Stop The Hate/ Stop The Discrimination

Hi there

I am reading of yet another suicide of a gay teen and I’m moved to tears, I’m moved to anger and I’m moved to action..

Melissa Pope, director of the uUniversity of Oakland, Michigan’s Gender and Sexuality Center, said of the recent suicides in the media: “We must look beyond the term “bullying” to the overall treatment of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community to begin to grasp the long-standing epidemic of suicide among our LGBT youth.”

“While the national press has picked up this issue over the last two months, we have been losing high numbers of LGBT youth to suicide for decades. In recent years, we’ve labeled the cause as bullying. But the root cause goes deeper – it goes to the very core of our society that discriminates against the LGBT community on all levels, including the denial of basic human rights that are supposed to belong to every person.”

I can no longer sit by idly and watch as LGBT teens are dying left and right. Yes, we've made videos to hang in there, we've worn purple, we've lit lots and lots of candles. But we must do more. Lives are quite literally at stake.

I am proposing that we start stepping up in our actions to Stop The Hate. We need to stop the hate in the schools by getting the safe schools legislation passed now. We need to stop the hate in educating everyone around us how LGBT people are just as valuable and necessary in this world and global society as everyone else. We need to stop the hate in the laws of the land and write 'sexual orientation and gender identity' into the Civil Rights Act of 1964, thus doing away with the justifications for DADT, DOMA, and disparities in workplace discrimination practices, healthcare practices, adoption, immigration and so much more.

As long as we teach our children that hate and discrimination is okay, they will continue to hate and discriminate. Stop the Hate now! Stop the discrimination now!!

If you are as angry and motivitaed as I am right now, send me an email at angelhart47@gmail.com and let me know when we can meet, talk over the phone or email to plan actions to put a stop to all this and not let one more life be cut short.

Join with me and Poz Activists Network in actions in the coming weeks and months to Stop the Hate/Stop the Discrimination.

Kelly Rivera Hart

Poz Activists Network