Spirit Day--Oct. 20, 2011--A few of the Lost Boys to remind us of all the ones we don't hear about.

There are the professional homophobes, the Christianists who make a living out of selling hate. There are politicians who get ahead by dividing us. There are run of the mill haters who simply enjoy hurting people. There are the young bullies tormenting school kids.

And then there are a number of people who let the haters have their way because they don't really want to deal with this issue. They especially don't want to deal with gay youth because that would mean they would have to rethink all of the misinformation they've been hearing for years and half believing, and they would rather not think about it at all.

‎"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Our generation will have to repent not only for the words and acts of the children of darkness, but also for the fears and apathy of the children of light."

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

That's still true today. The problem really isn't just a few bad apples, a small group of bullies that need to be rounded up. It's a systemic problem. The fact that schools are having such a hard time addressing this problem is evidence of that. They don't want to face this problem because in large measure they don't really want the problem solved. At the core there is this idea that some people are better than others. And in regard to this specific problem, there's the idea that people who don't conform to preset gender roles are not as valuable as those who do, and this includes but is not limited to sexual interest and activity.