From: max@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com (Max Webb)
Newsgroups: soc.motss,alt.politics.homosexuality,co.politics
Subject: Re: Colorado Amendment 2: The First Fatality
Keywords: suicide
Date: 17 Nov 92 01:38:48 GMT
Article-I.D.: hilbert.1992Nov17.013848.1617
Organization: Cypress Semiconductor Northwest, Beaverton Oregon

In article <1992Nov12.221645.25826@ncar.ucar.edu> gary@colossus.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand) writes:
>ms> When you consider that 30% of teen suicides are related to sexual identity
>    crises perhaps you can start to understand the effect that rampant anti-gay
>    hostility has.
>
>  The man who committed suicide wasn't a teenager, and I would be hesitant to
>  use reasons for teenage suicides as proof of some sort of fault with society.
>  Teenagers commit suicide for puppy love, because they have bad skin, because
>  they don't get good grades, because Dad didn't let them have the car, and so
>  on. Teenagers are, for the most part, so emotionally immature and insecure
>  about themselves that they can commit suicide for incredibly bizarre reasons.
>--
>Gary Strand

Oh, have _you_ ever been  brought to  the  edge  of  suicide
by failure to get the car on the weekend? Let me explain how
=I=  was able to connect the dots. Perhaps someone can see a
way to explain it to this guy. Me, I give up.

One summer, my father returned home from the  military,  and
went  to Indianapolis to meet with his family, including his
brother. Dad had been recieving letters from him  that  wor-
ried  him.  Upon  arriving,  his parents came and drove in a
long circle along I-405 around Indianapolis.  When Dad real-
ized  they  were stalling, they blurted out that his brother
Robert had committed suicide, and burst into  tears.  Robert
had married a woman who subsequently  seemed to go off  into
the deep  end of insanity;  Ultimately, he  became  involved
with another woman.

My family in Indiana is, by and large, a bunch of  religious
fanatics.   Divorce and remarriage is inconceivable to them.
He  couldn't  go  on  in  the  marriage;  divorce  was   not
(apparently) an option. With nowhere to go, he made an error
in judgement. Robert's affair ended in a suicide pact.

At the funeral, my Dad sat in his chair, and  he  heard  the
Pastor  start  to  talk  about "the Wages of Sin". I am sure
that my friends here (so often the  target  of  fundamental-
ists)  can  imagine  the tone. Lots of interest in assigning
blame. Not one ounce of compassion or mercy.

It took 3 men to stop my father from beating the  man  to  a
bloody  pulp, and 4 to drag him away. I never knew my uncle,
and never really connected to this story as a boy. It became
somewhat  easier  when  I went through my own divorce. For a
time, I had plenty of  my  own  suicidal  ideation  to  work
through. (Oddly, what did me the most good was later working
on a suicide prevention hotline -maybe the right person will
read this.)

While I was doing research for some anti-OCA  pieces  I  was
doing, I came across some literature on gay teen suicide. It
described the isolation they feel, the slams and abuse  that
gay  kids  have  to  endure every day.  (Things I knew in my
childhood, too.) And  then  they  described  how  gay-hating
writers  have  used the suicide statistics as evidence of an
'inner flaw' in gays, blaming the victims for their reaction
to oppression. I even saw a sermon about the "Wages of Sin".

        Like the feminists say:
                ... *CLICK*!


Suddenly, it all became real to  me.  These  were  not  just
numbers  on a page, references in a book, every one of these
were people just like me, my uncle and my  father.  I  began
sobbing  for  kids  that  had  been  locked in a closet, and
self-destructed. I would go clean up, think I had gotten  my
composure,  and start crying again, smashing my fist against
my bathroom mirror. Like my father before me,  I  wanted  to
smash  the people that could think and do and say such hate-
ful things. It was a long time before I was able  to  go  to
sleep  that night.

Those who trivialize the forces that bring gay kids to kill
themselves,  cannot possibly be able to imagine being desp-
ised by their own society, and unwanted by their  families,
and  being (as  far as they  can tell) alone  in the  whole
world.  They jest  at a pain  they have never felt, and are
themselves worthy of nothing but contempt.

	Max G. Webb
Newsgroups: soc.motss