Editorial: Tell gay teens: It gets better

Editorial: Tell gay teens: It gets better
Copyright by the Chicago Sun-Times
September 24, 2010
http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/2741188,CST-EDT-edit24b.article


It happened again two weeks ago in Greensburg, Ind. A 15-year-old boy, Billy Lucas, killed himself because he could no longer bear the bullying.

For years, other students, suspecting he was homosexual, had called him "fag," mocked the way he walked and talked and told him he should kill himself. On Sept. 9, he hanged himself in his family's barn.

When Dan Savage, author of "Savage Love," the syndicated sex column in the Chicago Reader, read about Billy, he had one thought: "I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better."

That is exactly right -- it does gets better. To be gay in America, if in fact Billy was gay, need not be the hell it once was.

But how do we get that message out where it matters most? There is no openly gay community in the average small town.

Savage's response, to which we'd like to call attention today, was to launch the "It Gets Better Project" via YouTube, to reach out to tormented young gay people. The project consists of testimonials from adult gay men and women that, yep, high school is not the end of the world and, count on it, life does get better. You are not alone.

"Once you get out into the real world, you'll notice there's not just a lot of different people, there's a lot of different ways to live," testifies Dave Holmes, host of TV Guide Network's "Celebrity Says!"

Gay teenagers are "coming out" earlier than ever and many feel better about themselves than earlier generations of gays, studies show.

At the same time, Americans in general are more accepting of gays.

But depression is high among gay teenagers, studies also show, and a disproportionate share of homeless young people, often tossed out of their homes, are gay.

Gay teens -- and, for that matter, many other teens -- need to know:

It gets better.