American Airlines - It Gets Better

Gay Rodeo Members - It Gets Better

(Via - Towleroad)

Increased Health Risks For LGBT Youth

According to a just-released study, LGBT youth tend to take greater risks with their health than do their heterosexual counterparts.

High school students who identify as being gay, lesbian, or bisexual are more likely than heterosexual students to smoke, drink alcohol, use drugs, and take part in violent and suicidal behaviors, a CDC survey shows. CDC researchers analyzed survey results from about 156,000 high school students. "This report should be a wake-up call for families, schools, and communities that we need to do a much better job of supporting these young people," Howard Wechsler, EdD, MPH, of the CDC, says in a news release. "Any effort to promote adolescent health and safety must take into account the additional stressors these youth experience because of their sexual orientation, such as stigma, discrimination and victimization."

Anti-gay groups will, of course, leap upon this latest study without noting their own complicity in the "stigma, discrimination and victimization" noted above.

The Sissy Boy Experiment

Another horror story from the evil minds of George "Rentboy" Rekers and the Family Research Council. Please check out Box Turtle Bulletin's extensive multi-story investigation into this outrage.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian Dies At 84

Assisted suicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian has died of a pulmonary thrombosis at the age of 84. Kevorkian claims to have helped over 100 terminally ill patients end their lives. He spent eight years in prison for doing so.

NEW JERSEY: Roommate Arraigned In Tyler Clementi Suicide Case

NEW JERSEY: Plea Deal For Student Involved In Tyler Clementi Case

One of the Rutgers students involved in the Tyler Clementi case has accepted a plea deal in return for agreeing to testify against Clementi's roommate.

Part of the deal requires Molly Wei, 19, of West Windsor to testify against Dharun Rhavi, the roommate of Tyler Clementi [left] who leaped off the George Washington Bridge last fall after learning he had been spied upon. Clementi, 18, was a Rutgers freshman and promising violinist. Wei pleaded not guilty in Middlesex County Superior Court on Friday to watching the webcast with Ravi and a judge accepted her application into a pretrial intervention program that could drop the two counts of invasion of privacy against her. In exchange for dismissing the charges, Wei must testify against Ravi, complete 300 hours of community service, undergo counseling on cyberbullying and take classes on dealing with people of alternative lifestyles.

Clementi's family approved of the plea arrangement, saying: "Actions have consequences. We wish Ms. Wei will become a person who will make better decisions, will help people and show kindness to those she comes in contact with."

Quote Of The Day - Peter Sprigg

"In any discussion of 'sexual orientation,' it is important to remember that this is only an umbrella term for three quite different things—a person’s sexual attractions, the sexual behavior, and their self-identification. In the survey upon which this study was based, there was only a single question on 'sexual orientation,' which asked 'which of the following best describes you.' The choices were 'heterosexual (straight), gay or lesbian, bisexual' or 'not sure.'

"This is essentially a measure of self-identification. Therefore, the logical take-away from the study would be this: the most effective way of reducing teen suicide attempts is not to create a 'positive social environment' for the affirmation of homosexuality. Instead, it would be to discourage teens from self-identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual." - Family Research Council bigot Peter Sprigg, in an FRC article denouncing last week's Pediatrics study on teen suicide.

According to Sprigg, gay kids wouldn't kill themselves so much if adults would just do a better job of browbeating them out of accepting their sexuality. Seriously.

MINNESOTA: Two Bullied 14 Year-Old Girls Hang Themselves In Suicide Pact

Two 14 year-old middle school girls in Minnesota have hung themselves in a suicide pact brought on by bullying. The sexual orientation of the pair is unknown.

Haylee Fentress and Paige Moravetz were found Saturday in the small town of Lynd. The two 14-year-olds hanged themselves and left notes in an apparent suicide pact. "I think they've had this for some time," Robin Settle, Fentress' aunt, told ABC News. The two were found by Fentress' mother. Moravetz was sleeping over at her best-friend's home because her parents were on vacation in Hawaii. "She attempted to resuscitate them," Settle said, but it was too late. Moravetz moved to the small Minnesota town a year ago and had a hard time making friends, her aunt said. She and Fentress' friendship appeared to grow out of the pair's shared feeling of being excluded.

