The Grave and the Debates

[Polycarp1]

Note: I posted this over in CP&E/DoH a week ago, and it got very few comments and views. I'm taking the liberty of reposting it in E&M, if the moderators won't object, because it's a message that's quite important to me.

======

My wife and I went for groceries the other day. We live in a rural crossroads community a bit more than five miles from the nearest substantial town, and we grocery-shop at a supermarket in town, picking up a few essentials in between shopping trips at the surviving general store here. It's a nice mix of new and old.

About a mile this side of town is a small cemetery, one of those rural extended-family plots you see from time to time. It's not the newest grave there -- that belongs to a lovely old woman who passed on at age 89 -- but the one that catches my heartstrings was filled the year after we moved down here.

He'd be 19 now, in college or starting a job. He died at 12, hanging himself in his garage. Nobody ever went public with why, but the grapevine filled that in. He was in middle school, and was branded gay by his classmates, who picked on him until he took his own life. The school officials, of course, were ponderously unhelpful.

Was he gay? I don't know. In one sense, I don't care. What he was, was a kid driven to despair by taunts from his classmates, to the point that he killed himself. It was a tragic waste of a vibrant young life. He played french horn and baseball.

When I see that grave, I pray that people will repent. Not repent of being gay -- evidence indicates that that is unchosen, and without direct divine intervention, one is unable to change it by oneself (or by any manmade therapy).

No, I pray that they will repent of being the adult versions of those 12-year-olds who drove their classmate to kill himself.

I pray that they will learn and listen, show compassion and human understanding, whatever their views on homosexuality, they will treat other human beings as our Lord and Savior commanded us to do.

You want to drag out the Scriptures about abomination? What is abomination to me, though I don't have a scripture prooftext for it, is being so hateful to your fellow man that he or she despairs and kills him/herself.

Thus ends my message.

 

[flicka]

Thank you for that.

 

[Battie]

Yes, thank you.

 

[The Nihilist]

Let me open by saying I'm sorry for being the guy who says this.
Polycarp, I think you may be reading too much into this. This doesn't sound to me like the Matthew Shepherd story. In fact, this sounds relatively mundane. I mean, you don't need an advanced degree in child psychology to know that kids, especially right around that age, are meaner than hell. One kid has braces, another is ugly, one girl is fat, this kid gets labeled gay. Additionally, at that age, what with their changing bodies and hormones and new feelings and all that, kids can are prone to taking drastic measures. Unquestionably, it's horrible that anyone would commit suicide, but I don't think it's made worse by kids being kids.
If this offends anyone, then say what you like to me, but I will not tolerate the suggestion that I am unsympathetic to the victims of suicide.

 

[Criada]

Kids are kids, and often not mature enough to know how much damage their words may be doing..
But - the sad thing is, that so many adults, and Christian adults too, are acting the same way.
Yes, kids will always act like kids .
But we need to be very, very careful that our adult judgmentalism isn't much the same.

 

[Steezie]

This kind of stuff doesnt seem to bother people when they rail on about homosexuality.

 

[flicka]

One of my kids told me once they didn't like being mean because they never knew who was one dirty look away from killing themselves.

 

[Caitlin.ann]

Great post, Polycarp. I'm glad there are people like you out there, its refreshing to see this point of view when so often on here I see nothing but railing against homosexuality by Christians. Thanks for posting.

 

[m9lc]

m

Let me open by saying I'm sorry for being the guy who says this.
Polycarp, I think you may be reading too much into this. This doesn't sound to me like the Matthew Shepherd story. In fact, this sounds relatively mundane. I mean, you don't need an advanced degree in child psychology to know that kids, especially right around that age, are meaner than hell. One kid has braces, another is ugly, one girl is fat, this kid gets labeled gay. Additionally, at that age, what with their changing bodies and hormones and new feelings and all that, kids can are prone to taking drastic measures. Unquestionably, it's horrible that anyone would commit suicide, but I don't think it's made worse by kids being kids.
If this offends anyone, then say what you like to me, but I will not tolerate the suggestion that I am unsympathetic to the victims of suicide.

For once, I agree with RecoveringPhilosopher.

Seriously, do you remember going through elementary and middle school? Everyone gets made fun of. It's what kids do. Elder siblings are even worse.

Insults toward him didn't cause him to commit suicide; he obviously had a heck of a lot of problems to begin with if being called "gay" by his classmates led him to suicide. This isn't persecution; it's just a kid who had major problems with self-esteem and definitely needed some therapy.

 

[The Nihilist]

What do you mean for once?

 

[JGG]

My best friend killed himself because his family and friends rejected him when he was outed.

His father kicked him out, he wasn't allowed in the church, and his friends (including myself) refused to even talk to him. I myself called him an abomination, and a traitor.

He eventually jumped off of a parking garage.

That's a period of my life that I'm not particularly proud of.

 

[Ramona]

((((((Poly))))))

Thank you so much.

 

[Polycarp1]

Recovering Philosopher and m9lc, you have a point. As the story came to me, probably about fifth hand, it was the incessant taunts of schoolmates that drove him to suicide -- but we don't know what else may have also played a part. And, of course, it's a sad part of reality that kids can be like that, and that adults will refuse to intervene. For that aspect, I say that it should be their ethical (and for school emploees, legal) duty to intervene and teach and guide and discipline the kids to a better way of behaving.

But the key point t my post was not that -- it's that people are acting like those 12-year-olds here, and doing it, God forgive us, in the name of Christ. And that is not as excusable as kids being kids.

 

[RavenPoe]

"Love one another."

~Jesus

Need I say more?

 

[Beanieboy]

One has to wonder where the parenting is of a child that joins a crowd and belittles them unrelentlessly.

Most of us make it through, and some of us don't.
There was a kid in Wisconsin that was mock raped by 8 guys, urinated on, and at 16, a group of guys jumped him and beat him so badly, that his ribs were broken. When the parents went to the principal, he simply said, "what do you expect to happen if you are going to be gay?"

What kind of parent raises that kind of child?

I remember a cheerleader that was harrassed so much by the other girls that she used to vomit from nerves.

There is "teasing" and then there is taunting.

There was a guy in my school that hung himself because he was teased so much.

If you think "everyone gets teased", I suggest watching Welcome to the Dollhouse, and see what it's like to be the target.
It's a depressing movie, mostly because of the reality of the cruelty of others.

 

[igotbegot]

Gossip is forbidden right along side of homosexuality in the bible. How many Christians are plank-eye-ing themselves over this issue? Probably all of them.

 

[.Sabre.]

Thanks for that post, Poly.

BeanieBoy,that's a good point you make there. "Teasing" can become more than just snotty comments.