Mirror Monday *62
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About Hateful Comments
I lost count on how many times someone from the blog staff as well as regular readers of the blog had to ask people here to tone down their comments which are way too often personal attacks, sexist or even racist. It doesn’t matter if it’s people saying someone “destroyed his face” because he has piercings or if it’s a ridiculously stupid comment that someone is “past his expiration date”; not to mention the just horrible comments some people leave about everyone who is different from them regarding their race, gender identity or, as absurd as it is on a site like this, sexual preference.
The vast majority of these nasty comments are deleted before they get published or shortly thereafter but we can’t babysit the site 24/7 so the bad stuff you see slipping through every now and then should give you an idea about the unseen amount of hateful remarks not getting through.
I can’t stress the fact enough that more often than you might think the people we feature here actually happen to read the comments left by the readers of this blog. The dad of diving talent Jordan Pisey Windle being just the latest example.
And the same way you wouldn’t walk up to a stranger on the street to tell them how you hate their haircut/body shape/skin colour etc. we ask you to be respectful around here. That you can be somewhat anonymous on the internet doesn’t mean you can be an asshat to everyone.
You would think that people who are part of a minority that is often disrespected and discriminated against would be careful not to repeat the injustice they have to endure. So please be aware that we have rules about leaving comments. This place could be a lot more helpful and supportive for many people if everyone would acknowledge them.
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Wet Wednesday *89
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Periodical Political Post *108
Queer News
- Tunisia rejects United Nations call to decriminalise same-sex acts
- Moscow police cracks down on banned gay pride rally, arresting 40
- Petition urges Ukrainian president to stop anti-gay “propaganda” law
- High School graduation party turns into attempt at burning gay man alive
- Support for gay marriage higher among African-Americans than U.S. average
Other News
- Cardinal pays $20K to priests who raped kids, then rails against immorality of gays
- India sets age of consent to 18, makes sexual intercourse for consenting teens illegal
- U.S. Republicans block law aiming to battle wage discrimination against women
- Researchers funded with European tax money release anonymous BitTorrent client
- Mother in U.S. state of Connecticut arrested for letting 13-year-old son babysit siblings
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Trap Thursday *68
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America’s Queer Youth isn’t happy
Worried mostly about non-accepting families and school bullying, only 37% of queer youth in the U.S. consider themselves happy while 67% of straight teens say they are, according to a study released by the Human Rights Campaign, the largest civil rights organization in America. HRC interviewed 10,000 self-identified queer teens aged 13-17 for its ‘Growing up LGBT in America’ survey. Here is a sampling of some of the comments from those surveyed:
‘It makes me afraid to walk around knowing there are people in my hometown that hate me and people like me." — "I want to be able to go to school without being called a faggot and a dyke bitch." — "It’s hard. Very hard. My own best friend doesn’t know about the real me & I’m scared to tell her because it might ruin our friendship."
HRC President Chad Griffin calls the poll results an urgent call to action. ‘Growing up in small-town Arkansas, I remember what it’s like to not know a single other gay person,’ Griffin says. ‘Now I think about the LGBT youth that lie awake and stare at the ceiling for hours, dreading the next day at school or worrying that their parents will reject them.’
Griffin says that in addition to worries about the future, the pressure of school, and stress of peer relationships that all teens face, LGBT youth have the additional burden of statistically being twice as likely to be harassed as their straight peers.
Among the report’s key findings: Over one-half of queer teens (54%) say they have been verbally harassed and called names involving anti-gay slurs. Nearly half of queer teens (47%) say they do not ‘fit in’ in their community while only 16% of non-LGBT youth feel that way.
67% of straight youth describe themselves as happy but this number drops to 37% among LGBT young people. 83% of LGBT youth believe they will be happy eventually, but only 49% believe they can be happy if they stay in the same city or town. 6 in 10 LGBT youth say their family is accepting of LGBT people, while a third say their family is not.
92% say they hear negative messages about being LGBT – 60% say those messages come from politicians. Griffin says politicians need to see and understand the poll’s results and know how their words and actions are affecting kids. He is encouraging people to send the poll results to elected officials.
‘It doesn’t help when politicians drag their heels on important legislation or make uneducated comments about bullying – but our allies in Congress and statehouses around the country need these facts to bolster their case for progress, too,’ Griffin says.
HRC says the report is the first in a series of efforts to analyse the landscape for LGBT youth. Over the next several months, HRC will be providing additional analysis that will provide a better understanding of the unique experiences of specific groups of youth such as transgender youth, different races, and religious traditions.
Via Gay Star News
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Face Friday *6
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Running out of Time!
Sadly the cam of the person filming this had a potato as a microphone so check the kid’s own YouTube channel for some videos with better picture and sound quality.
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Snoop Sunday *4
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Tormented to Death by Bullies
Another bullied gay teen lost to suicide. 16-year-old Brandon from Texas took his own life on June 2, according to family and friends. Brandon’s mother, said on Friday that her son was bullied at school for two years because he did not want to hide the fact that he was gay.
“He got bullied simply for being gay,” she said. “He’s been threatened to be stabbed. He’s been threatened to be set on fire.” Brandon’s mother said the school district did everything it could to help solve the problem. “They’ve reprimanded several kids and they did everything that they could”. Brandon’s friends told her that there was an incident on Friday at school where someone insulted her son and told him that he planned to fight him the next week.
