When does someone lose the right to attend school safely?
When is it right to ignore that someone else has feelings?
When is it good for someone to kill themselves?
Oh, yeah. When someone is gay.
I would like to say that all of the aforementioned is a joke, but, frankly, it’s not funny. And the increase in suicides among homosexual teenagers tell us it’s not entirely fictional — some people accept gay = inhuman as a real philosophy. Some people apparently feel that it’s acceptable to bully homosexual teens to the point of suicide.
But there are also some real people making a real difference. The It Gets Better Project is a movement begun by columnist Dan Savage and his husband aimed at delivering a simple but crucial message to homosexual teens — it does get better. The project revolves around video contributions to further the anti-bullying message.
Contributors have included President Barack Obama, Lady Gaga, and the San Francisco Giants, alongside so many others shedding their lime light on the worthy cause. But it’s not only household names submitting videos – anyone can contribute, and tens of thousands have so far, videos that have received over 40 million views collectively. The mesh of videos, a mix of stardom and everyday people, serves to highlight the outpouring and variety of support the movement has received.
But all the light cast by this movement further defines the shadows of our society. Is our generation, the so-called Millennials as progressive as we thought? As open-minded as we’ve been deemed?
The answer to this is no… and yes.
No, in the sense that bullying, a product of intolerance, sparked the It Gets Better Project – deadly ignorance that contradicts the generational tag of acceptance.
But also a resounding yes in that such a massive movement likely couldn’t have existed in any other generation, and not just because of the advent of computers and web-cams. The upheaval of support for victims of bullying is made possible by those willing to speak up for the homosexual minority, regardless of their own orientation.
We’ve been battling the stigma on homosexuality for decades, and we’ve gotten to the point where our wins are outweighing our losses. So perhaps it’s not that our generation is more tolerant, but that we’re more defiant. Our generation has proved unruly in some of the best ways possible – unafraid to stand up against ignorance and homophobia.
The very name of the project – It Gets Better – is indicative of both the challenge for and the hope of the Millennials and every succinctly named generation to come. It gets better, yes, but we have to work to make it that way. And there’s always work to be done, new heights to reach. But that’s the beauty of the idea. There is no limit to what we can do, as it can always get better. As long as we make it so.
