President Obama appeared in a video in support of gay teenagers on Thursday as part of the It Gets Better Project, an initiative launched by writer Dan Savage. In the video, Obama says that he was "shocked and saddened" by a string of gay teenagers who have committed suicide in recent weeks. "We've got to dispel this myth that bullying is just a normal rite of passage," the president adds.
But, Savage told the BBC, he thought he would never get permission from a school or a church or even the parents of teenagers to talk openly to young people about being a happy gay man. "It occurred to me that I didn't need permission any more," Mr Savage said. "I could upload a video and speak directly to these kids, and tell them before they commit suicide that it gets better."
The "It Gets Better" project got two very big, and very different, endorsements on Tuesday when former first lady and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington released videos aimed at sending strong, positive messages to LGBT youth in light of recent gay teen suicides.
Adam Lambert is the latest celebrity to lend his voice to the "It Gets Better" project, aimed at sending strong, positive messages to LGBT youth in light of recent gay teen suicides.
Thousands of people like Mr. Stowell have posted personal testimonies to YouTube in an online campaign titled “It Gets Better” that has, in Internet parlance, “gone viral” in the four weeks since it started. The campaign is intended to help gay teenagers who feel isolated and who may be contemplating suicide, and it coincides with a rash of recent news stories about bullying and the suicides of gay teenagers and young adults.
Savage's Internet-based project hopes to connect with young gay people and let them know, no matter how bleak their lives seem now, it does get better. "When a gay teenager kills himself, what he's saying is that he can't picture a future for himself with joy in it to compensate for the pain in his life now," says Savage. "Gay teenagers need to know that life as an openly gay adult is wonderful... and they shouldn't be filled with despair."
Syndicated columnist Dan Savage recently started the "It Gets Better" project on YouTube as a way of rallying support for GLBT students who are being bullied and feeling alone. But I would say the stories are universal and can offer comfort to any student who may be a victim of bullying. Remember, pain and isolation know no race, gender, socioeconomic status or sexual orientation. And thankfully, neither do hope and love.
Gay kids are four times more likely that straight kids to commit suicide, according to a recent study, and nine out of 10 gay kids report being bullied. "Hearing about these kids that have committed suicide, the reaction as a gay adult is always, 'God, I wish I could have talked to them for fifteen minutes or five minutes and told them it gets better,'" said gay columnist Dan Savage.
Last Thursday, in his syndicated sex-advice column "Savage Love," Dan Savage wrote about the case of Billy Lucas, a 15-year-old high school student in Indiana who committed suicide after being taunted by his classmates for being gay. In the column — titled "Give 'Em Hope," from a quote by openly gay politician Harvey Milk — Savage, himself an openly gay man, lamented that he couldn't have sat down with Lucas, even for five minutes, and told him "however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better."
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