This video is of Tyler Clementi (playing violin), the 18 year old who jumped off a bridge last week because of his 'friends' secretly video taping him and then broadcasting it to the world.
It is quit obvious that Tyler had a love for God in his heart that came through in his music. What kind of message did he receive from his church that would fill him with such hopelessness?
Tyler was one of five kids this past week that killed themselves because of anti-gay bullying.
Yet, America's most perfect Christian organization (Focus on the Family) feels they are God's only representatives left on earth today had this to say:
Just further proof that fundamentalism is rotten to the core!
+++++++++++++++
Seth Walsh, a California teen who spent the last 10 days on life support after attempting suicide over relentless bullying because he was gay, died today. He was 13 years old.
Seth’s family took him off life support this afternoon, reports KGET-TV.
[...]
Seth was found Sunday, September 19, unconscious and not breathing, and it appeared he had tried to hang himself from a tree branch, according to police reports. He was rushed by helicopter to Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield.
According to reports, Seth was openly gay and was taunted by bullies for years, at school and at a local park.
He attended Jacobsen Middle School last year and for only two weeks this year, before being transferred to independent study — reportedly because he had been bullied relentlessly. But school officials at Tehachapi Union School District claim there have been no reports of bullying.
+++++++++++++++
Asher Brown’s worn-out tennis shoes still sit in the living room of his Cypress-area home while his student progress report — filled with straight A’s — rests on the coffee table.The eighth-grader killed himself last week. He shot himself in the head after enduring what his mother and stepfather say was constant harassment from four other students at Hamilton Middle School in the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District.Brown, his family said, was “bullied to death” — picked on for his small size, his religion and because he did not wear designer clothes and shoes. Kids also accused him of being gay, some of them performing mock gay acts on him in his physical education class, his mother and stepfather said.The 13-year-old’s parents said they had complained about the bullying to Hamilton Middle School officials during the past 18 months, but claimed their concerns fell on deaf ears.[...]Brown was found dead on the floor of his stepfather’s closet at the family’s home in the 11700 block of Cypresswood about 4:30 p.m. Thursday. He used his stepfather’s 9 mm Beretta, stored on one of the closet’s shelves, to kill himself. He left no note. David Truong found the teen’s body when he arrived home from work.On the morning of his death, the teen told his stepfather he was gay, but Truong said he was fine with the disclosure. “We didn’t condemn,” he said.
+++++++++++++++
A 15-year-old Indiana teen took his own life last week in what is thought to be another suicide at least partially connected to school bullying, a result of the teen’s perceived sexual orientation.
Billy (William) Lucas, a student at Greensburg Community High School in Greensburg, IN, was was found dead in a barn at his grandmother’s home Thursday evening — he had hanged himself.
Friends of Lucas say that he had been tormented for years. [WTHR-TV]
“He was threatened to get beat up every day,” friend and classmate Nick Hughes said. “Sometimes in classes, kids would act like they were going to punch him and stuff and push him.”
“Some people at school called him names,” Hughes said, saying most of those names questioned Lucas’ sexual orientation, and that Lucas, for the most part, did little to defend himself.
“He would try to but people would just try to break him down with words and stuff and just pick on him,” Hughes said.
++++++++++++
Raymond Chase who reportedly hung himself in his residence hall room this past Wednesday, September 29, 2010 on the campus of Johnson & Wales in Providence, Rhode Island.
++++++++++
Cody J. Barker, 17, of Shiocton, Wis., took his life on Sept. 13. Barker attended Shiocton High School, where he was active in choir. In August he attended a seminar and planned to start a gay/straight alliance at his school. He held a job at Fleet Farm in Appleton.
Maria Peeples, Barker’s peer mentor through GSA for Safe Schools, said he was a passionate activist for all students, especially those, “targeted or ostracized for their sexual orientation or their gender identity and expression... He really cared about making schools a safe place for students. That wasn’t always his own experience with school.”
According to a Web posting, Baker loved history, James Bond movies and Lady Gaga. He was described as an “extremely selfless” young man who enjoyed spending time with his friends, tending his rose plants, biking and reading.
You may ask what this has to do with Armstrongism.
Armstrongism has always had gay people in it. When you look on the Painful Truth web site (see links in side listing) at the suicide statistics you will see a lot of young single people. Many of these wonderful folk were gay.
What choice did they have? After listening month and after month to deviate morons like Rod Meredith, Flurry, GTA, and others rail on and on about homosexuals what choice was left to them?
They prayed, they fasted, they were anointed and some even went so far as have idiot ministers attempt exorcisms to get rid of their gay demons. It never has worked!
There have been several gay folk in the Los Angeles area that were part of WCG. Some got married in the hope of being cured. Some stayed married and admitted constantly that they were still attracted to men/women.
Others lived lives of honesty and integrity being true to themselves. Many left religion all together, others are deeply involved in their churches (non COG).
