Great article on what Michelle Bachman and those like her have wraught...

[JKane]

Linked it in the Howard Stern thread but wanted to link again for those who won't read something about Stern (though a listen may change your mind!).

No one at school had seen her suicide coming.

No one saw the rest of them coming, either.

Sam's death lit the fuse of a suicide epidemic that would take the lives of nine local students in under two years [...]

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/one-towns-war-on-gay-teens-20120202#ixzz1lwIID5nN

[JKane]

In April, Justin came home from school and found his mother at the top of the stairs, tending to the saltwater fish tank. "Mom," he said tentatively, "a kid told me at school today I'm gonna go to hell because I'm gay."

"That's not true. God loves everybody," his mom replied. "That kid needs to go home and read his Bible."

Justin shrugged and smiled, then retreated to his room. It had been a hard day: the annual "Day of Truth" had been held at school, an evangelical event then-sponsored by the anti-gay ministry Exodus International, whose mission is to usher gays back to wholeness and "victory in Christ" by converting them to heterosexuality. Day of Truth has been a font of controversy that has bounced in and out of the courts; its legality was affirmed last March, when a federal appeals court ruled that two Naperville, Illinois, high school students' Day of Truth T-shirts reading BE HAPPY, NOT GAY were protected by their First Amendment rights. (However, the event, now sponsored by Focus on the Family, has been renamed "Day of Dialogue.") Local churches had been touting the program, and students had obediently shown up at Anoka High School wearing day of truth T-shirts, preaching in the halls about the sin of homosexuality. Justin wanted to brush them off, but was troubled by their proselytizing. Secretly, he had begun to worry that maybe he was an abomination, like the Bible said.

[...]

"Justin?" Tammy Aaberg rapped on her son's locked bedroom door again. It was past noon, and not a peep from inside, unusual for Justin.

"Justin?" She could hear her own voice rising as she pounded harder, suddenly overtaken by a wild terror she couldn't name. "Justin!" she yelled. Tammy grabbed a screwdriver and loosened the doorknob. She pushed open the door. He was wearing his Anoka High School sweatpants and an old soccer shirt. His feet were dangling off the ground. Justin was hanging from the frame of his futon, which he'd taken out from under his mattress and stood upright in the corner of his room. Screaming, Tammy ran to hold him and recoiled at his cold skin. His limp body was grotesquely bloated – her baby – eyes closed, head lolling to the right, a dried smear of saliva trailing from the corner of his mouth. His cheeks were strafed with scratch marks, as though in his final moments he'd tried to claw his noose loose. He'd cinched the woven belt so tight that the mortician would have a hard time masking the imprint it left in the flesh above Justin's collar.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/one-towns-war-on-gay-teens-20120202#ixzz1lwMwSdan

[MsGuy]

So depressing.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Well I don't think we can't just blame on Michelle Bachmann for these unfortunate suicides. Where were we for these unfortunate kids? I have seen many young and old gay guys do awful things to other gay guys. In order to cover up their lies and bad things they commit more awful things and then blnae on Christians or straight people for the consquences. Where we're we? If these kids had any good role models to follow or even a single friend who truly care for them then these unfortunate things could have been prevented. We can't conveniently blame on Michele or republicans or Christians. We need to make our community strong by doing what's right.

[JKane]

Well, the article details how all the in-school adult role-models were effectively muzzled for fear of losing their jobs, which is pretty diabolical.

[Guest EXPAT]

Well, the article details how all the in-school adult role-models were effectively muzzled for fear of losing their jobs, which is pretty diabolical.

You are exactly right. And Michelle Bachmann as a leader in her community should have taken more interest and been more of a leader in helping all of her constituents and not just those that fit her religious and moral views.

[JKane]

With 9 fucking suicides ever politician in that district should've been thrown the fuck out, especially the school board.

That article is one of the most powerful things I've read; I really lost it when it mentioned the mother's 9 year old.

[JKane]

Just wanted to bump this once more as it's one of the more powerful things I've read.

I was hearing something about skyrocketing suicide rates in Russia just yesterday and wondering if it was at all related, as they're also repressing any acknowledgement of LGBT over there, last I heard...

[JKane]

Stumbled across another article on this issue:

The Cruel Evangelical War on Gays

February 14, 2012

By Alan Litchfield

Young students recently demonstrated the cost of hate and indifference in congresswoman Michelle Bachman’s religiously conservative home district, where nine students committed suicide during a two-year period. As this recent article in Rolling Stone painfully details, one student crawled in a bathtub and shot herself, another hanged himself, and others began cutting themselves and engaging in risky behavior. The deaths don’t include students hospitalized for mental illnesses or the 14 more assessed for suicidal thoughts at one middle school alone.

