I expect simple behaviours here. Friendship, and love. Any advice should be from the perspective of the person asking, not the person giving! We have had to make new membership moderated to combat the huge number of spammers who register
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
There are a lot of nasty comments. Very nasty, He has replied:
"Thankyou everybody. Thankyouu!! and to my haters who are saying the videos fake and nobody likes me. umm that video was made in august. and ive made friends with everyone at my school.....and umm look around i have 2381 supporters on my youtube alone... and calling me gay....your just reasuring me of what i already know hahaha anyway to all my suporters thankyou" -- December 4, 2011"
Location: United Kingdom
Registered: August 2011
Messages: 5
Hi, first time I ever posted on here,
am a litle shy I guess. But maybe, just maybe
if enough news coverage is generated, this
may change the views, in a positive way of a
whole lot of people.
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
It will change the important folk. Those with entrenched views will never change. Items like this will change the minds of those who have minds to change. Those are the important folk. IN any area where one meeds to gain majority approval the 'floating voter' is the key.
Location: US/Canada
Registered: September 2009
Messages: 733
WASHINGTON
December 7th, 2011
Dear David,
While generating coverage is indeed an effective tool in the campaign to eliminate bullying and demonisation of LGBTQ youth and other persons, any and all of that coverage will have absolutely little impact unless the greater human population takes it to heart.
Bullying is an insidious disease that claims more victims than the person being targeted. No sadder and yet truer example of that would be Roger Crouch, right there in Britain, who was found dead hanging in his garage last week. Crouch was the father of a 15 year old school boy who was bullied and in his angst and torment, jumped of the roof of his school. 18 months later, his heartbroken father followed. Furthering the loss is the rest of that poor family.
In the case of bullying against LGBTQ youths and others, the problem frankly is that because of religious intolerance, oft times, silent acquiescence and licence has been granted to bullies because after all, LGBTQ persons are sinful and abominations.
There's the target audience David, sitting in those pews and around those dinner tables, all hearing that religious bigotry from these alleged men of God. This is what needs to stop, this and as the late San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk repeatedly said, "You gotta come out." The key component is getting the populations to see LGBTQ people as just that- people! Living, breathing, human beings and not some abstract theological boogeymen, who are only wrapped up about once aspect of life, their using their genitalia. If the general populace doesn't get to know us as people, humans? Well and then too sadly, the right does seem to have more of an obsession with sex than the LGBTQ community does.
Change is very possible David. In Troy Michigan, the mayor made a rather unfortunate remark on her Facebook page about the LGBTQ community and same-sex marriage... which caused an overflowing crowd last Monday in a city meeting to blast her for what a majority of Troy's citizens and the city council members saw as bullying on the part of the mayor.
You're absolutely correct- there needs to be more coverage so that the folks I refer to as "Mom, Pop, apple pie Chevrolet and the Wal-Mart folks" see LGBTQ persons as simply human beings and not the enemy.
David, I cannot speak as to the situation in the UK, but many of my colleagues in the press corps there say its just as bad as here in the States. Once again, its religious types leading the charge I'm told.
Look- I'm not opposed to persons needing and having faith, not at all. But I am very opposed to this draconian mentality that a good deal of the abrahamic religious types foist on the populations and worse, the political spheres of influence.
That David, is where I and my peers are now starting to get the word spread- to the 'mainstream' as opposed to the 'pinkstream.' Hopefully, if we work hard enough at it, LGBTQ news will fold into just 'news.' My, what a pleasant thought.