This morning I was reading the news on 365gay.com, one of my favorite LGBT news sites because it's updated frequently and carries LGBT news from around the world, and I saw an article about a recent tragic event in Texas. 

You can read the full article HERE----but to sum it up, a Texas man was recently arrested for murder.  His 18-year-old daughter was dating another girl and her homophobic father was none too happy about it...NOR apparently was he happy with the other girl's mother for allowing the relationships.  So he went to the home of his daughter's girfriend and shot and killed both her AND her mother.  Even worse, he commited this heinous crime WHILE his daughter was in their home so that his own daughter was present to find the bodies and witness the horrifying results of her own father's hatred!!

Now, I certanly hear & read lots of stories online about messed up bullsh*# that happens to members of our community----but this story, for some reason really struck a nerve.  Perhaps it's because I was recently witness to a conversation between two people in which one person was claiming that homophobia doesn't really exist anymore and that queer people are "too sensitive" these days and should "realize it's way better than it ever was before"......or perhaps it's because this past Friday was the National Day of Silence and I had the opportunity, as I do every year, to spend it surrounded by hundreds of queer and queer-affirming youth from our area celebrating who they are and commemorating lives lost to violence and suicide....and perhaps it's because Maggie Gallagher, the henchwoman of the National Organization for Marriage (a leading anti-gay group in the US), was once again over the weekend making the case that social homophobia and banning gay marriage has no impact on LGBT youth and/or queer teen suicide.

This will hopefully not be news to any of our loyal readers here at everybodysgood-----but just a few thoughts to ponder: 

Does homophobia still exist?  YES, OF COURSE!  Violence like this is OBVIOUSLY evidence that a deep-seeded hatred of queer people still exists in our culture and that this hatred is very much like a cancer----destructive and unhealthy!

Are things better than they used to be?  Sure, probably, in most places---but I'd suggest that in many places we're seeing the pendulum swing back in the other direction with more and more states limiting our civil rights to marry and adopt and with a handful of states even attempting to recrimininalize gay people & gay sex.  That not-withstanding, I think a better question than "are things better than they were" should REALLY be "are things as good as they SHOULD/COULD be?" The answer to that question is clearly NO.

And does social homophobia contribute to queer teen suicide?  ABSOLUTELY!!!  Don't let hate-mongers like Maggie Gallagher and her ilk fool you.....they want to claim that their movement to stifle equality for LGBT people is in no way related to a culture where so many queer youth feel suicide is their only and/or best option.  But here's the truth:  when we live in a society that so actively and viscerally limits the lives of queer people, one of the fallouts (whether intentional or not) is that it creates a sense of hopelessness in young people who recognize who and what they are....it strips them of their sense of possibility....it robs them of what should be every young person in this country's birthright: hope for the future.  So when those same youth end up in harm's way at their own hands...the culture and society that taught them that their futures were so bleak is aboslutely partially to blame!