Gay teen suicide victim Tyler Clementi
What an historic day! The US Supreme Court upholds the Affordable Care Act; California Republican Reps. Darrell Issa and Dan Lungren run point in the House’s first-ever criminal and civil Contempt of Congress against a sitting Cabinet Member, Attorney General Eric Holder, despite the underpinnings of those charges having been proven to be factually inaccurate.
And meanwhile, in another part of Congress, Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA) launched the very first bi-partisan Congressional Anti-Bullying Caucus.
“The health, safety, competitiveness and moral fiber of America is threatened by a bullying epidemic that affects more than 13 million children each year,” said Rep. Honda in a press release. “As an educator of 30 years and a member of Congress who was bullied as a child, I I have formed the Anti-Bullying Caucus to empower each constituency in the anti-bullying movement, including but not limited to youth, seniors, religious communities and LGBT-identifying individuals. The Anti-Bullying Caucus seeks to focus the energy and effort of the movement to forge a path forward to stop bullying — both offline and online.”
So it is somehow fitting that bullying and the significance of authenticity, coming out and encountering each other with civility, if not warmth, should be the news at the end the day. Tonight at 10:00pm on NBC, “Rock Center with Brian Williams” will feature an exclusive interview with Tyler Clementi’s parents, Jane and Joe Clementi, and Tyler’s brother, James, who talk about Tyler’s suicide.
James, you might recall, recently spoke at the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles event about being gay himself and wishing he’d done more to help his brother:
“The loss of my brother’s life is especially tragic for me because I know the beautiful future he had ahead of him if he could have learned what I and all of us here tonight discovered on our journeys to self-love and self acceptance—that it gets better. Many of us here tonight have battled the struggles of growing up LGBT in an hostile world. And we have proved to our bullies and to our mentors that we can live meaningful, satisfying lives, we can maintain fulfilling and loving relationships and we can even start our own beautiful families. Every young gay person struggling for the right to be themselves is entitled to know that they, too, can have all of this and more. And they need to know that the world is filled with goodness and that being gay does not mean sacrificing your dreams but living them instead.”
But tonight, Tyler’s parents talk for the first time about how Tyler thought his mother rejected him, though she didn’t, and his father saying that “sin should be taken out of homosexuality.” Here’s a clip:
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