A-LISTS not halfway done The Evils of
Bullying: CHANGE STARTS WITH EACH OF US
by walter g. meyer
I am thankful for the Midland Arkansas school board ex-member, Clint McCance who wishes all queers would kill them- selves, just as I am for Fred Phelps, the pas- tor and bigot-in-charge of the Westboro Baptist Church. I once met an elderly black woman who told me, “I liked the good old days when they wore hoods. At least you knew where you stood with them.” With so many people talking tolerance while living hate, sometimes it’s hard to tell.
I am thankful Obama and Pelosi and many other Democratic leaders who recorded
videos for the “It Gets Better” project, but their ending DOMA and DADT would do much more to convince kids they were equal and okay. And I have yet to see a video of encouragement from a Republican. Even if they oppose gay marriage and other equal rights, can they really think gay kids dying is a good idea? McCance seemed to think so until called on the carpet for it by Anderson Cooper. Every time I hear someone on the Christian right accusing the media of creating a “gay bullying/suicide epidemic” to advance the gay agenda, I think of those late night meetings that all of us gay folk at- tend during which we discuss which 13-year- old will kill himself to advance the cause, like a virgin volunteering for the volcano to save the tribe. They would never say it aloud, but one needs to do very little reading between the lines of the rhetoric of the Tea Party and Mike Huckabee to know that their true feelings lie closer to the likes of Phelps and McCance than to Joel Burns and Ellen DeGeneres. It’s easy to blame the intolerance of Arkansas or Kansas for spawning the consciousness of Neanderthals; shaking a few pickup trucks or emptying a few church pews in Lakeside or Santee, less than 20 miles from Hillcrest would likely produce a few people who feel the same way. And the geographical spread of suicides from New Jersey to California with too many points in between make it clear this is a national problem. As my recently published novel deals with high school bullying and teen suicide, I
have been receiving requests to write about this topic and although I was happy to write a piece for
Gay.com’s “Writes of Passage” and for a new lesbian website (I guess I am an honorary lesbian now. No one has told me yet what the initiation ceremony en- tails). Yet, having an editorial printed in my hometown newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post- Gazette, meant much more; no offense to those websites, but I don’t need to preach to
the readers of that choir about the evils of bullying. I want to reach the straight world that needs to hear it. I received numerous e-mails from people who lived in my neighborhood (and grew
up to have gay kids) or went to my elementary or high schools where they or their kids were also bullied. I even got a thank you note from the pastor of a Presbyterian church in the area. Although I attempted in my op-ed to point out how little has changed for kids in
school, I’m sure some readers try to dismiss my screed as recounting a rapidly fading antiquarian time when such evil things happened, and that the hate that lately drove those kids to suicide was an aberration. So I’m grateful for guys like McCanse and Phelps who will put the hood back on and remind any doubters of the need for change: the ignorance of McCanse’s words and his subsequent resignation became a teachable moment for the nation. One woman who wrote questioned what was to be done; her son was also bullied at
my high school, 20 years after I was. I told her that change starts with her, with each of us and that each child’s death diminishes all of us. Imagine how much poorer the world would be if bullies of earlier days had driven Walt Whitman or Cole Porter or Rachel Carson to their deaths. We don’t know what talents were lost with the other boys’ recent suicides, but we
know some symphony or string quartet will be diminished for not having the talents of Tyler Clementi. We must stop the harassment of Phelps, McCanse, Huckabee and their lesser minions before another violin is silenced. The music lost…belongs to all of us.
Walt is the author of Rounding Third and can be reached at
walt@waltergmeyer.com
30
RAGE monthly | DECEMBER 2010
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