Joel Burns tells gay teens "it gets better"

This is one of the most moving videos testimonials I've ever seen. Watch it all the way through as he begins revealing things he's kept hidden his entire life.

It Really Does Get Better.

In the news last night was the story of the boy who jumped to his death after his roommate hid a camera and broadcast, over the Internet, the kid having sex (with another boy).

One prank. One camera. One dead kid.

How afraid was this boy?

So afraid that he felt it was better to be dead than for anyone to know.

And how did it come to be like this? What made him so afraid?

It's the question I don't hear get asked that often. But I can tell you that I grew up absolutely terrified of being discovered. Terrified. I was so terrified that when I finally did come out to myself, I shut off my family, ran to the nearest big city -- Dallas, in this case -- and never spoke about it to them.

This hurt my younger brother, especially, because, to him, it looked like I had abandoned our family -- which, I suppose, is exactly what I did, though it didn't feel that way to me, at the time. (And I was unaware of the pain I was inflicting on him and everyone else.)

I've been addressing the issue of teen suicide for years here on the Bonus Round site and in my work, beginning with almost the first day I went online. I believe the first song I wrote after The Last Session was "Gabi's Song (Will It Always Be Like This?)" about Gabi and her son, Bill, followed shortly thereafter by "William's Song" about William Wagner who was beaten a lot, but survived.

For me, growing up gay meant keeping a part of me closed off and hidden, though I don't blame my family or even my church members who were always  nothing but loving toward me. (But, then, none of them "knew" my secret. Or, if they did, it either didn't matter to them or they were too afraid to talk about it since these things weren't discussed when I was young. It was a different world back then.)

Dan Savage has started a new Internet meme called "It Gets Better." Videos of adults who survived those years telling young people that it really does get better, and that it's worth trying to survive.

Here is the one from San Francisco Gay Mens Chorus. All my friends! It's really terrific.



I have only barely discussed this topic with my family members. It brings up so much pain.

I think they worry that I am blaming them, or saying that I had a terrible childhood. Some have said to me, "Everyone always loved you and treated you well."

And they did. But we have never actually talked about it. Not really. And even typing these words makes me cringe in horror. Seriously.

How do I tell my parents, the most loving people on the planet -- and I mean that, sincerely -- that I was living in a parallel universe to them? One racked with pain and stomach churning agony, many nights? All it does is make them feel it's their fault, or that I'm holding them, somehow, responsible?

Or, worse, that I hold the specific fundamentalist Christianity that I grew up with, responsible

They didn't hear the subtle clues. The Bible Camp where the preacher brought up this issue.

Christ. I haven't thought about this for years. It was one of the first times I ever heard the subject raised. This guy was a piece of work. He was from Dallas. That I remember, which is significant because it was different and had more money than the little backwoods country church in Buna.

He had me bawling my eyes out. I was crying to God. He said I was "like this" because my daddy paid too much attention to the church and not enough attention to his family. Oh, how could my daddy have done this to me? Waa. Waa. Waa.

And, somewhere, in the middle of all this psychological manipulation, that's when I knew I was being played for a sucker.

It was like something turned in me.

Really, preacher man? You're gonna badmouth my daddy?

So, yeah, it gets better.

I don't see them often, but we email a lot. And next Monday, I turn 57.

And where do I find myself the day before? In church, singing a special. I've been wracking my brain all week, trying to think of the right song. Any ideas?

May 8 is the anniversary of Bill Clayton's death.

Bill Clayton's tragic death led to his mother becoming an advocate for safe schools and advocacy for families who are victims of violence. And it led to the creation of New World Waking when her story caught the eye of George Michael.

I Enter This Battle Gravely - John Fitzgerald & Steve

Another piece from our January 2010 performance of New World Waking at St. Clement's. Here is John Fitzgerald and myself singing.

Why I Wrote William's Song.

This is what Carolyn Wagner fought for, and why I wrote "William's Song."

Justice Department Intervenes In Gay Rights Suit

by Ari Shapiro

January 15, 2010

For the first time in a decade, Justice Department lawyers have moved to intervene in a lawsuit on behalf of a gay high school student who was beaten up for being effeminate.

