Sage Spencer: October 2010

One month ago today, September 30th 2010, a body that was pulled the day before from the Hudson River was identified. This body belonged to the soul that was Rutgers student Tyler Clementi. On September 22nd 2010 Tyler committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge, after his Rutgers college roommate and roommate's friend allegedly internet-streamed his sexual encounter with another guy.

I haven’t forgotten. Have you?

I tried to blog about this tragedy when it occurred but nothing came. I could not write a word; not even a title. All I felt was numb.

We must NOT forget this tragedy. We must NOT forget Tyler Clementi. His suicide is a call to action. Are we listening? Our society must change!

We have to rid this society of our contributions to the death of Tyler Clementi. Yes, we are all complicit, even those like myself who are quite sure we do not have a homophobic bone in our bodies. What contributed to the death of Tyler Clementi? Our sick society.

Yes, we are living in a sick society, one that is discriminating against a minority group of our citizens, LGBT individuals. A group of Americans are suffering and it is our collective fault.

We are not respecting our Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (Intersex) citizens in their full humanity as Jesus taught us to do. If we were, they would be equal citizens in this democracy and not second class citizens. Presently LGBT individuals are denied the full score of rights and protections enjoyed by the majority, straight citizens and citizens born of only one gender. LGBT individuals are not legally equally to us. We are treating our Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender citizens as less human than the rest of us. Our country, the land of the free is not so free for this minority and our land of the brave is cowardly in its treatment of this minority. Some might call this tyranny of the majority.

What can we do? Ten thoughts!

1. Look in the mirror DUDE! Every single one of us!

Have you ever laughed or remained silent when someone uses the homophobic slurs of ‘fag’ or ‘gay’. If so, then you are complicit in this problem.

Search your heart and consider making a life decision to never remain silent again in the presence of homophobic language. Be part of the solution!

“Hey dude, don’t use homophobic slurs around me. Not cool.”

2. If THE adults lead, THE children will follow.

Children learn what they live.

One of my first thoughts after hearing the entire hateful tale was to wonder what moral compass the parents of Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei had instilled in their children. I would love to hear the Ravis and Weis explanations of how they raised children to become adults who saw nothing wrong with streaming a gay roommates private sex life onto the internet and twittering about it like it was a joke. Tolerance begins in the home. Or not!

If we want children and teenagers to stop homophobic bullying then we, the adults, have to stop teaching it, stop doing it ourselves, stop remaining silent about discrimination against LGBT citizens and stop sanctioning it with our discriminatory laws.

If you are a parent, please look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are teaching your children homophobia. I offer the following personal anecdote: I never heard my parents utter a single homophobic remark. I therefore assumed they were not. As it turns out my father is homophobic. I learned this a couple of years ago from one physical response he had to a discussed situation. I am grateful that I made it into my twenties before finding that out. My brothers are not homophobic. Maybe his keeping it to himself helped them too?

3. If you have power…USE it for GOOD!

Every CEO, teacher, principal, union rep, elected official, celebrity can use their power to speak out against homophobic bullying. You have an audience. You have sway. Use it for GOOD!

Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project videos are an example of using power for Good!

If you are a gay, lesbian or transgendered celebrity, then you have extra special powers to help, if you choose to use them. If it was up to me, LGBT celebrities would talk to kids in schools across the country.

Every leader of an organization needs to ask him/herself if they have publicly stated that their organization is LGBT friendly.

One of my best friends, who is gay, works for a US based multinational. He is rising very fast at this company given his age. He is VERY good at his job. Last year he confided to me that he is thinking of moving to Europe in a couple of years. He believes that there is zero chance of him getting to where he is capable of getting to at this company if he comes out of the closet. He does not want to continue to have ‘girlfriends’ and wants to ultimately bring a husband to the company Christmas party. I of course do not want him to move.

4. Every school and every business in America must publicly sign a Bullying-Safe Schools and Workplaces Policy.

(unlike what Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei allegedly put on the internet, this is something that should be put on the internet)

This policy should include at least four things:

Clearly defined language that includes bullying against LGBTQ individuals;
Names and signatures, first of every CEO and every principal and teacher followed by every employee and student;
Clearly defined consequences for acts of homophobic bullying; and
An identified individual to whom acts of bullying are to be reported and who is held responsible for what happens next. The name of this person must be publicly available and updated annually. A good day for that annual update would be September 22, in memory of Tyler Clementi. This would serve as a statement that no other LGBT individual has to endure the hostility of homophobic bullying, that there are schools and workplaces that will not tolerate it and something will be done about it if they speak up.