The article details how the string of deaths in Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin school district revealed an appalling strain of homophobia and abuse toward actual or perceived homosexuals by fellow students and townspeople, fueled by Christian evangelical ignorance, dogma and misinformation. Evangelical churches and groups such as the absurdly named Focus on the Family, founded by James Dobson, played a large part.

While tragic deaths can’t be traced directly to these hate groups – suicide is not that easy of an issue – the level of religious-inspired cruelty and meanness is astonishing and certainly played a role. I recommend reading the article if you have a strong constitution.

If your stomach can bear more nauseating ideas, consider the absurdity – and the irony – of evangelical hatred on the national level, as evidenced by the religious opposition to gay marriage. In fact, the recent defeat of Proposition 8, the California gay marriage ban, in the 9th Circuit Court of appeals, was most likely due to the fact that its proponents had no good arguments to provide the court. As this article suggests:

Perhaps, as many speculated at the time, it reflected the deeper reality that there was no factual or empirical case to be made: The evidence, the data, and the experts overwhelming agree that gay marriage does not harm children. And that leaves opponents of gay marriage to argue a tautology: Gay marriage is wrong because it’s wrong.

Indeed, as a Florida court has noted, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatry Association, the American Pediatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Child Welfare League of America and the National Association of Social Workers adopted and ratified conclusions that children raised by same-sex couples are just as well-developed as those raised by heterosexual couples. And,

As a result, based on the robust nature of the evidence available in the field, this Court is satisfied that the issue is so far beyond dispute that it would be irrational to hold otherwise; the best interests of children are not preserved by prohibiting homosexual adoption.

Evangelicals who argue for the unchanging sanctity of “Christian marriage” are historically misinformed, as well. Marriage as we currently know it is a modern convention, as summarized here and here. Marriage is not a static institution, and has changed drastically in the past. Our current practices bear little resemblance to biblical customs, which held a patriarchal view of family life, treated women as property and allowed concubinage.

In the book of Genesis, for instance, we have the story I like to refer to as “Swingin’ with Abe,” in which the childless Sarah gives her servant to her husband Abraham to impregnate. Is this what is meant by “biblical marriage?” The patriarchs seemed to have thought so: King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines, 1 Kings 11. (Don’t get me started with Lott, who impregnated his daughters, or King David, who planned a murder to be with his woman-of-choice. King David makes Bill Clinton look like Jimmy Carter.)

Marriage bestows many positive benefits on individuals. It fosters companionship, legal protection and provides real health benefits (see here). The great irony is, if Christians truly wanted all of humanity to thrive and be happy, they would actually desire homosexuals to marry. Their opposition only illustrates an unfortunate lack of moral vision and intellectual dishonesty.

This conservative Christian view of homosexuality is mean, harmful and lacks factual merit. It’s a clear sign of bigotry masquerading as piety. Our children deserve better, and we should seek to provide this future to them or risk their demonstration of our inaction.

[JKane]

This fucking No Homo Promo shit is STILL PASSING!

[Guest hitoallusa]

Oops I posted twice. Sorry.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Well it's unfortunate that it passed but it will be reverted. I don't know why some people blaming on only Bachmann for those suicides. I have seen a lot of young gay guys do awful things to other gay guys and even their own friends. Deserting their own friends to make a little bit of money and for pleasure and don't care about consequences of their bad deeds. If someone points out that it is wrong then you become this horrible person and they make up stories to cover their tracks. How can one possibly have hope in this environment? Where a hot guy does bad things it is ok because he is hot.. My point is that before blaming outsiders we have to look back and correct ourselves. If we are strong and productive then things will get better. Let's do things that can help our community rather than asking others do them for us. Then everything will set right. I don't think some people don't know what young gay men are like these days. I got more help from religious straight Christians, Hindus and Muslims rather than lustful young gays who treat other gays like shit and do awful things. Have you seen what those gay online sites are like? These sensitive teenagers don't have a lot of options. They are lost and their gay friends are no better.

[JKane]

Well it's unfortunate that it passed but it will be reverted. I don't know why some people blaming on only Bachmann for those suicides. I have seen a lot of young gay guys do awful things to other gay guys and even their own friends.

Of course, and the very worst of it is the guys battling their own sexuality and trying desperately to pass as straight.

But the article points out a side of the "No Homo Promo" / "Don't Say Gay" Bachman-type BS which I hadn't considered and which is very important:

It deprives these kids of role models in their own lives. Somebody they know who can tell them "It gets better!".

Of course kids are shits and gays can be extra mean, but that's the point. With this bs in place there's much less chance of there being an adult in the kids life to show them the good sides. So they kill themselves.