The case marks a novel interpretation of the Title IX statute, which prohibits discrimination against students on the basis of gender.

Gay and lesbian groups see it as a bold statement about the Obama administration's priorities.

Brutal Harassment

The case centers around a 15-year-old named Jacob who lives in the town of Mohawk in upstate New York. His family requested that Jacob be identified only by his first name.

"He is one of the greatest, loving, timid kids you could meet," says Jacob's father, Robbie Sullivan, who does not share his son's last name. "I love him to death, and he doesn't give me a bit of problem at all."

Long before Jacob came out of the closet at age 14, he was harassed for being effeminate. According to court papers, kids threw food at him and told him to get a sex change. One student pulled out a knife and threatened to string Jacob up the flagpole. A teacher allegedly told Jacob to "hate himself every day until he changed."

One day, Jacob came home from school limping. That evening, he called his father from a party and said he had sprained his ankle at the party.

Sullivan described taking his son to the hospital: "It was a really bad sprain. They put a cast on it, gave him crutches. And shortly after that, I found out that it didn't happen at the party. It happened at the school, because somebody had pushed him down the stairs."

Over two years, Sullivan went to his son's school three or four times a week to talk with the principal. According to court papers, officials did nothing. The harassment became so bad that Jacob changed school districts. With the help of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Sullivan eventually sued.

"A parent can only do so much against an entire school," he said. "I can't go to the school and grab the students and investigate it myself. I have to rely on the school to hopefully do what they're supposed to do."

School superintendent Joyce Caputo was at a conference Friday and was unavailable for comment. In August, she told the local newspaper, "Our district has not and will not knowingly tolerate discrimination or harassment of its students by anybody."

Is He Protected Under Title IX?

Now the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has asked a judge for permission to intervene on Jacob's behalf.

"We haven't seen this kind of involvement in quite some time," says Hayley Gorenberg of Lambda Legal, a national gay rights legal organization. "It's a long time coming, and we really need it."

Republicans who worked in the Civil Rights Division under previous administrations agree that this is a case conservatives generally would not make.

The Justice Department's argument hinges on a broad reading of the law known as Title IX. Title IX is typically used to protect students from gender discrimination, but in this case, Obama administration lawyers argue that the law also covers discrimination based on gender stereotypes — that is to say, boys who are beaten up for being effeminate.

"They are making up a legal violation where there hasn't been one," says Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity, who worked in the Civil Rights Division under President Reagan and the first President Bush. While he condemns bullying and harassment, Clegg disagrees with the Obama administration's interpretation of federal law in this case.

"If the Civil Rights Division and the Obama administration want to propose that Title IX be amended to include sexual orientation, that's something they can do and that can be debated in Congress," Clegg says. "But Congress has not passed a law that deals with discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."

Not so, says Gorenberg of Lambda Legal.

"We have clear interpretations out of many federal courts that clearly set forth that Title IX protects against sex stereotyping," she says.

While some courts have ruled that Title IX covers gender expression and sexual orientation, the law remains murky in this area. Gay and lesbian advocates hope this will be the case that establishes the principle more firmly.

Iraq: Where Gays are Hunted Down, Tortured & Slaughtered.

Modern day Iraq.

They hunt down gay people and then ritually slaughter them.

It's happening now.

The killings are brutal, with victims ritually tortured. Azhar al-Saeed's son was one. "He didn't follow what Islamic doctrine tells but he was a good son," she said. "Three days after his kidnapping, I found a note on my door with blood spread over it and a message saying it was my son's purified blood and telling me where to find his body."

She went with police to find her son's remains. "We found his body with signs of torture, his anus filled with glue and without his genitals," she said. "I will carry this image with me until my dying day."

This is what we spent hundreds of billions of American dollars and thousands of American lives for.

"First they came for the socialists..."

Jim, Piper and I went to the Holocaust Museum two days ago, and it's really impossible to put into words what it felt like. The devastation that occurs in your soul as you witness how easy it is to convince the world that this group or that group is responsible for all the problems they're experiencing is devastating.