With respect to schools, every child needs to be taught about bullying: what it looks like, what it sounds like and to tell on the bullies. Sadly, this is because many children are bullied at home and a child who knows cruelty from those who are supposed to love him/her will normalize it in their brains in order to survive. If we are going to stop bullying in the school systems we must take care of the bully children as well who are for the most part just victims of bigger bullies themselves. And any teacher that condones or promotes bullying, for any reason, needs to be fired.

5. If you are LGBT and in the closet, please commit to not hiding in hostility, as I call it.

You do not have to come out of the closet. If you chose to, the timing should be up to you. But please, do not make LGBT discrimination worse by engaging in hostility toward people just like you, in order to hide your sexual orientation or gender. Staying silent in the face of homophobia, while still complicit, is less bad. Choose silence over hostility.

My gut tells me that Dharun Ravi is gay and hiding in hostility, that he has been raised in a manner where he believes that he will never get to live who he really is and was being a curious voyeur so he could watch what he feels he can’t have in his life.

6. DADT is morally wrong, unconstitutional and must be repealed.

As long as we say that if you are gay and not straight you are not fit to defend this country, the United States as a country is a bigot. We have no moral authority to lead on this issue as long as the country itself is a bigot!

7. We must fight until same sex marriage is allowed across the country.

Civil unions are not marriage.

The Defence of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and must be repealed.

I speak to this point as a Christian. We are not talking about forcing religious institutions to marry anyone they refuse to for religious reasons. All couples, opposite sex and same sex should be allowed to be married civilly or by any house of worship that supports same sex marriage. Anything less is calling LGBT citizens less. Separate is not equal.

8. We cannot wait, thinking it will get easier when more bigots die off.

Increasing human rights always involves bold steps that will make some groups of society uncomfortable or outright angry.

Bigots don’t die off; they raise more bigots. If we had waited until everyone who was prejudiced against African-Americans died off, we would not have a biracial President right now. Illegitimate hatred never dies; it just finds a new scapegoat.

9. Brainstorm with friends for other ideas ordinary citizens can do to help make America less hostile to its LGBT citizens.

A couple more examples:

Write to the producers and writers of your favorite TV show asking that they write in a LGBTorQ character. If it doesn’t happen, keep writing.

Write to your alma mater and tell them that any annual giving on your part is suspended until they put in place a LGBT bullying policy like that one mentioned in point 4 above. Tell them that you do not want YOUR school to be complicit in the death of a LGBT student who complains about homophobic bullying without actions being taken on the victim’s behalf.

10. Make a LGBT friend.

I challenge every self-defined straight homophobic, every anti-same-sex marriage, every anti-repeal DADT individual to make a gay, lesbian or transgender friend. Or more than one.

If you take me up on this challenge, you will become less homophobic and transphobic. We can only dehumanize people when a see them as the other. If you make a close friend with someone who is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender you will see that other than sexual orientation and gender they are mostly just like you.

We can prevent future Tyler Clementis from committing suicide!

Each one of us can do something to make this country a less hostile place for our fellow Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender citizens.

In fact we MUST do something. We have no moral authority as adults in this society to expect any different than we are presently getting from children as long as we are participating in this discrimination with our silence and our sanction.

This is not just about the alleged crimes of Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei. Putting Dharun and/or Molly in jail, while just, if they did what they are alleged to have done, will not prevent future Tylers from committing suicide. Only we can do that.

We are all children of God: gay, straight, bisexual and transgender. This country needs to live up to its promise for all of its citizens and STOP failing its LGBT ones. The time is now!

This a human rights issue. We must stop emboldening the bullies with legal LGBT discrimination. We all need to stop colluding in denial that we are not part of what happened to Tyler.

If American girls were committing suicide because of the hostility they felt toward them because they are girls, what would we do? That is what we MUST do…NOW!

We can do this! We can fringe out the bigots by mainstreaming the love!

Join me?

Next Blogum: December 2010