Barbara Bradley Hagerty wrote a segment on NPR today titled, Religious Undercurrent Ripples In Anti-Gay Bullying. Go check it out; you will recognize her interviewees and she does a nice job of covering several perspectives.
Consider Justin Anderson, who graduated from Blaine High School outside Minneapolis last year. He says his teenage years were a living hell. From sixth grade on, he heard the same taunts.
“People say things like ‘Fags should just disappear so we don’t have to deal with them anymore’ and, ‘Fags are disgusting and sinful,'” he told the Anoka-Hennepin School Board. “And still, there was no one intervening. I began to feel so worthless and ashamed and unloved that I began to think about taking my life.”
Anderson told his story at a public hearing last month — a hearing convened because in the past year, the district has seen a spate of student suicides. Four of those suicides have been linked to anti-gay bullying.
The Minnesota Family Council and Tony Perkins of the Family Reasearch Council provide their viewpoint, and I take a different view in the segment. You also hear from Sirdeaner Walker, who lost her son, Carl to bullying last year. She is a Christian who has become a board member at GLSEN.
Go check it out…