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.