Society's Subtle Endorsement of Suicide

What would make a young boy hang himself? Or another teenage boy shoot himself in a closet? Or another one jump to his death from the George Washington Bridge?

Bullying. Taunting. Distributing a secret video recording via the internet showing a young male violinist having sex with another man.

The stories are mounting in the media, and people are scratching their heads, holding back tears as they try to make sense out of the senseless deaths of four young people, all male and all either declared or rumored to be gay. Sex advice columnist Dan Savage has started a campaign to counteract the nagging negative inner voices that loop in the minds of most kids who are struggling with their sexual identities. "It gets better," promises Savage, and many others who have posted their stories on his YouTube channel. The message: tough out middle and high school because you have much more to live for than to die for.

I agree with Dan Savage. As I've said, I am one who stood on the edge of that abyss and by the grace of God and with the timely help of human intervention by a school chaplain... I'm alive. If you can make it out of those turbulent teenage years, you will be in a much better place and able to silence the negative voices inside your head.

But what about those on the outside of your being? The ones who are fueling the fire of negativity in your brain and are hell-bent on crushing your spirit... if not your skull? Folks are rightly angry that more isn't being done to stop the bullying that goes on in schools. Shouldn't bullies be stopped and made to suffer consequences of picking on other children?

Well, you would think that's true. But then how can we hold our schools and children to a standard that the rest of polite society refuses to obey? In Michigan, an assistant attorney general is hounding and using cyber bullying tactics on the openly-gay student body president Chris Armstrong at the University of Michigan. This legal cretin has a blog where he has posted the young man's picture with a rainbow flag and a swastika. His beratement and over-fascination for this UM student is bullying. And yet Andrew Shirvell's boss, the AG for the state of Michigan, refuses to fire this guy! Even though he is a lawyer... and breaking the law by harassing a citizen. Is that different than the kid who defaces a classmate's locker?

Or how 'bout if we consider Archbishop Rowan Williams' statements to the Times, where he says that the issue of inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the episcopate of the church has become "a wound in the whole ministry." "The cost to the Church overall has been too great," according to Williams. This is the titular head of the Anglican Communion which includes lots and lots of LGBT people! As I have noted HERE and HERE on this blog, the more that a person of Williams' office makes statements that belittle LGBT people, the more he is aiding and abetting the rampant homophobia that feeds the lust for bullying blood on the streets of the U.S.A., Europe and, especially, Africa. How is what the Archbishop doing really that different than the pug-nosed thug hurling insults at a gay kid on campus?

Or what of the voters of states such as Florida? Sixty-one percent decided in 2008 to add a definition of marriage into our state's constitution that had one purpose in mind: ban LGBT people from seeking a marriage license or the substantial equivalent thereof. When more than half the people stick it to a single class of people, what message does that send to those kids who realize that they are part of the ranks of the second-class citizenry. And what did that vote do? Did the bullies not then immediately file to challenge Gainesville's human rights ordinance on the ballot?! Thankfully, the voters there didn't join in on the bullying. But it was another campaign, another opportunity for our opponents to dehumanize us in advertisements. Is that really so different from videotaping your roommate having intimate relations... and disseminating the images over the internet?

Of course, there are differences. But my point is that all of these acts that we find offensive have deeper roots in our society that send the message that all people are created equal... except for "those people". The fact that these others are allowed to exist sends a subtle endorsement to the bullies to keep it up 'cuz they'll help rid the schools, the church, the society of "those people". One suicide at a time.

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For an excellent commentary on Rowan Williams' statements this week, please read Rev. Canon Susan Russell's blog HERE.