Bullying, Suicide and The Golden Rule

Bullying, Suicide and The Golden Rule

by Cody Lyon


Today's America is markedly different than it was when I was growing up in 1970's Alabama. While much among us has changed for the better, especially in the realms of official equality and social justice, mean-ness, as my Grandmother would have called it, still runs rampant throughout our society. One need only go online and read headlines from across the country that detail economic inequity, corruption and acts of brutal violence that have in many ways numbed our souls. Clearly, the biblical Golden rule that would have us do unto others, as we would do unto them, is still an afterthought, perhaps forgotten by many.

Compounding the daily litany of horror stories is a constantly arriving stream of evidence that we've all been living on borrowed dimes, that excess and corruption have run rampant in our financial foundations, that thousands have died in wars sold on misinformation and elements within our government are still under the influence of powerful self serving interests. All accounted for, then pondered, one worries about how best to change the direction of what some might call a wayward ways.

Perhaps too you wonder how best to change the minds of those still infected by narrow thinking, where self interest, misconstrued messages and fear distort calls for teaching tolerance, acceptance and respect in schools. Instead, you watch as those messages get spun as radical, sinful or part of some greater 'sexuality' associated agenda. It becomes further frustrating when you know those calls are in fact based in hope and faith that with each passing generation, decency becomes a mantle by which to live life, a community connected, where the goal is to treat one another with respect.

And, then, hopes for the future become further frustrated as a headline reaches out grabs you, saddens,enrages, and then, sets you back.

According to published news reports, this past Monday, an 11 year old Massachusetts boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover went to the top room at his family's home in Springfield, and hung himself. Reportedly, his Mother had said that he made this tragic decision after enduring the taunts and bullying by other children. His Mother says she'd plead with school officials at the New Leadership Charter School, where he'd tried to make friends to intervene. But instead, he was made fun of for his clothing, called "gay" and threatened with physical harm. He would have turned 12 on April 17.

The Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN, a national education organization that seeks to ensure safe learning environments for all students, says that Walker-Hoover is the fourth middle school aged child's suicide linked to bullying this year. GLSEN says a vast number of children who suffer at the hands of bullies, often encounter anti-gay taunting and often, physical violence. As most adults outside liberal enclaves in the North east or West coast know, being openly gay is sometimes not an option, unless one is truly brave. And, as research shows, society's often quiet acceptance of intolerance trickles down to children, where gay or fag is often the insult de-jour, often meant to inflict the ultimate in hurt and pain.

No doubt, it's a cruel world out there and kids will grow into adults who will encounter 'mean-ness' throughout their lives in one form or another. And certainly, calling on kids to stop calling one another names might be seen as, interference by adults, maybe even some sort of censorship by PC elitist forces that are out of touch with the more harsh realities on the ground in many communities throughout America, a land where bullying is the last thing on anyone's mind right now. But, perhaps the tragic death of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover should give us all pause. As we ponder this sad news, maybe we ought to ask ourselves a question or two.

If we are to truly reconcile the tremendous positive social changes we've seen since my childhood with the contradictory rot of corruption that has permeated so much of our society, should we not demand that our future generations prepare for future challenges in institutions where respect, tolerance and the Golden rule is just that, a rule that is enforced? Does an adult demanding that a child treat his fellow child the way he or she would want to be treated smell of radicalism or part of an agenda? This is not about asking anyone to accept anything other than human decency.

A Shameful Message of Hate and Lies

by CODY LYON-OPINION

Barring a vision from the Lord himself,there is probably no way to alter the thinking of those who subscribe to the philosophy of fringe right wing groups like the Columbus Ohio based Mission America and its leader Linda Harvey.

And, if it weren't for the particularly nasty tone or incessantly misleading words contained in an October 20 opine by Linda Harvey in the conservative "World Net Daily", any response to Mission America's typically insecure, filth laced and fright filled hyperbole wouldn't be worthy of time or effort.

But, in this case, a word or two, perhaps even a counter attack are warranted because, in her latest poisonous diatribe, Harvey not only spews lies about one of the LGBT community's most respected organizations, the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN, but also attempts to link her lies to the candidacy of Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama.

Understanding just how fringe Mission America is easy. This is a group that beckons visitors to its web page by advertising "learn the truth about homosexuality, witchcraft, changing Christian Church, Radical Feminism and the Youth Culture. Even more "mainstream" right wing groups may find this a bit outrageous.

Mission America calls itself a public policy analysis foundation. According to its 2007 tax returns, the private non operating foundation Mission America took in a meager $12,000 in contributions and donations. On its IRS Form 990 PF on a question where it asks did the foundation attempt to influence any national, state or local legislation or participate in any political campaigns, Harvey, or whoever filled out the returns, checked NO.

That said, there's no doubt Harvey and her writing is indeed attempting to influence this year's campaign. And, she's using a tired tactic, one long used by those on the far right that attempts to plant seeds of fear, be they racial, spook tactics on national security or in this case, the always reliable hot button homosexual agenda.

