Recently a story came to my attention that I thought warranted sharing with as many people possible. The story is that of Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14-year-old boy from New York. Jamey, after years of being bullied, committed suicide Sunday. This boy shouldn't have felt so hopeless that death was the only answer. Nothing brings out the raging atheist in me more than stories of hideous groups like Focus on the Family blocking legislation meant to stop the bullying of children based on their sexual orientation. The Focus on the Family group is a disgusting disgraceful sect of hate filled morality cops disguised as holier than thou christians. Those people and people like them are the ones teaching their children to bully whether they like to believe that are not! What these bullies hear at home from mean spirited parents is what they bring to school with them to inflict on the innocent. They need to keep their twisted beliefs out of our schools and their hateful rhetoric to themselves.
It breaks my heart watching this boy’s you tube video and seeing the pain in his eyes. Things like the It Gets Better Project are fantastic BUT it is so hard for kids to understand that, when they are living in what feels like a never ending nightmare. Teens are not known for their ability to look forward at a future as an adult. They are caught up in the here and now more than any group I can think of. We can tell them it gets better and that is true but meanwhile we need to protect them. We cannot have the morality police dictating what we can and cannot tell children about their sexuality. WE MUST spread the message that their sexual orientation is nothing to be ashamed of any more than my one twin with brown eyes being ashamed that she didn’t get the same blue eyes as her sister! I don’t want to continue to watch children suffer and die because the pious believe homosexuality is a sin! I don’t care what they think about homosexuality any more than I care what my fish thinks about our taxation system.
It is very sad that this boy commited suicide. I was unable to get the video link to work,unfortunatly. I am a quite confused though on how you made the leap to blaming this on christians or on focus on the family. I know that focus on the family would never advocate the bullying of children for any reason. It is a shame that the parents were unaware of what their child was going through or unable to help. This child really needed counseling and he needed his parents to take a stand against whatever he was going through at school.
ReplyDeleteJaneice I worried that in my anger I came off sounding a little less tolerant than I would have liked BUT you can google Jamey Rodemeyer and pull up any number of stories about his suicide. I put a link on the blog to Focus on the Family showing their views on legislation that is trying to be passed to stop this horrible bullying based on a childs sexual orientation. They are against it. They view it as somehow going against their religion to teach children tolerance toward homosexuals. I find that disgusting. His parents did know what was going on. They tried to help him but as a parent myself I know you can only do so much. They couldn't go to school with him every day and they couldn't keep the hateful comments from flooding his social network sites. It isn't his parents responsibility to make sure other peoples children are not evil, judgmental, malicious, vicious, hate filled, people. That responsibility falls to all of us parents. We make sure our children aren't filled with hate and intolerance. I made sure mine weren't and I made sure they wouldn't sit back and watch other kids get bullied either. If they do not pass stricter regulations on bullying we will continue to see more of this and I am not okay with that, therefore I am not okay with Focus on Family working so hard against those regulations.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I don't see why people make such a big deal out of homosexuality. I mean, what does it affect their daily lives if someone that they don't know, and never will know, marries someone of the same gender? It really doesn't change their lives at all. If it makes people happy, then why not? Everyone does something that other people don't like. That doesn't mean we should condemn them as well.
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