Student Tyler Clementi committed sucide after being videoed having gay sex.
He was the fourth gay teen suicide in the US this month. The national LGBT community is reeling.
The bullying must stop! Gays must be given equal rights now!
That’s the approved narrative.
But actual events do not support that interpretation of Tyler Clementi’s death. He was aware he had been taped, and didn’t seem that bothered by it. Remarkably unbothered, in fact, compared with how I would feel if someone had surreptitiously made a sex tape featuring me.
The gay lobby is using this young man’s suicide to gain political advantage, as they did with the death of Matthew Shepard.
The approved narrative was that Matthew was murdered simply because he was gay.
The reality is that his death had nothing to do with his sexual orientation. He was killed by two drug addicts, one of whom was known to him (Shepard was also a heavy drug user) in a robbery that went wrong.
There seems to be an instant assumption by Ellen DeGeneres and other ‘being gay is my career’ minor celebrities that the murder or suicide of any person who has ever had gay sex, or ever spoken about gay sex, must have happened because they were gay.
That is not only nonsense, it is insulting. Homosexual people live lives as varied as anyone else.
Their lives are no less likely than those of any other citizen to intersect with people who are cruel or dangerous. More likely in the case of Matthew Shepard, who was both indiscriminately sexually active, and a drug abuser.
To claim these deaths for political purposes disregards other aspects of the lives of the victims. It makes them one dimensional, cardboard cutouts suitable for placards, not real people.
It is cynical and exploitative.
I made some similar points over at another website (albeit less eloquently). It appears as though there is a “suicide template” the media works from (for “suicide” bombers and suicidal gays).
How quickly, the media rushed to judgment on this one. Apparently, when a farmer kills himself it is unethical to report it because of the so-called copycat syndrome, but the rules quickly change when political points can be won, hence the sensational coverage, and associated sermons.
The real victims are the loved ones left behind and those in charge of cleaning up these messes. But I think the narrative is already backfiring.
I’m curious where you read, or whatever, that he wasn’t bothered by the videotaping. It’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s just that the articles I’ve read have had so little information. I was talking to my partner about it last night and I pointed out that, based on what I’ve read, that may not have been the reason he committed suicide. I drew that conclusion because there’s no information I’ve seen that mentions if and/or how he found out about it and when.
Sure. Just follow the first link in the post. That will take you a web page which has his own comments on a message board over the few nights before he jumped or fell from the bridge.
Would still love to see our media focus more on suicides here in regional Australia (especially across Queensland).
The U.S. suicide was on the top of Yahoo Oz News for heaven’s sake.
To me, one of the central issues is bias although I admit that farmers don’t belong to the media’s favourite minority group.
Yes. Farmers are male, usually. And they do something useful. So no wonder the mainstream media have no time for them.
Got it. It’s kinda hard to see the highlight for links and it’s not just me.
Thanks. I know they can be hard to see. I will try to do something about that over the next few days. Cheers.