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Moviestar Monday *5
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Periodical Political Post *109
Queer News
- Catholic bishops in Uganda call for revival of “kill gays” legislation
- Australian Prime Minister says gay couples don’t need marriage
- Russian capitol Moscow bans gay pride parades for century ahead
- Discrimination study shows gay men in Italy less likely to get a job
- American conservative group blames queer kids for their own misery
- ‘Sexual depravity’ of penguins that Antarctic scientist dared not reveal
Other News
- Thousands of Russians protesting in Moscow to demand fair elections
- Climate change to be outlawed for being “leftist” in Virginia & N. Carolina?
- How Christian fundamentalists plan to teach genocide to schoolchildren
- South Korea surrenders to creationists, removes evolution from school books
- Christian pastor hangs effigy of Obama with pride flag by noose
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Tummy Tuesday *14
Photo by Milo
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Sala Samobójców
Scenes from the polish teen drama Suicide Room (Sala Samobójców). A few more can be found here (including the theobligatory shower shot of course). Both videos contain spoilers.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlPOXt6bsbM
As cute as the lead actor is, I didn’t see the film because the plot just sounds… meh. Or is it just me?
Dominik is an ordinary boy. He’s got loads of friends, the hottest girl in school, rich parents and money to spend on brand-name clothes. But one innocent kiss with a mate changes everything. He begins to isolate himself from the outside world, spending all his time on his computer. He meets an anonymous girl who introduces him to the "suicide room", a place from which there is no escape. Caught in a trap woven of his own emotions, he becomes entangled in a web of intrigue and gradually loses what he cherishes most.
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Wonderwear Wednesday *21
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Mom of the Year
I am selling my son’t macobok pro 15 inch. He found out that there is going to be a new macbook so I will be buying that for him. I bought it last summer so it isn’t even a year old yet. It is on pretty decent shape. I am pretty firm on the price.
Just a footnote. I don’t want to get a ton of messages from you guys saying that I am spoiling my son and turning him into an entitled monster. There is a backstory that you aren’t even aware of. My son was committing homosexual acts and got caught in the act. We made a deal that if he chose to be straight, that we would buy him more nice things. So don’t message me saying that I am a bad parent for spoiling him. It’s quite the opposite, I am a good parent adn I’m working with him to correct his problem.
Smart. If you can’t get your parents to stop being assholes, at least squeeze some money out of them before you move out ;) That you could get two better laptops for the money a MacBook costs is another matter :p (via)
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Tender Thursday *28
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Leviathan
Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan is the first volume in one of the most exciting new young adult series to come along lately. Leviathan is set in an alternate steampunk past, in which the powers of the world are divided into "Clankers" who favour huge, steam-powered walking war-machines; and "Darwinists," whose hybrid "beasties" can stand in for airships, steam-trains, war-ships, and subs (they even have a giant squid/octopus hybrid called the kraken that can seize whole warships and drag them to their watery graves).
Set on the eve of WWI, the story’s two main characters are Aleks, the incognito orphan of the freshly assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand (fleeing his murderous uncle Emperor Franz Josef from Austria to the safe haven of Switzerland in a liberated battle-walker); and Deryn, a Scots girl who has dressed in boys’ clothes to muster into Britain’s Darwinist air-corps and finds herself a midshipsman on the Leviathan, a floating ecosystem a quarter-mile long, made up of whales, bats, bees, six-legged hydrogen-sniffing dogs, and all manner of beasties that make her the meanest thing in the sky.
Filled with gripping air and land-battles, political intrigue and danger, science and madness, Leviathan is part Island of Dr Moreau, part Patrick O’Brien. And to top it all off, the volume is lavishly illustrated with fabulous ink-drawings of the best scenes from the book, executed in high Victorian style by Keith Thompson. Thompson also produced contrafactual propaganda maps of alternate Europe for end-papers.
Westerfeld writes gripping, relentless coming-of-age novels that are equally enjoyable by boys and girls, adults and kids, and Leviathan is no exception. Leviathan is also available as an unabridged 8-hour audiobook on DRM-free CDs for a very reasonable price. The reading is by Alan Cummings, who absolutely nails it, and the production — bed music, editing — is just superb, bringing the whole swashbuckling tale to life. [via BoinBoing]
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Freckle Friday *8
Photo by & with Justin
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The Gay Year
Timothy Kurek used to be a raging homophobe with a strictly religious upbringing. But he was shocked when a good friend of his was flat out disowned by her parents when she came out as gay. Kurek had a come-to-Jesus moment and decided to take an unorthodox approach to understanding what it’s like to be gay. He posed as a gay man for one year.
MSNBC‘s gay anchor Tom Roberts interviewed Kurek , who is also writing an as-of-yet untitled book on his experience. First he “came out” to his surprisingly accepting family. Then he immersed himself in Nashville’s Gayborhood–at the bars, clubs, and bookstores. The brief interview doesn’t go into detail, but the question is raised how just hanging out at gay places could possibly give heterosexual Kurek an honest sense what it’s like to actually struggle with an unchangeable internal reality. Kurek responds:
I will be the first one to say that my experience is severely limited. There is no way I could possibly understand what it’s like to actually be gay. And the book itself is not at all about what it is like to be gay, but only about how the label of gay impacted my external life and how those things kind of altered my faith and challenged my beliefs… I was doing everything I could to understand and going as far as I could, but being I’m straight was obviously very limited in what I was able to do.
Some folks may cry foul, or be insulted by someone using deception to gain access. But if Kurek came out of his experiment with empathy, understanding, and unity with the gay cause, as he claims, then great for him. Everyone has their own road to learning acceptance of all human beings, and Kurek found a method that worked for him, and he became the better for it. The old saying never fades about walking in another person’s shoes. [via Queerty]
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More Pages to Explore .....