Currently featured in a prominent spot on the group's web page is a link to the article "Advocate of homosexual corruption of kids is leader in Obama's campaign.

That link then takes visitors to 'Gay" pedophilia and Obama', the "World Net Daily" piece where Linda Harvey asks if Obama agrees with his GLBT supporters.

Harvey's article charges that the LGBT organization GLSEN's mission "has been to plant 'gay' clubs and training programs in as many schools as possible" calling those groups a Trojan Horse into America's school children's minds.

She says that the "more closely one reads the GLSEN material, the worse it gets," implying that all manner of sexually suggestive material and pedophilia are acceptable behaviors. She says "just about every sexual practice imaginable is apparently acceptable and even worthy of celebration by any age student or teacher as far as GLSEN is concerned."

Then she asks "is this the kind of 'school reform' Obama has in mind?"

Harvey makes these charges because GLSEN's founder, Kevin Jennings, happens to be a prominent fundraiser in the LGBT community for the Obama campaign.

In the article, she says that Obama should remove Jennings from his 'position' and that voters need answers to a series of questions from Obama regarding his stance or beliefs about the origins, practice and acceptance of homosexuality especially when it comes to school aged children.

She then kicks her piece with "if we want a totalitarian, pansexual society, with its accompanying disease, dysfunction and abuse, and no room for nobility, goodness and tradition, then we need to make sure we vote for Obama with all his various revolutionary hangers-on, including Jennings." If, on the other hand, we envision another America, it's time to speak up now."

Well, Ms Harvey is correct, we do need to speak up.

It's nothing short of pathetic that Mission America would resort to such disgusting misleading smears that use vulnerable children in a Presidential campaign.

Perhaps her desperation arose out of the clear indication that If the "another America" Harvey envisions resembles the noble, good society where the 'tradition' of the past eight years are celebrated, according to a number of polls, most Americans plan to pass this go round.

Clearly, most voters are choosing to look beyond the political smokescreen of far right groups like Harvey's Mission America that have long sought to steer voters from the true issues affecting their lives, and their children's futures by raising false charges about candidates like Harvey does in her Obama/GLSEN piece. There are greater concerns occupying the minds of voters than an LGBT fundraiser at the Obama campaign.

But, besides that, if Americans look at the fine work of all the LGBT organizations in America, GLSEN has the distinction of perhaps being one of the more politically benign. It's mission is clear and it actually speaks to a fundament of who we are as a nation, the opportunity for all Americans to receive a quality education in a safe learning environment.

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network narrows its mission 'to assure that each member of every school community is valued and respected regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression.'

Exactly how does that mission mission cross over into pedophilia?

GLSEN's battles have been defined by its own research.

According to a recent GLSEN survey of almost seven thousand school children across the nation, 86.2% of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 44.1% reported being physically assaulted because of their sexual orientation. Around 74 percent heard derogatory remarks like "faggot" or "dyke" used often at school. According to the survey, more than 60 percent of students felt unsafe because of their sexual orientation.

Linda Harvey and her friends at Mission America must not remember what goes on in the hallways or schoolyards of America's schools. The truth is, kids can be extremely cruel, often resorting to name calling and bullying, unfortunate behaviors usually directed at the most vulnerable, those perceived as different or weak, maybe the less than masculine male, or the masculine appearing female. Harvey fails to understand that those taunts, those abuses, that even the victims themselves are often ashamed of, have the ability to leave a child feeling isolated, alone and damaged. Those insults backed up by much of society's deep prejudices have the ability to cripple the self esteem and psychological health of children for years, if not lifetimes.

And, what good does it do the child issuing those taunts, or more importantly, the child on the receiving end of those taunts, when his or her parent, has read a piece like Linda Harvey's or any of the other vicious material on her website, where she has equated the mission of GLSEN and the candidacy of Barack Obama to pedophila or the "homosexual agenda?"

While GLSEN does indeed help in the establishment of what are called Gay Straight Alliances in schools across the nation, the fact is, they are more prominent in places that tend to be more tolerant, places with more socially open school districts, and rarely in the rural hamlets of Mississippi or Alabama, places where if a child who happens to be different, perhaps gay or lesbian, life can be hellish, perhaps destructive and very lonely.

If parents in those more conservative areas are subscribing to the hate filled vitriol of Linda Harvey and her crowd, a child may feel he or she has no place to turn.

Back in 1989, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued its "Report on the Secretary's Task Force on Youth Suicide," which found that "a majority of suicide attempts by homosexuals occur during their youth, and gay youth are 2 to 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than other young people.

In 2001, the American Psychological Association said that suicide is the number one cause of death for gay teens.

Calling someone heterosexual or straight is not a common insult or perceived as hurtful. In most school yards, shopping malls, social functions or other gathering places the straight jock or pretty cheerleader has less to worry about when it comes to the prejudices facing them. But the prejudices, even disregard for humanity that gets reinforced by the rhetoric of ghoulish figures like Linda Harvey, individuals who spew poisonous rhetoric, reinforcing hate for political gain into the minds of concerned parents and voters is nothing short of shameful.