Raw, but c*nsored blabbing and blogging of a young journalista
and local news producer in Southern New England.
email topstorylive % at # gmail + dot = com

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Gay teens getting nurturing from both sides

CNN recently fed to their affiliates a story on gay teens getting nurturing... no matter if it's okay or it's something they have to be helped out of.

[snip]
SURPRISINGLY, BOTH CONSERVATIVES AND LIBERALS WANT TO TAKE THEM UNDER THEIR WINGS.

TOM FOREMAN SPEAKS TO COREY CLARK OF SHILLINGTON, PENNSYLVANIA, WHO SAYS HE SEES NOTHING WRONG WITH BEING GAY.

[Hmm. I wonder if that lede was written by a newscast producer or writer who hadn't been involved with the story. Does that jibe with Clark's belief outlined later?]

--REPORTER PKG-AS FOLLOWS--

THE SUBURBS OF READING, PENNSYLVANIA, ARE HARD WORKING, HARD PRAYING COMMUNITIES... TRADITIONALLY, HARD PLACES FOR A TEENAGER TO SAY HE IS GAY.

BUT HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR COREY CLARK DID JUST THAT LAST YEAR...ADMITTING FEELINGS THAT STARTED LONG AGO.

[Friends ended up accepting him, and treating him just the same.]

BUOYED BY GROWING PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE, AND POSITIVE MEDIA IMAGES OF GAYS, RESEARCHERS SAY MORE TEENS ARE COMING OUT EARLIER... BEFORE COLLEGE. COREY IS THE CENTERPIECE OF AN ARTICLE IN TIME BY JOHN CLOUD, WHO CAME OUT AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE.

John Cloud, Time Magazine:
"if you look at the research now, the average gay person comes out just before or just after graduating from high school...so right around eighteen. and the average same sex attracted kid is first engaging in sexual behavior at the age of 15... so these ages were surprising to us."

THE GAY COMMUNITY IS WELCOMING THESE TEENS; CLOUD'S RESEARCH SHOWS GAY RIGHTS ADVOCATES HAVE HELPED RAISE THE NUMBER OF GAY-STRAIGHT ALLIANCE CLUBS AT HIGH
SCHOOLS FROM ONE-HUNDRED TO THREE-THOUSAND IN TEN YEARS...

[snip]

BUT WHAT GAY ACTIVISTS CALL SUPPORT, SOME RELIGIOUS GROUPS CALL RECRUITING....

Robert Knight, Concerned Women for America:
"more kids are struggling with this problem because it's being promoted in our culture over and over...through television, mtv, radio, movies, you name it... even the schools themselves are promoting the idea that it's normal. so more kids are getting caught up in it, and that's a tragedy."

[Note that TRAGEDY is the same word used to describe things like the deaths of thousands of people, and about a third of Shakespeare's more dramatic plays.]

SO CONSERVATIVES ARE EXPANDING THEIR COUNSELING SERVICES; NO LONGER CONDEM[n]ING GAY TEENS SO MUCH AS SAYING THEY ARE ACCEPTED, THEY ARE LOVED.... AND THEY CAN CHANGE THEIR SEXUAL PREFERENCE... EVEN THOUGH MANY MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS DISAGREE.

[The bolding is mine...]

ADVOCATES OF WHAT IS CALLED CONVERSION THERAPY SAY AT SUCH YOUNG AGES, THESE KIDS MAY BE CONFUSED, MAY BE EXPERIMENTING... BUT THEY ARE NOT NECESSARILY, IRREVERSIBLY HOMOSEXUAL.

Dr. Walter Jones, Liberty's Voice:
"and i find it very interesting that gay rights activists constantly put up this front that it's o.k. for somebody that's struggling with these feelings to be encouraged into homosexuality, but not o.k. for them to be encouraged out of it."

COREY CLARK SAYS HE WENT TO ONE OF THE BIG CAMPS CALLED EXODUS, WHERE HE TALKED A LOT ABOUT BEING GAY... AND HE ACCEPTED A CONSERVATIVE CORE BELIEF.

Corey Clark:
"i believe you could choose not to be gay."

CNN's Tom Foreman:
"you think you could?"

Corey Clark:
"i could. it's a possibility. but it's not a choice i see myself making any time soon."

[So, HA! ...I mean, I think...]

CHURCHES THAT FULLY ACCEPT GAYS INTO THEIR CONGREGATIONS ARE A PRONOUNCED MINORITY. STILL, SO MANY TEENS SEEM AT EASE WITH GAY FRIENDS... THOSE CHURCHES ARE TRYING TO CONVINCE OTHER CHURCHES TO RECONSIDER...

Rev. Dean Snyder, Foundry United Methodist Church:
"we'd better look at examining our own biases and prejudices against gay folks because if we don't get over it we're going to lose our credibility, i think, with young adults in general."

THE SEASONS ARE CHANGING IN PENNSYLVANIA AND THE TIMES ARE, TOO: SOME SAY FOR
BETTER, SOME SAY FOR WORSE.

AND COREY CLARK IS IN THE MIDDLE; CAUGHT BETWEEN THE VALUES HE GREW UP WITH,
AND THE VALUES HE IS GROWING INTO.

-----END-----CNN.SCRIPT

I was rereading The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told by Paul Rudnick and somehow this is tied to it: typical couplings are primarily tied to the procreation and continuation of the species, aren't they?

Therefore:
--there are so many people on the Earth that it is a given that the species will continue (for the near future at least)
--it is not necessary to solely couple man and woman together for love or sex (sex is necessary to continue the species, love is just a fringe benefit -- so we don't feel "lonely": "People were meant to walk two by two," according to Thornton Wilder's Our Town)
--It is a "mature" or technological (?) idea that men and women don't have to be married or in love to procreate the species
--If for some reason people DO stop procreating (which is doubtful) simply because more gay relationships are pursued -- and the species dies out -- then isn't THAT written by God?

I had to select for an OkCupid test a week or so ago whether I believed in God or not. No qualifications; YES or NO. And I had to admit that I don't believe in God. I couldn't say "Well, I kind of feel, or would like to believe, that there is some deciding factor or being out there overseeing all this... rather than it being chaos."

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 11/12/2005 06:59:00 PM ... Email this entry ...
...
..........