RELATED: The Minnesota Family Policy Council and other Christianist groups have so far successfully blocked attempts to create anti-bullying programs in public schools.

CNN On Tyler Clementi Case

MSNBC Interviews Author Of Oregon Study On LGBT Teen Suicide Rate

NEW JERSEY: Roommate Charged With Hate Crime In Suicide Of Rutgers Student

The roommate of Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi (left) was today indicted on hate crime charges stemming from the secret webcasting of Clementi having sex with another man. Clementi leaped from the George Washington Bridge last year after learning about the broadcast.

Dharun Ravi, a former Rutgers University student, was indicted on 15 counts including charges of invasion of privacy, bias intimidation and tampering with evidence by a grand jury in Middlesex County, N.J. Prosecutors allege that not only did Ravi invade Clementi's privacy, but he tried to cover it up. Both Ravi and his alleged accomplice, former Rutgers student Molly Wei, are accused of filming Clementi during a "sexual encounter" in his dorm room with a man and then streaming it live on the Internet. Evidence against Wei has not yet been presented to a grand jury. Prosecutors allege that on Sept. 19 of last year, Ravi filmed Clementi with the purpose of intimidating him because of his sexual orientation. Ravi "disclosed a photograph, film, videotape, recording or other reproduction of the image of [Clementi]...whose intimate parts were exposed," the indictment reads. When Ravi became worried about being charged with a crime, he sent false tweets in an attempt "to mislead a public servant who was engaged in such proceeding or investigation," the indictment reads.

Clementi's parents have released a statement applauding today's charges.

Gay Kids In Supportive Communities Have Lower Rates Of Suicide Attempts

A new study out of Oregon indicates that gay kids that grow up in a supportive environment are 20% less likely to attempt suicide. We knew this, of course, but now there's some science behind it.

About 1400 -- or between 4 and 5 percent -- of teens surveyed identified themselves as being gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Of those students, almost 22 kids out of every hundred said they had attempted suicide in the past year. That compared to about 4 of every hundred teens who identified as straight and said they had attempted suicide. Suicide attempts were more common in LGB teens who reported being depressed and binge drinking, as well as those who had been victimized by their peers or physically abused by an adult. But even accounting for all those factors, teens' social environment made a difference too. Those who lived in counties that scored poorly on measures of social environment were about 20 percent more likely to have attempted suicide than teens from high-scoring social environments.

Factors that positively affect the gay teen suicide rate: "Teens living in counties with a high proportion of gay and lesbian couples, and those who went to schools with gay-straight alliances and anti-discrimination policies." An abstract of the study is here, subscription is required to read the full report.

40 Activists Walk Into A Room....

Pictured above are the journalists, activists, researchers, allies and bloggers that attended this weekend's Haas Fund-sponsored conference on LGBT youth homelessness, suicide prevention, and immigration equality. All very good people.

UPDATE: Via the Windy City Times, here's everybody's names (from left to right).

Michael Rogers, Eden James, Phil Reese, Andrés Duque, Karen Ocamb, Jeremy Hooper, Jean Albright, Tracy Baim, Ksen Pallegedara, Zack Ford, Joe Mirabella, Carl Siciliano, Chris Geidner, Rod McCullom, Daniel Villarreal, Adam Bink, Chris Johnson, Ed Kennedy, Jerame Davis, Caitlin Ryan, Jason Cianciotto, Bil Browning, Rex Wockner, Elizbeth Plata, Matt Comer, Shannon Minter, Sunni Brydum, Andrew Belonsky, Joe Jervis, Cynthia Laird, Michael Jones, Liza Sabater, Ann Haas, Ed Plata.

#Haas11

I'm in San Francisco for a Haas Fund-sponsored conference on immigration equality, LGBT youth homelessness and suicide prevention. Pretty much every LGBT journalist/blogger you've probably heard of is here in the room with me. You can follow the conference live on Twitter via the hashtag #Haas11.

