Oct. 16, 2010
Gay Councilman: My Plea Has Saved Lives Already
Joel Burns' Emotional Speech Urging Bullied Young Gays to Persevere Has Gone Viral; He Assures Them Life Gets Better
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Openly gay Fort Worth, Texas City Councilman Joel Burns in an emotional address, the video of which has gone viral, to the council. In it, he urges gay teens being bullied to hang tough in the face of that bullying and assuring them life gets better. (YouTube)
In it, an emotional Joel Burns assures them life gets better beyond high school.
He used a routine council meeting to address young gay victims of bullying, reports "Early Show on Saturday Morning" co-anchor Chris Wragge.
"I have never told this story to anyone before tonight," Burns began.
In a heart-wrenching moment, Burns told of the bullying he endured as a teenager. "They said that I was a faggot and that I should die," Burns said.
The harassment drove him to the verge of suicide, Wragge points out.
"Coming out was painful, but life got so much better for me," Burns continued.
His message, aimed at gay teens across the country, was simple. "You will get out of that high school and you'll never have to deal with those jerks again if you don't want to," Burns said. "You will find and you will make new friends who will understand you. And life will get so, so, so much better.
"You will have a lifetime of happy memories if you just allow yourself and give yourself the time to make them."
When Burns finished, he got a standing ovation from his fellow council members.
Suicide by gay high school and college students is an all-too-familiar tragedy, Wragge notes. There have been at least a dozen such deaths nationwide since the beginning of September.
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On "The Early Show on Saturday Morning", Burns told Wragge he "had just been so heartbroken by all the suicides we saw through September. Then Monday ... I read about the story of a young man named Zack in Oklahoma, who attended a Norman, Okla. City Council meeting at which some anti-gay rhetoric was bandied about, after which he took his life.
"And I thought, 'You know, if this kid in Oklahoma commits suicide after going to a City Council meeting, I certainly am warranted to utilize my time at my City Council meeting in Texas to talk about this issue.' I literally wrote it out during lunch, and it was very raw and very fresh. And I think if I had given myself some time to kind of self-edit, I might not have had such an emotional speech or talk, but I think that that was part of the poignancy of it."
Burns says some of the reaction has been surprising, such as that of an older council member "in his late 70s, very, very conservative. He and I don't always see eye-to-eye on certain things. And, at the end of my talk, he was crying and he hugged me, and that was a nice feeling."
Burns adds the rapid spread of the video online has surprised him "very much so. … The goal for me was two-fold," he explained. "One, to tell kids in Fort Worth or wherever they were watching, to give them hope in a dark time, that things will get better, but they just have though hang out and stay put long enough to make that happen. And also a message for the adults to remind them we have a role and responsibility, as adults, to make sure the school place and otherwise bullying our teens are facing is addressed. And so, that was the goal. It's been an amazing couple of days since."
"I have talked for a number of teens on the phone," Burns continued. "I gave out my phone number during that speech, and I've gotten something like 800 phone calls since. I've had to enlist an army of friends and family to help volunteer to make sure the calls get answered and, obviously, I've got other roles to do besides in this week. But, this has been kind of all-consuming.
But the most poignant one, I think, was a young teenager in Australia. And a friend of his e-mailed me and she and I have had a conversation back-and-forth about how he was -- she knew he was in a dark place, in a bad place. She asked him to watch it and he said, 'I was planning this weekend to kill myself.' And I've had a number of kids like that I've talked to."
To watch Burns' speech, click on the player below.
For more info:
itgetsbetterproject.com
thetrevorproject.org
© MMX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Add a Comment See all 21 Comments
- coucou, *************************************************************************** When Burns finished, he got a standing ovation from his fellow council members. =============================================================== ============================================================================ une ovation, pourquoi..??? parcequ'il est ouvertement gay, qu'il soutient ses semblables. Plus grave encore il encourage les enfants ? le devenir. ======================================================================== "empecher" les "jeunes" de se "suicider" est une "bonne chose", mais encourager les "autres enfants" ? "devenir gay" est une mauvaise chose, "PENSEZ" un peu ? "l'impact" qu'aura cette vid?o, une fois visisonn?e par des millions d'enfants qui naviguent quotidiennement sur le net "pauvres enfants" au revoir
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- This guy wants 15 minutes of fame yuk!
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- by servantRdw October 16, 2010 11:49 AM EDT Regarding curse914. Blooper alert. Blooper alert. "our humanist inspired Constitution" LMAO. ===================================================================================================== There is no blooper to be had, religoid. Our Founders where children of the Enlightenment. I would love to hear your reasoning as to why our Constitution is "conservative" inspired, since it is loaded with humanist concepts.
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- I am an 83 year-old woman. It is heartbreaking that such a brave speech as Joel Burns gave is necessary one decade into the 21st century. I have watched the slow but steady erosion of empathy over the years and Joel's message is a clear call for all of us to remember what it means to feel another's pain. Thank you, Joel, for giving voice to the very best in your character. Shirley Homes
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- Take a look America, here's what a REAL HERO looks like. I think the least any of us could do, would be to hit the digg, twitter or bookmark button of their choice so that others will see this. We need more leaders with this kind of courage!
