A Purple People World

What if all the LGBT people and their allies were to turn purple?

That's what will be happening on Wednesday, October 20th. A teenager, Brittany McMillan, began this effort in response to the suicides of young gay people because of being bullied. Called "Spirit Day", the idea is to visibly show support for all those struggling to stay alive in a world where the bullies use words, fists, and the internet to discourage gay people and has led so many to kill themselves. For those of us who remember our own youth and see those difficult years of high school in a rear view mirror, the stories of what kids are still enduring on their campuses makes us realize that those objects really are closer than they might first appear.

So, in the same way that high schools have that homecoming "Spirit Week" where students dress out in the school colors, this is an invitation to wear your purple, and show the world that there are more of us in support of LGBT people than what one might think.

What if we all turned purple for a day? One can hope that it might mean this world wouldn't feel so lonely to so many LGBT people.