Let struggling teens hear something louder than the hate

[Omaha Steve]

http://rainbow.omaha.com/2010/10/10/let-struggling-teens-hear-something-louder-than-the-hate/

Oct 10, 2010

I thought it was better now,” Pat Powers said.

When Pat was in high school — when I was in high school — 20 years ago, we didn’t even have the words to talk about homosexuality. We had “gay” and “fag,” but we used those words for everything, we didn’t know what they meant. We didn’t know any actual gay people . . . In Omaha, in 1989, gay was just something that you weren’t supposed to be.

No way was Pat going to come out in that atmosphere. Not in middle school or at Creighton Prep, or even in college at Creighton University. He spent those years doing everything he could not to be gay, or at least not to seem it, because there was no future in it, he says.

Because coming out would be like slipping into a hole or a cloud, like slipping out of real life.

Things are different now. We have Ellen now. And Iowa.

Why would a gay kid today feel so hopeless? Why would so many gay kids feel so hopeless that gay teen suicide has become an ongoing national tragedy?

“It breaks my heart that they feel so alone,” Pat says. “I thought it was better now.”

It is better.

FULL story at link.

Contact the writer:
444-1149, [e-mail]

[dsc]

1. It honestly breaks my heart

that so many of our younger generation are having such great difficulty. I can't imagine being out at that age, I really can't. I sure wasn't. I know how hard it is to face day after day after day of taunting and worse. I just hope they know it does get better.

[Irishonly]

2. I Thought It Was Very Slowly Getting Better. I Was Wrong

My daughter is 20 and her circle of friends have no problem with GLTB people. The past two weeks have become a heartbreaking realization of knowing it's not better in many areas.