Monday, November 8, 2010

SPOTLIGHT: Novel looks at being gay in high school - By Rex W. Huppke, November 8, 2010 - Chicago Tribune


"Love Drugged"


…Klise's book, his first novel, arrives at a time when the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is dealing with issues on several fronts, from debate over the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy to the suicide of a gay Rutgers University freshman after a video of his sexual encounter was streamed online by other students. In addition, Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina recently said he didn't believe gays should be allowed to be teachers, and New York Republican gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino last month said children shouldn't be "brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option."

Richard Carroll, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, said LGBT teenagers are four to five times more likely to experience suicidal thoughts or attempt suicide, compared with heterosexual adolescents.

"These external stresses, which often take the form of being openly negative about being homosexual, they creep their way in internally," Carroll said. "The suicide at Rutgers, attacks on adolescents who are gay and adults who are gay. It's hard for most straight people to appreciate how insidious those negative messages are."…
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“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.”



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