2010: Soldier Suicides Vs. Combat Deaths

For the second year in a row, last year the number of U.S. soldiers who killed themselves exceeded those killed in battle.

One of the problems hindering the military's attempt to address soldier suicides is that there's no real rhyme or reason to what kind of soldier is killing himself. While many suicide victims are indeed afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after facing heavy combat in the Middle East, many more have never even been deployed. Of the 112 guardsmen who committed suicide last year, more than half had never even left American soil. "If you think you know the one thing that causes people to commit suicide, please let us know,” Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli told the Army Times, "because we don't know what it is."

MINNESOTA: Gay Teen Commits Suicide

Openly gay Minnesota high school student Lance Lundsten, 18, committed suicide this weekend. Friends are blaming bullying.

Around 10 p.m. Saturday the Douglas County Sheriff's Office responded to an emergency call at the Lundsten's residence in Miltona. When officers arrived, they discovered 18-year-old Lance Lundsten needing emergency medical care. Lundsten was transported to the Douglas County Hospital where he later died. The Sheriff's Office confirmed to KSAX that they believed Lundsten's death was a suicide. The Sheriff would not confirm the nature of the medical emergency. According to his Facebook page, Lundsten was openly gay. On a Facebook memorial page in Lundsten's honor, friends said that Lundsten had been bullied at school for his sexual orientation. Some students who knew Lundsten believed the bullying may have led to his suicide.

Lundsten's classmates have launched an anti-bullying Facebook page. Sen. Al Franken sent his condolences to the family, saying, "My heart goes out to Lance's family, and friends and loved ones. It's a tragic event, not only for them, but for the school, and the Alexandria community and really for all of us. LGBT kids really do need more protection." Franken is the cosponsor of a federal anti-bullying bill called the Student Non-Discrimination Act, which would forbid schools from ignoring anti-gay bullying. Christianist groups are vehemently opposing the bill.

Sony Pictures Staffers - It Gets Better

Captain America Fights Teen Suicide

Marvel Comics has responded to the national discussion about teen suicide by issuing a free episode of Captain America in which a boy decides not to kill himself after watching the superhero fight villains.

John Draper, director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a network of crisis centers across the country, told The Associated Press that Marvel approached the organization about using its logo in the book "which we happily granted them." The 11-page story "Captain America: A Little Help" is written by psychologist Tim Ursiny and illustrated by Nick Dragotta. In it, a despondent youth is poised to jump off a building when he spies Captain America facing a bevy of villains on a nearby roof. The fracas keeps him from going over the edge, literally and figuratively. There is no dialogue, save for the end, which ends with the boy saving both the hero and, in the process, himself. "Super heroes fight a lot of battles, but there are few more important than combating suicide," said Tom Brevoort, Marvel Entertainment's senior vice president of publishing.

The issue is available today on the Marvel Comics website.

(Tipped by JMG reader Michael)

Parents Of Dead Student May Sue Rutgers

The parents of Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi have filed notice of possible intent to sue the school. Clementi jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge earlier this year after other students webcast a sexual encounter he'd had with a man in his dorm room.

The parents, Joseph and Jane Clementi of Ridgewood, N.J., filed legal notices with the university on Friday, said Paul Mainardi, a lawyer for the family. By law, they must wait six months to file a lawsuit, but they had to give notice within 90 days after the death to preserve their right to sue. Mr. Mainardi said that the notices did not necessarily signal an intention to sue. “A decision as to whether to file suit against Rutgers University in the future has not been made,” he said.

One of the legal notices filed last week, a notice of tort claim, contends that Rutgers “failed to put in place and/or implement, and enforce, policies and practices that would have prevented or deterred such acts.” Another notice claims the university broke its agreement with Mr. Clementi to protect him. E. J. Miranda, a spokesman for Rutgers, said the university shared the family’s sense of loss and understood that they would question whether an institution or other people were to blame. “While the university understands the reaction,” he said, “the university is not responsible for Tyler Clementi’s suicide.”

The students responsible for the webcast have since withdrawn from the school after being charged with invasion of privacy. They may face additional charges.