Some still remain in various COGlet splinter groups listening to the constant haranguing week after week. They hold on for a cure, or think that if they can only hold on till the Kingdom arrives they will be cured.
6 comments:
"When you look on the Painful Truth web site (see links in side listing) at the suicide statistics you will see a lot of young single people. Many of these wonderful folk were gay."
That's a bit of a blanket statement, isn't it, NO2HWA? (Or do you have some insider info I'm not aware of?) As far as I can tell, a lot of the suicides happened, because people bought into the "must marry into your own tribe/marry and pop out a bazillion kids/be equally yoked" bunkum the church shoved down our throats.
Terry Ratzmann shot up his local LCG because the minister couldn't "yoke him equally" with a woman, not because he was homosexual. I daresay those who didn't kill themselves due to the changes (of which there are a great many listed on that page, as well), did so because of D&R, or being "spiritual widow(er)s" or not having someone else their own age and "tribe" (race) available in their congregation to marry.
Which is not to say that you're wrong, you probably know the people you're speaking of, I'm thinking. But there are a lot of other causes, for the deaths on that very long list.
(Edit to add: Whoa, you linked Ship of Fools! I thought I was the only ex-WCGer who read that site! I can't understand 70% of the lingo they use on it, but it is a fascinating look into the whole Anglican thing, IMO. And the "Mystery Worshipper" reports are fascinating, too! Reading them is like being a vicarious anthropologist on Mars!)
(Edit #2 Oops, sorry, if I seem rambly and off-topic, it's because my brain is an atomic wasteland, from studying schoolwork all day....)
I have heard for years that certain ones on that list were gay.
There certainly are a lot of other single people on that list who were not gay, but were driven to suicide because they had lost all hope because of the church and it's teaching of never being able to measure up, or be quite good enough in God's sight.
One young man in Pasadena shot himself in the head in his parents front yard because of the constant bullying he received at Imperial Schools. People treated him like dirt because of his looks. His father favored his sibling over him. Kids of ministers, evangelists and faculty made fun of him constantly. He was a kind, gentle person that tragically lost all hope.
Our legacy of non-care anti-therapy/counseling for those hurting in the church was and still is abysmal. God knows they certainly were not going to get adequate help from a ministurd!
I have read Ship of Fools for years.
I also checkout Landover Baptist. It get's a little hard core, but was developed by two guys where got sick of the hypocrisy in the Baptist church. They have had a field day since them. The amazing thing is that so many idiots think their sight is 100% true!
The Wittenburg Door also is good, but sadly they seem to be no longer posting. Great archives though. They are the ones who came up with the British Israel cartoon about HWA's grandmother's bible a few eyars ago.
Also Larknews.com has some funny religious satire too.
"Our legacy of non-care anti-therapy/counseling for those hurting in the church was and still is abysmal. God knows they certainly were not going to get adequate help from a ministurd!"
You got that right! I know of three depressed people (two of whom were "spiritual widowers", i.e., had unconverted mates), and two schizophrenics who killed themselves, rather than succumb to "man's medicines".
I can only take the discussion boards at Ship of Fools in small doses (they may be liberal, but they are far, far, faaaaaaaaaaaar from open-minded over there sometimes), but it's interesting to read the Mystery Worshipper reports. Do you have any trouble with figuring out what they're saying sometimes? Like I say, I get about 30% comprehension of the terms they use for actual Anglican church-ish stuff (although they have had a smattering of reports on the Quakers, which warms my cold little non-theist heart), although I can usually pick up most of it from context.
Or did you have exposure to Christianity before the church? I think that goes a long way towards understanding the weird language, by osmosis, if nothing else. I was born and raised in the church, so I can't make heads nor tails of Christianity as it really is. Not that it's an issue for me, since I'm not religious.
I gave up on reading the Wittenburg Door when they stopped updating, and I've referred Byker Bob to Landover Baptist, if that tells you anything. :-D
Hey, I just noticed your icon...you're not PG10 by any chance, are you? If so, ignore my blathering above, I forgot you ended up as a priest.
I don't know where you got that I was a priest. Never have been nor ever will be! The day I get ordained to a ministry will be the day Herbie's end-time nightmare comes true.
I recall you saying (although it escapes me which blog/forum/etc. it was on -- might have been the now-deleted Shadows, or could have been WCG Alumni) that you got ordained as a deacon, and that you performed the rituals in your church. You mentioned in the comment that I'm thinking of (I think) that it happened the previous weekend, so maybe it was a one-off thing? Like I say, I'm still not really clear on the whole Christian rituals thing. Or maybe it was someone else...I do remember an Episcopalian church was mentioned as the scene of the crime (heh) in the comment, though. It was probably someone else. The Christian church-attending ex-WCGers all tend to blur together, sometimes. :-)
Post a Comment