"Jumping off the gb bridge, sorry." Those were the last heartbreaking words Tyler Clementi shared with the world on Facebook before jumping off the George Washington Bridge and killing himself. Tyler was the Rutgers University student who took his life after learning that his roommate had posted a video online of Tyler kissing another man. He was so stricken with horror at the prospect of the world coming to learn that he was gay that Tyler decided it was better to leap from a bridge than deal with the shame. Tyler may have driven himself to that bridge, but it is our failure as a society to combat homophobia that wound up taking that poor boy's life.
The only thing more shocking than Tyler's senseless suicide is the fact that people are shocked it happened. All over the news, images of bewildered parents and students questioning this tragedy dominated the narrative, which is puzzling. We live in a nation defended by first-rate gay soldiers, who are treated as second-rate citizens. We live in a nation married to the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that deprives gay Americans of the freedom to marry. We live in a nation with an electorate that condones this kind of discrimination by supporting candidates who hold these discriminatory values. Despite America's exceptionalism, America remains exceptionally bigoted. The subtext of these policies is that there is something wrong with Americans who are born gay. If we are serious about preventing tragedies like that of Tyler Clementi's, we need to combat the source of this homophobic message. One easy way to do so is by supporting candidates for public office who believe in equal protection under the law for all Americans and who do not make distinctions among our people based on their sexual orientation.
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