But you learn that this wasn't merely about the Nazis. The hate thrown at Jews began long ago after the destruction of the temple, shortly after the death of Jesus. They were flung across the world, herded into ghettos, decried as "Christ-killers," banned from "polite society," forced into conversions, driven from one country to another, blamed for disease, poverty, etc. etc. etc. until it culminated into Hitler's decision to exact a "final solution."

I'm reposting a video I shot a couple of years ago while on a cruise. Boris was a passenger who told me his own incredible story of how he managed, beyond all hope, to be saved from Buchenwald, a concentration camp.



Even today, people are surprised to hear about our own witch hunts during the 50s, the millions of murders in Stalinist Russia, the millions killed by Pol Pot, terrorist actions of the KKK, a group that still exists to this day in this country, the genocides in Sudan and Rwanda, the religious hatred of Al Qaeda -- and it goes on and on.

As injustice, war and hate continue to fill the world, what all of us must do, as Jim demonstrates through the voice of Zero Mostel is to never forget. And to create peace and justice around us in any way we can.

IRAN: "The Whole World's Watching."

This new video features another Marc Platt song and recording, written just for June 20th, 2009. As in "The Revolution Starts Right Here," I took footage of what was available online as the world "watched" the people of Iran standing against the injustice of a rigged election and edited against the soundtrack of Marc's song.

"The Revolution Starts Right Here"

I made this video for my friend, Marc Platt, a singer and songwriter here in Los Angeles. It's a great song and we've used it to illustrate the current situation in Iran.



EDIT: Andrew Sullivan featured this video on his blog. Thanks!

The Cost of Torture.

I wish I could say that I'm shocked that former VP Cheney and his daughter are actually going on the air defending torture, but that's exactly what they've been doing. Here's what an actual interrogator has to say to Cheney.

And, BTW, Gen. David Petraus, who conservatives touted as the big savior of the Iraq war, also supports Pres. Obama's decision to close Gitmo and stop torture.

Violence only breeds more violence.

A Song of Peace and Gratitude.

A good friend of mine who is serving today in the armed forces sent me this note:

i was having a conversation with my neighbor who said hey i saw you on tv

and we were talking about how

disconnected the public has been

from the realities of war

i think its fueled distrust on the left

and sanitized the thing on the right

its been more like a war movie

than a war


soldier

"War By Default" shot from the audience. Olympia, Washington.

"Gabi's Song" shot from the audience in Olympia.

The Torture Debate

From Scott Horton at Harper's:

[The United States'] conduct is sending a clear message around the world: the prohibition on torture is a trivial matter which can be defeated by a tyrant in any corner of the world. All he needs to do is hire a lawyer and have him issue an opinion that when he tortures, it’s completely lawful.

In two weeks, I'm going to be singing a concert. Much of the music I've written this past year is about peace and war and violence.

The people I'm singing for in Olympia in a couple of weeks are people who have joined together to support each other. Many of their own children have been subjected to hate speech and violence in their schools.

Here I am singing "Imagine" back there in Olympia in 1997.

Amancio's Theme.

This is a theme I have written and dedicated to Amancio. It's actually the second movement of a piano piece still in progress.



But I was approached by documentary filmmaker Tom Murray about writing a theme for what was then called the Amancio Project, about a transgender performer who was killed in Yuma, Arizona, I couldn't get this theme out of my head. So I went to a website filled with pictures of Amancio and cut them together with my piano theme.

I don't know whether they'll actually use this for their film, but on this day, which many people have set aside for remembering transgender people who've been victims of violence, I thought it was appropriate.

You'll notice in the video I have not captioned anything. It's just music and images. But I'll tell you that there is a small portion of video of a very peaceful water basin -- a run-off from the farms. That's the place they found Amancio's body.

The flim is now called "Amancio, Two Faces on a Stone." And it's the story of how one elderly gay man found the story of Amancio's murder casually mentioned in the paper, and who taught himself the Internet, set up a webpage, connected with the mother, who didn't speak English, and then became responsible for the capture of the killer, the community aspects of the Internet making something happen not possible in an earlier era.

Monk Fight! Monk Fight!

Two arrested after church fight

Israeli police have arrested two clergyman after an argument between monks erupted into a brawl next to the site of Jesus' tomb. WITH VIDEO!

Come to see "New World Waking!" There's a song that directly addresses religious violence.