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- EVERYONE, please wake up and realize that the negative attitudes against homosexuals AS A GROUP are usually based on BIGOTRY, PREJUDICE, HATE, and IGNORANCE, all of which is taught and/or learned. I believe that heterosexuality AND homosexuality is NOT a choice, but even if both of these orientations ARE a choice (like religion), please give me a logical and rational reason why heterosexuals and homosexuals in the U.S. should not be treated equally with respect and have equal rights. And please, don?t say because of religion, procreation, morals, flaunting in public, or because the ?majority? may not approve, all of which I have addressed as follows: RELIGION - Per the U.S. Constitution, Laws MUST be adopted with a secular and NOT a religious purpose. ?Separation of Church and State? is applicable and there must NOT be any endorsement of religion by the government. PROCREATION - There are many heterosexuals and homosexuals who have sex and NEVER have children for a variety of reasons (infertility, don?t want children, finances, careers, age, not ready to be a parent, etc.), and there are many who are biological parents, adoptive parents, or parents due to IVF treatments, egg and/or sperm donation, etc. MORALS - Whose morals, and why is their interpretation of what is moral more valid than your interpretation, or vice versa? FLAUNTING IN PUBLIC - If heterosexuals can kiss, touch, wear tight and skimpy clothing, bump and grind, all of which is done in public, television, video?s, etc., on a DAILY basis, why can?t homosexuals have that same right (whether it is on a daily basis or once a year in a parade)? MAJORITY -The majority of people didn?t want slavery to end, equal rights for women, interracial marriages, etc. If we made laws based on what the ?majority? wanted, many groups within the U.S. would not have equal rights. Everyone has a right to their opinion, but their opinion should NOT DENY others Equal Rights and the same respect that they would expect from others. People have more in common, than not in common, and REGARDLESS of differences (for example, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disabled, etc.), I believe the world would be a better place if we moved forward (not backwards) and stop the bigotry, divisiveness, hate, ignorance and violence.
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- I appreciate Joel Burns efforts but I do disagree that the world gets better for these youth. They will grow up seeing the putrid hatred and threats just as posted by "servantRDw". Gay people will not have the guaranteed constitutional freedoms that marriage affords the heterosexual child breeders. The US Supreme Court and our Congress are too cowardly and scared of the church to give gays the rights and freedoms they deserve. We have a Pentagon that enjoyed burning little Vietnamese children alive with napalm, yet orders its proud gay servicemen and servicewomen to 'stay in the closet'. Our president speaks out of both sides of this mouth and has lost credibility since he can't deliver on campaign promises. The GOP would like to roast gay people in a Nazi oven. Yet people STILL can't see the hypocrisy in the religious fairytale followers.
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- Well, it doesn't get GREAT, that's for sure, but it does get BETTER. No matter what the government says, once you're out of high school, you're out, you're an adult, you have the bare minimum you need to pack everything up and get the hell out of whatever awful place you grew up in (at least, that's what I did). Whenever I give advice to other gay kids who are going through stuff like this I tell them to channel all that anger into ambition, to study hard, and go a nice university that is far, far away (and even backwater land-grant colleges have GLBT clubs these days). So no matter what they government says, they can't stop you from that.
- You are missing the point. It isn't just gay young people that are being bullied. There are children who aren't gay but are labeled that way who are also being bullied. I should know. A christian male teacher/coach had me raped by his christian male players so that he could watch and laugh. The really sick part was the fact that they screamed ******, queer, and every other obsenity at me while they were attempting to sodomize me. This occurred after ten years of constant bullying on a daily basis. They kicked, slugged, and punched me in the groin daily. Do you really think anyone should have to be subjected to this type of torture? Wake up. We have children who are being brutalized and bullied daily!
- Very sad. What a travesty that our children have been indoctrinated to grasp this ideology as normal behavior and when they can no longer tolerate the torment their souls endure, take their own life as a way out. I think the councilman has good intentions and may postpone the inevitable for some children, but satan has once again has his hand in the mix resulting in the deception of man. This councilman can only save lives by bringing himself and our children to the cross and washing their sins under the blood of the only true savior our Lord.
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- please take your religion and cram it where the sun doesn't shine. People like you who believe in your fairytales are the hypocrites that have created this world of hatred we live in.
- He says the Moche religion is not the only one to seek to control sexuality. The burqa is a form of control, as is the Catholic aversion to condoms, he says. "You control sexuality, you control access to it, and in the process you give yourself power over groups, over people and you embed this power into values and you disseminate the values as being part of the population," he says. "The population accept this because they believe its part of their values. They don't think they are being controlled."
- Thank God for Joel Burns, his courage and compassion. That his video has gone viral shows the great need for acceptance of gay and lesbian people - especially young people who face confusion about their sexuality and often face intolerance - even from their own families. May this be a wake up call, especially to schools and others who seek to instill feelings of fear and self-hatred among our people.
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- Lets get in line with the our humanist inspired Constitution and shed ourselves of the religious sanctioned persecution of people because of sexual orientation.
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