LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Hear Me Out: Beating Shows Need to Reach Out to Gay Teens |
by Mubarak Dahir |
Hendrick and Sharon Paterson are a religious, God-fearing couple. They wanted their 17-year-old son to be, too. The last thing they wanted to hear was that their boy was a homosexual. So they allegedly decided to beat it out of him. According to police, the husband and wife repeatedly took a lead pipe and hammered the body of their teenage son with it. Even while they were beating their child, they did not forget God, though. "God will punish you for your lifestyle!" they screamed as they leveled the lead pipe and another, as-yet-unidentified weapon against their own flesh and blood offspring. "You can't be gay!" they taunted. I am not ashamed to say I literally wept when I read the newspaper account of this gay teenager's brutalization at the hands of his own parents. This unfortunate teen happened to be a resident of the Bronx, in New York City. But he is a symbol of the horror and abuse that can and does happen to gay and lesbian teens in all parts of this country every day. As I read and re-read the small blurb about this horrible incident, in my mind I could hear the heavy thud of the lead cylinder as it pounded against his young skin, breaking the flesh in some places, causing welting in others. Here was yet another, senseless gay-bashing, but it wasn't that that tied my stomach in knots. Once again, the police seemed to be faltering about whether or not to prosecute an obvious hate crime as such, but it was more than that that made me feel exasperated and impatient. The mere thought that parents could inflict such physical harm on their own offspring is incomprehensible to me, but it wasn't just that that made my heart pound faster, in anger. Here was another example of "the word of God" being manipulated to persecute a gay person, but it wasn't just that that sickened my soul. I think what tore me up more than anything else was the sad irony that these two people had so many rights over this 17-year-old gay teen, by virtue of nothing more than mere genetics. Until they started hitting him, society deemed that his parents could do just about anything to him and with him. If the 17-year-old boy was like most gay and lesbian teens, he had few gay role models he knew on a personal basis, people he might have talked to or asked advice from or consulted with. And even if he knew an out gay man or lesbian, his parents could have easily kept the boy from interacting with an adult gay person. All because of biology and some arcane notion about what "family values" really are. The Paterson's had a strange way of valuing their son. Six months earlier, when he told them he was gay, their response was to throw him out of the house. He went to live with his aunt, some two miles away. But again, that odd notion of a family bond, which in this case amounted to little more than parental ownership, somehow allowed them access to him even after they abandoned him. It was at his aunt's house, where he had gone for refuge, that they finally ended up beating him. Biological families have this much leeway, this much overwhelming power over a young gay or lesbian kid. And yet when those of us who are gay and lesbian try to reach out to gay teens, we are accused of "recruiting." Even within our own community, many gay men often look with a suspicious eye at other gay men who get involved with youth. Others of us just don't want to get involved with gay youths because we don't want to risk the dangers of encountering the wrath of a Mr. and Mrs. Paterson, who might accuse us of doing God-only-knows-what with their gay child. So we opt for safety and distance, while kids like the 17-year-old Paterson boy are left with little to no options at all. It's true that kids are coming out earlier today than ever before. It's heart-warming to read stories of supporting, loving parents and families who embrace their gay children. The sad truth is those stories are still the exception rather than the rule. The Paterson boy is more likely to be the rule. I kept wondering where everybody was when the Paterson boy needed them most. Where were the other family members who might have protected him from such a fate? Where were the political conservatives and their "family values?" Where were the fire-and-brimstone preachers who rant from their pulpits against homosexuality as a sin, and yet call for the praise of the Lord? And where were wethis young man's non-biological family, his brothers and sisters in what we call a civil rights struggle for equality? And most of all, where was I? I asked myself over and over. No, of course we couldn't all be there to help this one kid. But if enough of us were somewhere out there helping gay and lesbian kids, maybe one of us could have been there for him, I kept thinking. Maybe it could have been me. Mubarak Dahir receives email at MubarakDah@aol.com. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 10, No. 14, Oct. 20, 2000. |