"I have been an advocate for my peers and most importantly youth because most have never had a deep emotional attachment to anyone. They don't know how to love and be loved in return. The need to be loved can sometimes translate to the need to belong to someone or something. Driven by that need".. Most will do anything to belong."
"...To love and be loved in return."
Yes, I got that too. Nat King Cole. "There was a boy..." Jefferson's
words resonate with beauty and desperation: here was a man who was
trying to help African-American gay youth to see that there was hope,
even though he never really found that hope himself. He was like some
person trapped in a burning house, screaming for everyone else to save
themselves. Perhaps his desolation came from two sources: the Christian
Right and the African-American community. Perhaps the hypocrisy was too
great for him to bear after the Bishop Eddie Long scandal came out: he
may have thought "Perhaps they're just out there to use us and abuse
us."
Many people in the Christian Right
live in a love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin fantasy world, so much so that
they almost believe it. Almost. For down deep in their minds, hearts
and souls is the knowledge that to most people sin and sinner are
rarely separated, and loving the sinner in spite of the sin takes too
much effort, too much courage. Hate is so much easier. Jesus Christ
knew that when he told people to "love thine enemy. Be good to those
who despise you." At the time of Roman occupation, loving the enemy was
unthinkable., it was insane, it was treason.
The
defense of Tony Perkins is totally unsustainable. the Christian Right's
culpability in gay suicides is overwhelmingly obvious: Joseph Jefferson
took his own life because Tony & Friends made life unbearable for
him, because hypocrites like Bishop Eddie Long humiliated him, and
because he could no longer stand the onslaught of hatred coming from a
supposedly "Christian Nation."
There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy
And sad of eye
But very wise
Was he
And then one day
A magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
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