OUT of the Woods

 " Careful the things you say,
Children will listen "

The NYT revisited the Tyler Clementi case yesterday in a heart breaking story of loss and attempted redemption.

After Gay Son’s Suicide, Mother Finds Blame in Herself and in Her Church 

By KATE ZERNIKE Published: August 24, 2012 

RIDGEWOOD, N.J. — When Tyler Clementi told his parents he was gay, two days before he left for Rutgers University in the fall of 2010, he said he had known since middle school. 

“So he did have a side that he didn’t open up to us, obviously,” his mother, Jane Clementi, said, sitting in her kitchen here nearly two years later. “That was one of the things that hurt me the most, that he was hiding something so much. Because I thought we had a pretty open relationship.”

 In her surprise, she had peppered him with questions: “How do you know? Who are you going to talk to? Who are you going to tell?” Tyler told a friend that the conversation had not gone well. His father had been “very accepting,” he wrote in a text message. “Mom has basically completely rejected me.”

 Three weeks later, he jumped off the George Washington Bridge after discovering that his roommate had used a webcam to spy on him having sex and that he had sent out Twitter messages encouraging others to watch. ( the rest - I posted as well on facebook, if you have not ,please read the whole story )

I wrote about this story at the time, and have thought about it many times since. This article sheds much new light on the sad story of young Tyler Clementi, making things much more complex than I thought from the beginning , of what then seemed like a multi faceted story.

It is as much about the family as it it Tyler, a kid who on the surface was adapting well to being an out gay college freshman. The mother, or maybe the entire family belonged to a holy roller church all fire and brimstone that preached the evils of homo-sexuality - with the shit ton of guilt that puts on a child.

Here is the paragraph that put me over the edge, and brought you more than just a link to a sad story: "In the months after Tyler’s death, some of Ms. Clementi’s friends confided that they, too, had gay children. She blames religion for the shame surrounding it — in the conversation about coming out, Tyler told his mother he did not think he could be Christian and gay."

I am eyeball freaking deep in the so called leftist gay church - call it what you will. I was even deeper in it when Neil was going all over the country working for the LGBT  Episcopal group Integrity. I sit , watch and listen to these people go on and on about the good works that they do - their navel gazing to the point of  my violent vomiting. Each and every religious leader- to the person- fighting for an always bigger spot light and louder microphone to shout out to the world, just how hard they are working for the LGBT cause and the betterment of all people, " look at what a Saint I am ". Followed by weeks, months, years of back fighting and/or  glory hounding. The one word I hear BY FAR the most out of every one of these people is "I". 
So Forty years post Stonewall, where the VERY first post riot meetings were held in an Episcopal church, Forty years of " Jesus loves us all " , and the creation of all gay churches , forty years of talk talk talk  - and this young man, living in the shadow of New York City - not some back water podunk cowtown - " did not know you could be gay and be a Christian " ?!?  This is certainly not just to call out the Episcopal Church either - they all have a little blood on their hands for this one.

I rail about the totally feckless " religious left ' constantly. Seems to me, like they have the exact same weekly meetings that the anti gay religious right has - and yet they could not - after all that time, get a simple message out . This in no way takes a hint of blame off the hate spewing anti gay church, doing so so much damage to so very many CHILDREN, that they all claim to be working so hard to protect.
 I am now, VERY sadly to the point of being so jaded by everything I have seen and still see, that I fear they can't or maybe won't ever get their ( the totality of the liberal church ) acts together to get out the true message of pure love . Some mirrors are just too big and some heads are just too far up some asses......

Tyler Clementi
December 19, 1991 – September 22, 2010