Monday, February 06, 2012

January's Known Gay Teen Suicide Death Toll

As noted in my post about the tragic suicide of Rafael Morelos, the toxic anti-gay bigotry fanned by the professional Christian set and the prostitute like members of the Republican Party who pander to them is deadly. Those who fan such bigotry or who pander to such bigots literally have blood on their hands in my opinion. LGBTQ Nation has a summary of January's known death toll although I suspect the true figure is higher given that many suicides and/or their causes are covered up by families of the victims:

Rafael's death is the fourth reported suicide in January among gay teens that has been attributed in part to anti-gay bullying.

On Jan 1, Jeffrey Fehr, 18, hanged himself at his family’s home in Granite Bay, Calif.; on Jan. 20, Tennessee teen Phillip Parker, 14, was also found dead, the victim of an apparent suicide -- his parents said Phillip was constantly bullied because he was gay.

And on Jan. 11, Eric James Borges, an intern at The Trevor Project also took his life -- EricJames, as he was known, was repeatedly bullied, tormented and terrorized for most of his life. His religious-extremist parents chose not to attend his memorial.

LGBTQ Nation also has a column that accurately describes the surge that Christianity has become and why, in my view, it needs to either change or become a dead religion:

[T]he root cause of gay teens being bullied because they are gay (whether or not they actually are gay) is that strain of Christianity which continues to insist that homosexuality is an evil affront to God.

If Christians would actually read the Bible, instead of daring to insist that three or four isolated phrases within it justifies a theology that has no more to do with Christ than Fred Phelps has to do with Welcome Wagon, we would arrive at a popular Christianity that is not, as so much of our Christianity is today, a pure affront to anyone with half a conscience.

Fellow Christians: will you please stop treating the Bible like it's a permission slip from God to be just as ignorant and immoral as your scared little self wants to be--and to raise your children to be just like you? If not, then be sure to buy a new Bible every year. It's a lot easier than having to keep washing the blood off your old one.

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