Targeted student: 'It's hard not to say something'
By the CNN Wire Staff
Bullying is in our schools, and it's online. Why do kids do it? What can be done to put an end to it? Don't miss an "AC360°" special report in collaboration with People magazine, "Bullying: No Escape," all this week at 10 p.m. ET on CNN.
New York (CNN) -- Chris Armstrong, the University of Michigan's first openly gay student body president, said the recent rash of headlines about gay teens who have committed suicide led him to break his silence about his own hurtful experience of being targeted online and in high school.
"It's hard not to say something," Armstrong told CNN's Anderson Cooper on "AC360" Wednesday night. Photo
For months, Armstrong has been the subject of the blog "Chris Armstrong Watch," which is published by Andrew Shirvell, a lawyer in the Michigan attorney general's office.
Shirvell and Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox have both maintained that the blog is Shirvell's personal project, that's done during nonwork hours and without any official resources.
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Michigan official attacks gay student body president in blog
The Washington Post
Soon after University of Michigan students elected their first openly gay student body president this spring, a Michigan assistant attorney general started Chris Armstrong Watch, a blog to monitor the student leader's every move.
Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell, a Michigan alum, accuses Armstrong of being "a dangerous homosexual 'rights' extremist," among other things. Shirvell chronicles Armstrong's dating life, posts video taken outside the student's house, writes about Armstrong's family and follows the student's friends on Facebook. The first blog post features a photo of Armstrong overlaid with a rainbow flag and a swastika, plus the word "resign."
The state official is demanding that the student official resign. Students are demanding that the state official lose his job.
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GAY TEENAGE SUICIDES…is, At Root, A Religious Problem - Rhetoric Espoused by Anti-Gay Christians
Gay Catholics DENIED Communion by Twin Cities RC Archbishop Nienstedt
Tony Jones, October 8, 2010,
MinnPost.com
Up here in the barren northland, there’s been a dust-up in the ongoing struggle of the church in America to accept GLBT persons. This time it’s the Catholic church, the St. Paul & Minneapolis Archdiocese of which recently mailed tens of thousands of copies of a DVD opposing gay marriage to its communicants. Of course, the DVD is timed to arrive as we approach mid-term elections.
Sexual orientation - Internalized Homophobia - “Auschwitz – Benedict XVI - Christmas 2008 -A flashback far more severe than in Brokeback Mountain” GAY TEENAGE SUICIDE - Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
…Nothing in life is more precious than the intimate relationships we have with love ones. Healthy love relationships delight us give us confidence to take on challenges and support us in difficult times…
Hating Gays: An Overview of Scientific Studies
by Gregory M. Herek
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
…It frequently is assumed that feelings of personal threat result in strong negative attitudes toward homosexuality, whereas lack of threat leads to neutral or positive attitudes. This perspective often is associated with the term homophobia, and it derives from a psychodynamic view that prejudiced attitudes serve to reduce tension aroused by unconscious conflicts.
Unsubstantiated] --- RELIGIOUS BELIEFS that gay and lesbian relationships are SINFUL or INFERIOR to heterosexual relationships
HARM gays and lesbians.
Judge Vaughn Walker Ruling
California Prop 8. August 4, 2010
UNIDENTIFIED - Internalized Homophobia – Devastating, and Horrific Consequences On Innocent Children - PERPETUATING GENERATIONS HATRED & VIOLENCE ---
…When we speak of internalized homophobia, we refer to the shame, denigration and anger turned inward onto the self of the homosexual individual either as a re-internalization or from the absorption of homophobic attitudes in the environment and then identifying with the hated and feared object. The primary emotion is shame, but a whole gamut of inhibitions, loss of self esteem, depression and self-destructive behavior often follow. Ralph Roughton, M.D.
“Someday, maybe, there will exist a well-informed, well considered and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child’s spirit.”
Erik Erikson
"Impending rules on gay priests create Catholic divide"
by Charles Honey – October 8, 2005
The Grand Rapids Press
When the Rev. Martin Kurylowicz came out to his Sparta parish eight years ago, he said he had struggled for years with his homosexuality.
The Catholic priest says the struggle would be made harder for many others if the Vatican issues new rules that reportedly would ban gays from becoming priests…
…"I sizzled when I read it," said Kurylowicz, 55. "It's very hurtful, is what it is. In this day and age, there's no reason for it. It sends a message that there's something wrong with gays."
Kurylowicz said he spoke out then to raise awareness of violence against gays and teach others homosexuality is not a choice but an inborn trait. Church leaders still don't understand that and contribute to gays' poor self-esteem, he said…
…"Kids as young as 4 or 5 know they're different," said Kurylowicz, a psychotherapist… "They grow up with this pervasive guilt, which sabotages their growth and motivation." The result is thousands of dollars in therapy to accept their natural orientation, he said, adding, "Does the Vatican want to take that on, like the tobacco industry had to take on for the damage it caused consumers? "…
Read complete article: by Charles Honey - Religion Editor - The Grand Rapids Press – Archives
July 2010
President of the United StatesUnited States CongressUnited States Supreme Court
Dear -- --------,
My name is Fr. Marty Kurylowicz, a Roman Catholic priest from the Diocese of Grand Rapids Michigan ordained June 16, 1979.
In March 1997, after attending a National Symposium of the New Ways Ministry that was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I learned that children as young as 4 and 5 years of age know that they are different. This feeling "different" is only identified in their adult years as being gay. However, the harmful influence of antigay social and religious norms -- in particular, for Catholics, the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings -- are severe and last throughout a child’s lifetime. The harmful effects are not isolated only to these children who grow up to be gay, but also affect their families, siblings, friends and anyone whom they might consider special in their lives. They are a prescribed societal sentence of implicit isolation, which place at risk of suicide so many innocent adolescents and young adults. They stifle an enormous amount of human potential in the world that otherwise could be put to use for finding cures for diseases, offering better ways of maintaining peace among people and improving the quality of life for everyone in the world.Gay Marriage - “SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE” Does Not Give Churches Or Benedict XVI - The Freedom To Abuse Children or Adults. July 2010 - By Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
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