Homophobia, Religion, And The Collapse Of Industrial Civilization (Carolyn Baker)

[Tace]

Oct. 3, 2010 (CarolynBaker.net) -- His face is everywhere-on the internet, on TV, and throughout print media -- that gentle, timid, barely-smiling young man with red hair, glasses, and a prodigious talent for playing the classical violin.

I'm talking about Tyler Clementi, the freshman student at Rutgers who suicided last week after his roommate video taped him having sex with another man, then uploaded the video to You Tube for all the world to see. Four other young people killed themselves in the last three weeks because of wrenching internal conflicts regarding their sexual orientation. Their faces were not as widely seen as Tyler's, but they remain casualties of a culture in which meanness -- whether related to homophobia, bullying, or demented religiosity is epidemic.

The subject comes close to home for me. Four decades ago, I could have been Tyler or any of these sweet kids who decided that life was not worth living if they must choose between death and an existence in which they would be forced to murder their souls and be someone they were not.

Fortunately, I survived and at a time when there was virtually no sanity, support, or substantial research on the topic -- and during a time when many more suicides were committed over sexual orientation than today and with the real reasons undisclosed.

Yes I know, in some countries, such as Iran and Uganda, gay and lesbian people are routinely imprisoned, put to death, or assassinated. Bullying, rather than happening randomly among the citizenry, has been institutionalized in the legal systems of those nations. And in some ways, that might be easier to deal with, would it not? One realizes one lives in a culture that maintains a barbaric attitude toward sexual orientation, where in order to be who one really is, one must leave the country.

more

http://worldnewstrust.com/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=149:edited&id=8281:homophobia-religion-and-the-collapse-of-industrial-civilization-carolyn-baker&Itemid=343