YouTube channel offers hope to gay teens

[foxfeet]

By Helen A.S. Popkin

Dan Savage knows how to get things going on the Internet. Most notoriously, the sex advice columnist and political activist puckishly made Google a Not Safe For Work place for former Republican Senator Rick Santorum.

This week however, Savage, editorial director of the Seattle weekly The Stranger and author of the syndicated column "Savage Love," announced the sobering It Gets Better project on YouTube. Prompted by the recent suicide of Billy Lucas, a 15-year-old who reportedly suffered homophobic harassment at Indiana's Greensburg High School, "It Gets Better" invites gay, bisexual and transgendered adults to show embattled teens a future beyond high school.

Nine out of 10 gay teenagers experience bullying and harassment, Savage pointed out in his Sept. 21 podcast. And gay teenagers are four times more likely to commit suicide. "Many LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) kids who kill themselves live in rural areas — or exurbs or suburban areas and places with really no gay organizations or services for queer kids or visible gay people at all," Savage said.

According to students quoted by Indiana news affiliate Fox59.com, "fag," "piece of crap," and suggestions that Lucas should kill himself were a few of the choice words peers said to Lucas, whose mother found him dead last week, hanging in the family's barn.

Full Article: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/09/22/5157897-youtube-channel-offers-hope-to-gay-teens

[xchrom]

1. good work, dan! nt

[foxfeet]

2. Kick. nt

[Posteritatis]

3. I hope said channel's heavily moderated

Youtube commenters are the vilest, most hateful little shits out there.

[Evasporque]

4. K&R