Quote of the Day: "Let's Start with How This Affects Real People"

I love the opening line of Fred Clark's last posting today at Slacktivist:

Let’s start with how this affects real people.

For GLAAD's Spirit Day, Melissa Harris-Perry on Marcel Neergaard, 11-Year-Old Fighting School Bullying

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Pauls Toutonghi on Suicide of Gay Teen Jadin Bell: "As a Recent Father of Twins, This Story Wouldn’t Leave Me Alone"

At Salon, Pauls Toutonghi discusses in heart-rending detail the protracted, relentless bullying that led to the suicide of 15-year-old Jadin Bell on 19 January this year. Bell was the only openly gay student in his high school in La Grande, Oregon. An excerpt:

Michelle Rhee Responds to Plea of 11-Year-Old Boy: Why Reward "Don't Say Gay" Educational "Reformers"?!

Here Are Some Things Bullying Does to People

Here are some things bullying does to people:

Desmond Tutu Appeals to Ugandans' Conscience, and Another Gay Teen Commits Suicide

Josh Pacheco (1995-2012)

And (piggybacking on what I just posted about Justice Scalia and his recent response to a gay Princeton student re: homosexuality and murder) in contrast to Scalia the defender of Catholic orthodoxy, there's Desmond Tutu, the defender of humane values and human rights: at Box Turtle Bulletin, Jim Burroway publishes an editorial by Tutu in today's Daily Monitor.  The editorial appeals to the conscience of the Ugandan people as their parliament is poised to pass draconian anti-gay legislation as a "Christmas gift" to the people of this nation.

The Importance of Anderson Cooper's Coming Out Statement

Rolling Stone on Suicide Epidemic in Anoka-Hennepin School District: Pro-Life Voice Still Silent

I wrote yesterday,

. . . [H]ow do any religious leaders (and educated, purportedly morally sensitive people who defend them) possibly imagine that they can be thought of as pro-life when we in the U.S. have been living through an epidemic of suicides of young people who are gay or gender-questioning in recent years?  And when the pro-life bishops and their educated defenders are simply silent about this phenomenon?

Another Gay Teen Suicide: Phillip Parker, Tennessee

How soon will it be until we click on to another story or change the channel when yet another of these tragic suicides of gay teens makes news in the U.S.?  That's what people eventually do, after all, when something is reported over and over in the news, and it seems not nearly enough is happening to stop a particular kind of tragedy from occurring.

Resource for Gay Youth and Those Supporting Gay Youth: Speaking Out!

And since I'm mentioning resources that have come my way from fellow bloggers and friends of this blog (and since I'm also talking today about the theme of hope in light of Advent), I'd like to recommend a book sent to me by author Ann Tonsor Zeddies after she had read some previous Bilgrimage postings.  Ann has published a number of science fiction works under both the names Ann Tonsor Zeddies and Toni Anzetti. Her books Steel Helix and Typhon's Children have both been shortlisted for Philip K. Dick awards.

Michigan Republicans Gut Anti-Bullying Bill, Using Religious Freedom Arguments Echoing U.S. Catholic Bishops

Remember that I mentioned to you yesterday that the U.S. Catholic bishops are now lobbying Congress for special religious exemptions for groups that do not want to comply with the guidelines of a proposed new Health and Human Services recommendation to provide contraceptive coverage in health care plans?  The bishops have argued for some time now that religious groups must have the "religious freedom" to discriminate when and if they wish, if their religious views require such discrimination.

More Sliding Towards Barbarism: Ohio High-School Student Beats Gay Classmate As Peers Watch

And talking about inching towards barbarism, or running towards barbarism as fast as our legs can carry us (I'm building here on what I just posted about Alabama's new immigration law):

In Memoriam: Jamey Rodemeyer

A not-to-be-missed posting about the tragic suicide of  Buffalo teen Jamey Rodemeyer a week ago: Jayden Cameron's latest posting at Gay Mystic.  It says all that needs to be said, with great wisdom and compassion.  

Pennsylvania Photographer Won't Do Ugly, Rejects Business of Teens Bullying Others Online

Pretty Is As Pretty Does

I think Pennsylvania photographer Jennifer McKendrick may be on her way to becoming a new hero of mine.  Last week, when McKendrick learned via Facebook that some of the young women who had made appointments to have her shoot their senior pictures had been bullying others on Facebook, she cancelled their photo shoots.

Minnesota Moves Towards Statewide Vote on Constitutional Ban for Gay Marriage

As an update to my several recent postings about the role the Catholic leaders of Minnesota are now seeking to play in the political life of that heavily Catholic state, particularly in attacking its gay citizens: at the end of last week, the judiciary committee of the Minnesota senate passed a bill that will call for a statewide vote to amend the state's constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage.  The bill now goes to the state legislature, which has been Republican-controlled since the 2010 elections, and is likely to pass at that level.

Cheryl Saban: It Gets Better

A brief postscript to what I posted Monday about Minnesota's problem with the gays and the recent suicide of two teens in Minnesota, Haylee Fentress and Paige Moravetz: Cheryl Saban has a very good article at Huffington Post right now, providing personal testimony about how her interaction with the LGBT community in Los Angeles in the 1970s opened her eyes to the real-life struggles that those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans go through on a daily basis.  She notes the struggles of LGBT persons to obtain adequate health care and to be free of threats and violence.  As she says, some of the LGBT people she met in the 1970s experienced bullying of one sort or another on a daily basis, resulting in enormous stress for them--stress compounded in many cases by their families' rejection of them.

Dan Savage: "Minnesota Has a Real Problem"

Dan Savage writes, "Minnesota has a real problem . . . ."

And Steve and I are wondering why this is the case (since it seems to us Savage is correct here), following our recent experiences with his family in Minnesota, about which I blogged some days back. 

Heartwarming Irish Video against Bullying of Gay Youths

Gay Leader Murdered in Uganda: Hateful (Religious) Words and Hateful (Religious) Ideas Have Real-Life Consequences

And this kind of horrific event is what we can expect when popes and bishops and many other religious leaders remain completely silent as a climate of hateful demonization of a despised minority develops in a nation.  While a pope speaks about the civil marriage of gay persons as an incomparable threat to the human race, and characterizes the human rights of gay and lesbian human beings as "alleged rights."

Update to Story of Bullying in Anoka-Hennepin (MN) School District: Not Pretty

Back in October, I blogged about the Anoka-Hennepin school district in Minnesota, in which there has been a horrific spate of suicides of students, several of them clearly related to bullying of gay youth.  As I noted in my posting, in September, I tried to communicate my concern about what is going in in their schools to the Anoka-Hennepin school board, and got quite a run around from one of the local board members, a former Republican state representative.