How does it get better? The answer isn’t so simple

[The Philosopher]

from the Washington Blade

How should we deal with bullies? Dan Savage has started the “It Gets Better” campaign, which tells gay kids in school to endure until graduation. Waiting passively for things to get better might not be the best answer, since gays are a unique minority. The picked-on Asian or Black or Catholic child usually has Asian or black or Catholic parents – and very likely has an Asian or black or Catholic community outside of school – but gay kids almost always have straight parents, and relatively few gay kids have any kind of gay community to draw on. We in the gay community should try to protect the next generation, and we need to grasp the complicated dynamics.

The greatest blessing that gay kids can have is the love and support of their parents. Yet parents frequently don’t understand the problem until their gay children come out. And gay kids are right to be cautious about doing so; parents throw too many out of their homes. It’s worth asking what parents hope to accomplish when they do this, since homelessness seems unlikely to make gay kids turn straight. Unthinking parental fury implies that the problem is less the child’s homosexuality than the parents’ feeling that the child reflects badly on them.

Parents should always love their children, but many are bent on children who complement a life they imagined. So long as parents think of their children as accessories to the good life rather than as individuals to be loved, closeted gay kids will be isolated from their best potential allies. And the children become easier potential prey for bullies.

The trouble with bullying is that it’s rooted in human nature to form small groups. People want friends who are like themselves, which is normal and healthy. They define themselves by what they’re not, such as Yankees fans being united in loathing the “Red Sox Nation.” The bully has taken something normal, being in a group and needling outsiders, and turned it into something unhealthy. Gay kids are different, but they are as worthy of respect as their straight peers. Kids with support from parents, churches or elsewhere can shrug bullies off. The isolated gay kids feel lost.

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