When will this stop?

I have to get this out.

 Perhaps you’ve heard about the four teen suicides in the past 3 weeks. Haven’t heard of them?

“Tyler Clementi a freshman at Rutgers University jumped to his death last week off a bridge a day after authorities say two classmates surreptitiously recorded him having sex with a man in his dorm room and broadcast it over the Internet.
Seth Walsh, 13, committed suicide last week after years of being bullied. The police interviewed several of the students who teased Walsh but determined their actions did not constitute a crime, news reports say.
Asher Brown, also 13, shot himself after being harassed at his middle school in Houston. According to news reports, his parents said they had complained to the school authorities, but the bullying continued. The school reports that no complaints were made.
Billy Lucas, a 15-year-old in Indiana, hanged himself Thursday after being bullied. He never told anyone he was gay, but his classmates acknowledged that he was teased because students assumed he was.”

(quotation from http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blogpost/2010/09/suicide_of_gay_teenagers_four.html)

But this really isn’t even a gay issue. It isn’t even just a youth issue. This is an issue, because people all over the world, (although especially young people), are being told, sometimes indirectly, that whoever they are, whether they’re black, white, gay, straight, male, female, Christian, Muslim, is wrong, that they don’t matter, that they are something that can be laughed at, something that doesn’t have to be taken seriously.

Who you are is NOT WRONG. I don’t care what your “friends”, adults, Churches, classmates tell you. You are NOT a mistake, and you are exactly what God wants you to be.

People notice little things. If you think that somebody isn’t going to notice being called a retard, faggot, nigger or slut, think again. Let’s step up to the plate here, and make a change.

I honestly don’t know what I’m going to accomplish by writing this. Most of the people who are reading this probably aren’t guilty of intense bullying. But as long as we stand back, and take the attitude of “not my problem”, this problem will honestly be all of our problems.

Peace.
Daniel

Oh and by the way....

Oh and by the way, I am not wearing a dress as Katherine in Henry V. Honestly, that's what everybody asks me, but seriously? It's hardly like dresses are the only thing that women wear. If you're a woman, look down at what you're wearing. Are you wearing a dress? I didn't think so. You're probably wearing pants.

Hey look, two rants in one day. Lucky you.

I am constantly amazed at the lack of tack and privacy on facebook. Can't anything stay off? Do you really have to tell the entire world when you're invited to something, etc.? Constantly, I see people posting a lot of stuff that is certainly sensitive material. Seriously, think before you post something. Use your brains, and think about whether it could hurt or affect somebody who might not share your joy. If you're old enough to use facebook, you're old enough to have tact.

I'm having a nice day, hope you are. :)

Gay men can't donate blood? What the...???

SOMEWHAT MATURE CONTENT BELOW

Are you ready for a rant? Well, you're going to get one.

I just found out that Canadian Blood Services does not allow gay men to donate blood. You can read their reasons for it here. They say that

"The basic premise for our policy pertaining to men who have had sex with men is that the prevalence and incidence of HIV is much higher in males who have had sex with other males than it is in individuals having exclusively heterosexual sex."

Sure, that's true, but cleanliness should be the issue more that sexual orientation. I can certainly understand that they are trying to keep people safe and stop HIV from spreading through blood, but seriously? Ban all gays from donating blood? Even the huge majority that is HIV free? And do they realize that 60% of all HIV+ people got it from exclusively heterosexual incidents? Perhaps CBS should have some kind of screening process for everyone to make sure that nobody has HIV, straight or otherwise. Sure, they might lose some donors, but they'd gain a lot of people from the GBLT community.