"I raised my hand and
Asked the guide why
Holy Lands have
So much dirt

Is 'cuz we still believe
There's such a thing
As Holy Dirt?"

Reluctant Soldier - Live at Kulak's Woodshed

This is the song I sang down at Kulak's a few weeks ago before I got the flu. It's from New World Waking! (where it will be sung as a trio) and it was written in response to the "football game fever" I witnessed as the US went into war both in Afghanistan and Iraq. Where war is treated like a spectator sport or a media event that needs theme music and cheerleaders.

Video: Steve Sings "Holy Dirt" at Kulak's Woodshed.

PSAs For Safe Schools Coalition

I ws asked if we could make some Public Service Announcements for the Safe Schools Coalition, a non-profit group that helps teach educators about how to create a safe school environment for GLBT young people. It was a request from Ethan at TransFM, which is an outrageously fun "internet broadcasting network" featuring transgender performers.

After recording this one featuring Jim's voice, I made up a video to go along with it. What do you think?

A Boy the Bullies Love to Beat Up, Repeatedly

This story from the NY Times is disturbing enough, but readers of the Bonus Round blog and people who know my music will recognize the location: Fayetteville, Arkansas. Home of William Wagner and Carolyn Wagner who are featured in my song "William's Song" -- which will be featured prominently in "Pantheon Bar & Grill," the peace cantata which will be performed by the SF Gay Men's Chorus at the end of the year.

A Boy the Bullies Love to Beat Up, Repeatedly

By DAN BARRY

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.

All lank and bone, the boy stands at the corner with his younger sister, waiting for the yellow bus that takes them to their respective schools. He is Billy Wolfe, high school sophomore, struggling.

Moments earlier he left the sanctuary that is his home, passing those framed photographs of himself as a carefree child, back when he was 5. And now he is at the bus stop, wearing a baseball cap, vulnerable at 15.

A car the color of a school bus pulls up with a boy who tells his brother beside him that he’s going to beat up Billy Wolfe. While one records the assault with a cellphone camera, the other walks up to the oblivious Billy and punches him hard enough to leave a fist-size welt on his forehead.

The video shows Billy staggering, then dropping his book bag to fight back, lanky arms flailing. But the screams of his sister stop things cold.

The aggressor heads to school, to show friends the video of his Billy moment, while Billy heads home, again. It’s not yet 8 in the morning.

Bullying is everywhere, including here in Fayetteville, a city of 60,000 with one of the country’s better school systems. A decade ago a Fayetteville student was mercilessly harassed and beaten for being gay. After a complaint was filed with the Office of Civil Rights, the district adopted procedures to promote tolerance and respect — none of which seems to have been of much comfort to Billy Wolfe.

It remains unclear why Billy became a target at age 12; schoolyard anthropology can be so nuanced. Maybe because he was so tall, or wore glasses then, or has a learning disability that affects his reading comprehension. Or maybe some kids were just bored. Or angry.

Whatever the reason, addressing the bullying of Billy has become a second job for his parents... (snip descriptions of the many beatings he's received over the years.)

In ninth grade, a couple of the same boys started a Facebook page called “Every One That Hates Billy Wolfe.” It featured a photograph of Billy’s face superimposed over a likeness of Peter Pan, and provided this description of its purpose: “There is no reason anyone should like billy he’s a little bitch. And a homosexual that NO ONE LIKES.”

Heh-heh.

According to Alan Wilbourn, a spokesman for the school district, the principal notified the parents of the students involved after Ms. Wolfe complained, and the parents — whom he described as “horrified” — took steps to have the page taken down.

Not long afterward, a student in Spanish class punched Billy so hard that when he came to, his braces were caught on the inside of his cheek. So who is Billy Wolfe? Now 16, he likes the outdoors, racquetball and girls. For whatever reason — bullying, learning disabilities or lack of interest — his grades are poor. Some teachers think he’s a sweet kid; others think he is easily distracted, occasionally disruptive, even disrespectful. He has received a few suspensions for misbehavior, though none for bullying.

...

Online: A slide show of Billy Wolfe at nytimes.com/danbarry.

The article states that Billy is not gay, but notice that anti-gay slurs are prominent in their reasons for beating him.

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