BULLYING

The suicide last week by a gay teenager, Jamy Rodemeyer, who had been constantly bullied at school is heartbreaking. Tragically he is not alone in not being able to look longer in the eye of the storm. After the unspeakable murder of Matthew Sheppard one might have hoped that the anti-gay epidemic had reached the apex of horror. Unfortunately, this travesty of all that is good and compassionate still continues today and the torment on social networking websites continues unabated. Cyber-harassment rules.

Paradoxically, this was supposed to be a festive time following the end of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the military. It is naïve to imagine that from now on the military barracks will become havens for harmony between straight and gay. The bully always finds a victim, whatever the good intentions of the military establishment might be on the surface. In the US today the tectonic tensions between Right and Progressive often look unstoppable. The social incompatibilities are becoming a tsunami which can destroy everything in its path. The Founding Fathers wouldn’t believe the language spoken today. The real progress which unfolds lately has to pay a disproportionate price to the hordes of Creationists, Libertarians, and right-wing Republicans who run amok. The defenders of Darwin, climate change, and sexual diversity are on the defensive.

Rodemeyer’s suicide is the direct result of a perverse pollution which is undermining the usual civilized, moral and intellectual American discourse. Soon we will have to watch, walk and listen wearing a facemask to avoid being contaminated by the hatred which is lurking. Gay men and women in the army had to deal with a double death syndrome, death in combat and in their soul, which they felt obliged to bury before time. As a diplomat I was obliged to find refuge in a form of Spinozism, while having to overhear the unpleasantness of comments and insinuations which hurt more than I was willing to admit. All this is trivial compared to the many victims who are “shredded” because their chosen path diverges from the main road. Progress has been achieved since Stonewall. It had to be taken away from the claws of the church, obscurantist forces, hostile workplaces and sadly, from unloving families. Dan Savage and Terry Miller started the “It gets better project” against the acid rain of bullying. People of good will are indignant but tears are no match for the granite walls of indifference or blatant bigotry.

Death is indifferent to good timing but Jamy’s lonely act, now in the midst of the general political pollution, might help some to reflect and to still hear for one moment, far away, a Gregorian song amidst the vulgarity of noise.