefs about it, they hang on their parents' every word as a moral guide to how the world should be. And when these hundreds of thousands of homes, with their hundreds of thousands of dinner tables, and their hundreds of thousands of conversations all join together to preach their disgust at the LGBT community at large...well...Houston we have a problem.
Because here it is - these kids don't watch the news. These kids don't pay attention to what politicians are saying or doing or what bills are passed or not. Their information and education on social goings-on comes completely from their family of origin and their friends. And birds of a feather flock together, so these kids are likely friends with other kids who have heard the same stuff at a similar dinner table.
This places the responsibility squarely on the parents' shoulders. It is up to the parents of this nation, of this world, of this human race, to begin to educate themselves on the topics for which they consider themselves to be experts. To actually know a real-life gay person before they judge them; and for them to realize that we are just as diverse in personality, beliefs, and actions as any other group of individuals. To read about gay issues, and religious misinterpretations, and how this nation in particular is not a theocracy and was actually founded on the opposite principle. To research and know, before they speak out against and corrupt an entire generation with false information and ignorant opinions.
Because kids are not born with hate in their hearts. They are not formed with the belief that one group of people is sub-par or subservient to another.
Hatred starts at home, and until that can be changed, I truly fear we may be lost.
