For many gay teens in this day and age, it’s much easier than it was for gay teens back in the 70s when I was a teenager. It’s much more likely that a kid, who discovers they’re gay, will find support among their peers, plus there are several organizations they can turn to.
Unfortunately, there are still many teens that grow up in conservative households and in small towns and other rural areas that being gay can be much like it was when I was growing up. Just imagine what it would be like to grow up with a mother like Michelle Bachmann who would rather believe that “being gay” is something you can overcome, or even pray away.
My mother, who died a couple of years ago, never accepted that I was gay. I told her at the age of 18 when she no longer had authority over me, that I was gay. Her response was “It’s a phase you’re going through.” Several years later when she came to realize that it wasn’t a phase, it was then that she told me that I needed to “get right with God or I would burn in Hell”; this was her only understanding.
Even up to the last time I saw her alive, she told me “You need to get right with God.” I’ve been right with God for many years but she would never acknowledge that unless I told her I was no longer gay, which would have been a lie.
That’s what gay teens do when they grow up in a conservative family; they lie. They lie to survive. Many families who are conservatively religious, as many families who’re evangelicals, Muslims, or other religions that believe that homosexuality is an abomination, would disown a child if they turned out to be gay. At the least, a gay teen would be expected to change. For me, that would be the same as telling a zebra to lose the stripes.
So many gay teens that grow up in these conservative families end up on their own, without support from those who supposed to love them. This can be heart wrenching and sometimes tragic, as some choose to end their lives as a way to escape. They live with feelings of guilt and shame for who they are because that’s how they were raised to believe. I know that very well myself and it took many years for me to finally free myself from that stigma of believing that God didn’t love me, unless I could change. I never could.
I could spend a night of praying on my knees, begging God to deliver me from being gay, and if he couldn’t or wouldn’t deliver me, then just let me die. When he didn’t oblige me, I tried unsuccessfully to take my own life, hoping that he would forgive me for that act and not let me burn in Hell.
There are many gay people who have grown up gay in conservative families who believe that they’re just born bad and no matter what they do, they will eventually just die and go to Hell because they are who they are. I don’t believe this is true at all. I believe God loves them dearly.
There are many third-world countries that homosexuality is a crime, even in some countries, punishable by death. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently gave a speech in Geneva in honor of Human Rights Day and declared that “…gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights“. She talked about what gay people go through in these countries, saying “They are arrested, beaten, terrorized, and even executed.” There were some of the delegates present from some of those countries who oppress their gay people, who with stone faces, up and left the room, but when she was done, she received a standing ovation.
This was the best speech I ever heard Hillary give. Even during her campaign to be president, did she ever give such a moving speech. Many politicians give lip service to gay people to gain their support, but this speech was heartfelt and it meant a great deal to gays all around the world.
There was one paragraph of her speech that I think explains it very well:
“The second issue is a question of whether homosexuality arises from a particular part of the world. Some seem to believe it is a Western phenomenon, and therefore people outside the West have grounds to reject it. Well, in reality, gay people are born into and belong to every society in the world. They are all ages, all races, all faiths; they are doctors and teachers, farmers and bankers, soldiers and athletes; and whether we know it, or whether we acknowledge it, they are our family, our friends, and our neighbors.”
It’s easy for people and even governments to try and minimize and discount gays as being just some kind of phenomenon limited to Western societies, but the real truth is, there are gays everywhere and from every walk of life and in every single country around this world. The only difference between gays who live in America or another Western society is that those who live in some place like Iran for instance, whose current president; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, once said that there were no gays in his country, is that to admit to being gay in a country like Iran could mean a death sentence, as it is in that country.
There was a time even in this country that being gay could get you sent to prison. Even as recently as 2003 when the Supreme Court ruled against a sodomy law still on the books in Texas, could someone be arrested even for having private consensual homosexual relations. The case “Lawrence vs. Texas” stemmed from a deputy sheriff entering a home after a call from a neighbor who falsely claimed that there was a crazy man with a gun. The sheriff deputy found two men having consensual sex and arrested them under Texas’ sodomy law.
We here in America, live in a much more enlightened society as a whole but there are still many bastions of ultra-conservative communities and there are still many young gays and lesbians that are growing up in those communities and being brought up to believe that they don’t even have a right to live if they happen to be gay.
Gay teens growing up in a conservative environment most likely will all go through the same guilt and shame, and some of them will seek a way out. Some of them will come to believe that the only way out is with a razor to their wrist or a rope or even a sheet around their necks, or maybe a loaded pistol against their temple.
I’ll close with these words from Hillary Clinton’s speech that says it all to those who are out there and feel like they’re alone in the world, as I did when I went through my teen years:
“And finally, to LGBT men and women worldwide, let me say this: Wherever you live and whatever the circumstances of your life, whether you are connected to a network of support or feel isolated and vulnerable, please know that you are not alone. People around the globe are working hard to support you and to bring an end to the injustices and dangers you face. That is certainly true for my country. And you have an ally in the United States of America and you have millions of friends among the American people.”
Indeed we do.