Homophobia kills whether it be by suicide, intentional murder or a beating that results in death – It Kills! See the project I’m working on here.
Recent suicides:
Lee Simpson – 18 year old committed suicide. Manchester, New York. After coming out to friends and family. He was ridiculed, taunted as a result and ultimately took his own life.
Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover – 11 year old committed suicide. Massachusetts. Died April 6, 2009
Jaheem Herrera – 11 year old committed suicide. Atlanta Georgia. He loved to dance, have fun and make friends. Bullies called him names and homosexuals slurs.
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at 11 i was taunted with homophobic slurs every single day.. I was beaten on many occasions for my femininity. doesn’t mean im gay, as im not. I totally disagree with you identifying these people as gay when they obviously had yet to engage in homosexual activities yet. homosexuality is a choice they had yet to choose it.
@jeremy -
Jeremy, I am sorry you had to deal with this type of cruelty as a child. Homophobia is unfortunate and unwaranted. It has no rightful place in our society and affects those from all walks of life including yourself. Yet you criticize me for wanting to help put an end to it. Why?
I only refer to 3 people in this article. All of them made the news and as a result I am not “outing” anyone. Only one, the 18 yr. old, identified himself as gay. The only other people identifying any of these children as gay are the ones that did the name calling and bullying. That’s the whole point: it is because of homophobia that these young children died.
By the way, homosexuality is not a choice. I do agree that it’s not realized in life until you discover who you’re sexually attracted to. That does not make it a choice. To say homosexuality is a choice is ridiculous.
A person cannot choose whether or not they are attracted to the same sex. It is what is and that’s that. The only people who can make that choice are those who are attracted to both genders. That makes them bisexuals. Even if those people choose only one gender that does not make them hetero or homo. They are still bi as long as they are “attracted” to both genders.
I really wish people who have for whatever reason convinced themselves that homosexuality is a choice would THINK about what they are saying.
I 100 percent completely agree with you on that. You love who you love and there’s really no choice about it. I am gay, got picked on and verbally abused by kids at school and one of my parents. I tried committing suicide myself but luckily, I failed. To hear of those poor souls ending their lives hurts my heart greatly. Enough is enough. They don’t need to talk about doing something, something needs to be done now before others fall victim to the bullies.
If you scream loud enough, someone will hear you.
@Lika Starr -
OK that’s fine if you don’t identify the 11 year old boys as gay. I have no problem with it. Homophobic slurs and other sorts of bigoted bullying are definitely WRONG, there should be much worse penalties for those involved in degrading young children by teachers and their parents. However, this doesn’t make the act of homosexuality RIGHT. Usually the child’s behaviour stems from the adult having a simmilar attitude, I believe that education about teen suicide should be with the parents and how their attitutes towards people who identify as gay affect their child’s behaviour. Tolerance is the key, not accepting propaganda that gay is the way these people are born, or that femininity in males means they’re gay. I spent many years in the gay community confused about my sexuality between 18-24 (because of my femininity and the teasing I received) and I have thought long and hard about the issue and I’ve come to the conclusion that it is a choice, and trying to tell other people that it’s not is misleading and frankly a cop-out. Yes I met countless wonderful people on the gay ‘scene’, but still that doesn’t convince me. I’ve heard every story of shame and rejection you can imagine, and it upsets me that parents and friends would reject these people and not help them through a troubled time in their life, a time in their life when they really needed help. I know that if my son thinks he is gay when he is older that he will be met with tolerance and and educated attitude towards homosexual behaviour, lest he never have to endure the rejection that so many face. This doesn’t mean I’m going to teach him this behaviour is the right choice, rather that no matter what he does I still love him. I’m sorry that you have the opinions that you do, it saddens me to think that you believe that there is no way out of the lifestyle that you have, or that you enjoy casual sex so much that you don’t want to leave the lifestyle. As the gay scene that I saw despite the massive internal support for each other they had, was a very very depressing place, after getting to know many gay people despite their very fun and happy outwards persona after time I got to know the real them, which always was a dark and saddened spirit. Which I don’t understand if it is natural and good to be gay why when everyone faces adversity why is this particular group so depressed when they have one of the most wonderful support networks of friends I’ve seen.
Thinking about it over the last few days, I think the concept that is pushed upon young people questioning their sexuality that they have no choice in the matter, could be a major contributor to some of these peoples despair. That they may feel there is no chance for them to lead a normal life because people pushing the gay agenda are telling them that they don’t have a choice in how they feel. Everyone knows that peoples feelings over time can change such as feelings for another person etc, and at this point in their life they could feel that their feelings of attraction towards the same gender may never change hence making them feel trapped and fall into despair. I know from personal experience that attraction can change and does, I feel no attraction towards men today whereas 3-4 years ago I was camp as a group of scouts in the bush.