Wounding Words

            Yesterday I had an excursion from school to listen to a speaker named Jamie Nabozny talk about gay rights and gay-straight alliance (the link to Mr. Nabozny’s website is http://www.jamienabozny.com). In addition to telling us how to deal with homophobia and other types of bullying, he told us a horrific story about how he was bullied for being a homosexual when he was a kid.

Jamie was beaten up everyday in school and was made fun of for being different than all the other little boys. The school administrators and teachers knew about the bullying that was going on, but they did not do anything to resolve the issue. Not even his fellow classmates stood up for him. One day, Jamie was beaten up so badly that he had internal bleeding and actually had to have emergency surgery. The bullying grew so intolerable for Jamie that he attempted to take his own life. Later, he ran away from home because he thought that if he went back to school, he would actually be killed.

Still, bullying towards gays clearly exists, and many U.S. citizens still are homophobic. The biggest example would probably be the expression “that’s so gay”. It has become a common phrase, especially among kids my age, and it means the same thing as saying that something is stupid. It is very degrading to homosexuals and implies that there is something wrong with being gay.

I hear kids making homophobic remarks like this all the time at my school, and what amazes me is that other kids (and even some teachers) do nothing about it. Saying something is  “so gay” is basically the equivalent of saying that something is “so Jewish” or  “so black” with the implication that it is a strongly negative description.  These last two expressions would most certainly be met with much anger and resentment because they imply that there is something wrong with being Jewish or black. People would not allow others to say these two phrases, so why do we allow people to say “that’s so gay”? When we say these things or don’t correct someone who says them, are we agreeing that being gay is wrong? (Please leave comments in the box underneath this post)

Americans are supposed to have the freedom to express themselves in whatever way they want, but if people like Jamie are going to get beaten up for expressing themselves and being different, do we really have this freedom?

It would be unfair for me to end my post here; even though bullying obviously still exists today, things have definitely gotten a lot better.

This is a table that shows the states that have or will likely make changes in their laws regarding same-sex marriages in the next year or so. As you can see, more and more states are legalizing gay marriage and, in general, people are becoming more accepting of gays.