Emaciated Republican Asinine Shrews Embarrass

E.R.A.S.E. the Hate

(Taken from the GLAAD website, article by writer Aaron McQuade)
Conservative political commentator Ann Coulter decided last night
to make a joke about family rejection of LGBT youth.

-Last Thursday was national "coming out" day.This Monday is national "disown your son" day. — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) October 16, 2012-
  I recognize that this is a joke, and that she is not really taken seriously
in any context anyway, but with this coming right after National Coming
Out Day, at the start of Ally Week and just days before Spirit Day, I
thought this would be a good opportunity to talk about this idea of hers.
There was a time in our culture's history when, if thousands of LGBT
kids were to come out on the same day, the next week genuinely would
be exactly what Ann describes, all across the country. Fathers disowning
their sons and kicking them out onto the street. Mothers locking up their
daughters or sending them to charm school. Children forced to undergo
electro-shock or even worse forms of "therapy" to rid themselves of their
orientation. To learn how to not be true to themselves.

And although we've come a long way from those ideas as a cultural
collective, I have no doubt that last week, more than a few American
households experienced the tragedy that Ann joked about. Approximately
50% of LGBT youth experience some degree of family rejection. There
are as many as one hundred thousand homeless LGBT youth on our nation's
streets, and it's estimated that LGBT youth make up as much as 40%
of our nation's homeless youth population. LGBT youth who are completely
rejected by their parents are more than 8 times as likely to have attempted
suicide. Pretty funny, right?

Again, I know it’s a joke, but ANYTHING that adds to the idea that family rejection of LGBT young people is expected, or even "normal" enough to
be casually joked about, causes harm. The kind of harm that Spirit Day was
specifically created to protect against.

Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation

************************************************************
Even though the author was pretty generous with giving Coulter the
understanding that this is her sick, meek, twisted cry for media attention
and she is just a vacuous mouthpiece who gives no thought to her words
beyond stirring the pot, I have a much darker view.

Yes, she is a joke. She is not credible. She is baseless. But that's what
thinking people know; she caters to the ignorant and the uncouth. They
take up people like her as saviours and identify with every vile word they
speak. She is dangerous.

If she were joking about restarting concentration camps or experimenting
on black folks with viruses again, the nation would come unglued, but
because it is the 'good old reliable standby of acceptably-targeted gays
and lesbians,' everyone sloughs it off.

We can't afford to let an ounce of hate speech go unattended, nor taken
as attack. Because words and ideas are where it all starts. And these
freaks are getting bold enough and brazen enough to say worse and worse,
out loud, more often. We know what the next step is.

-Robert Sayre, Georgia Unity/NYDGP
***************************************************************

The Trevor Project (Help for LGBTQ Youth)


GLBT National Help Center


****************************************************************