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Saturday, October 1, 2011

Monster Culture Claims Another of its Own

by Alice Doyle
Another teen made national news last month for taking his own life.  Fourteen year old Jamey Rodemeyer died outside his Buffalo home September 18 after being taunted by classmates for years.
            One week later, Jamey’s parents appeared on The Today Show urging American parents to “make their kids talk” and calling for an end to bullying, a rally cry echoed by celebrities such as Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga.  Jamey’s father, Tim Rodemeyer, called the kids who bullied his son “heartless”.
            Awful as it is, Jamey’s is not a new story.  Ann Curry observed that 4500 kids between the ages of 10 and 20 committed suicide in the United States last year.  Though her statistics were not specific, she observed that, like Jamey, a large percentage were lesbian or gay.  She raised the question of whether “intolerant” pastors and politicians who preach against the homosexual lifestyle were partly to blame for the deaths.
            Given the higher rate of suicide among sexually deviant teens, it is perhaps noteworthy that people are not asking different questions or raising other possibilities.  For instance, does the identification of oneself as lesbian or gay cause despair and lead to suicide?  Does lack of parental involvement or school culture play a role?  For several years now, there has been much emphasis on bullying as the cause of suicide in cases such as Jamey’s.  Popular opinion seems to indicate that intolerance is the root cause of the problem.  Intolerance is defined as any word or deed suggesting that there is anything wrong or unequal about the homosexual lifestyle.  Supposedly, by stamping out "intolerance" through new laws, all will be well.  Never mind that this is both impossible and a violation of our civil rights.
Suicide is not a normal response to taunting, teasing or even verbal abuse.
 It is complicated, extreme and maddening in that the only witness is no longer available for comment.  Of course, suicide was not Jamey Rodemeyer’s first response.  He began telling his parents about the bullying as early as the fifth grade.  By the time he entered high school, he had stopped confiding in them but it seems that, for over four years, verbal abuse was a part of his daily life.  I wonder how many adults could endure that kind of environment at work day after day, year after year?  Of course, adults have the power to make significant change when they need to.  Kids do not.  Suicide may seem like a reasonable escape hatch for someone who is desperate to save himself from a bad situation but has limited power to act on his life in any meaningful way.
            Suicide may also appeal to youth today because of the amount of attention the dead teens receive in the media.  They are portrayed as victim heroes, even saints, who are now in a better place.  The weekend after Jamey’s death, Lady Gaga dedicated her concert to him, enshrining his photo and saying, “Jamey, I know you’re up there looking at us”.  Absent is any talk of the soul or the eternal consequences of killing oneself.  Absent is any talk of those left behind to grieve or the self-centeredness inherent in the act.  Absent is any concern for the faceless “bullies”, the kids who will live forever with the guilt of contributing to a classmate’s death.
            What is going on in our homes and our schools that we adults continue to chant the mantra of  “the bullies are to blame” instead of taking responsibility?  Who failed at the job of protecting Jamey at school and at home?  Is it really impossible to prevent bullying through serious discipline at school?  Why are we singling out the bullying of homosexual kids as particularly horrible?  Isn’t it the tormenting itself that is the problem?  What can we do locally to put an end to it?
            These are questions primarily for school administrators and those who have the power to influence the environment in schools.  If you are a parent, like me, your primary influence is over your own children.  There are many indications aside from this latest tragedy that there are serious problems in America’s schools.  Alternatives to a full day of public school are springing up all over the place, everything from online programs to tutoring out of homes to one day a week schools.  If a school is failing your child for whatever reason, there are a myriad of options.  I think we need to stop asking kids to return day after day to impossible situations.  It is not reasonable.
            We adults also need to start excercising our authority.  Like it or not, we are the leaders, the responsible ones.  I have noticed that many adults promote a kind of “carpe diem” attitude in their kids, sending the message that their impending adulthood is a tedious thing and encouraging teens to enjoy the fleeting days of their youth with few limits.  Wrapped up in this is our culture’s intense fear of aging and death.  Kids need adults to be leaders who set limits, give them rules to follow and model a healthy approach to the journey of life.  We must be those adults.
            Finally, it is time to say NO! to those who peddle death to our youth.  One particular star seems to have played an enormous role in Jamey Rodemeyer’s life and death.  In fact, during the interview for The Today Show, Jamey’s mother, Tracy, wore a thick wristband promoting Lady Gaga in memory of her son.  Because of her heavy emphasis on Jamey’s love for the star, I googled some of Lady Gaga’s lyrics:
 As long as I’m your hooker (get down), Hooker (ya, you’re my hooker)--HOOKER

I asked my girlfriend if she’d seen you round before.  She mumbled something while we got down on the floor baby we might’ve f—ed not really sure.  That boy is a monster.---MONSTER

Ohohoh  I’m in love with Judas….when he comes to me I am ready, I’ll wash his feet with my hair if he needs,  Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain.  Even afta 3 times he betrays me.---JUDAS

Filth, obscenities, overt disrespect for Christianity:  all of these are available to kids everywhere from the mall to the school dance to their own ipods.  And these are just three of her many songs.  What parent would want her child to follow this Pied Piper? 
The day before he died, Jamey sent Lady Gaga a text saying, “Bye Mother Monster.  Thank you for all you’ve done.”  More fitting words I cannot imagine.




Jamey Rodemeyer age 14 

10 comments:

  1. I think you've nailed it. Sexual deviancy, absence of spiritual formation and lack of parental control appear to be the elephants in the living room.

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  2. There was taunting, teasing and bullying when I was in school back in the stone age. There is nothing knew about that. Children always have been cruel; not all, but there always have been and will be a few. Usually, the few have no problem rallying others to join in. Children (and adults) like to be on what they think is the popular and/or "winning" side. To break ranks is not easy.

    As a child, I was a victim of such behavior myself. The thought of killing myself never even entered my mind.

    There are other reasons for such an extreme solution to a passing problem.

    BV

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  3. Nobody wants to blame the parents, the adults in the situation. Why was he calling Lady Gaga Mama? What good mother leaves her son in an environment like that for years? Like the scriptures say they will make good things look evil and evil things look good. I shield myself and my family from Lady Gaga, but looked up her Monster video after I saw the boy's You Tube video. I think it is terribly ironic that in the video Lady Gaga kills her self, but then in real life she is deemed the hero for making a tribute to the boy. Oh, but I am sure blanket legislation for hate crimes that take away our constitutional and God given freedoms are the answer to this problem....NOT!

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  4. I am a woman. I was only bullied once in high school. A girl heavier and taller than I came down the hallway of my high school and bumped into me with her hips. I thought it was an accident and ignored it. The next day the same teen deliberately came toward me and bumped into me again with her hips. I knew it was no accident. I did not even know her, so I had done nothing to make her angry, and I was not going out with any boyfriend of hers or any of her friends. The next day I was ready for her. When she came toward me and bumped me with her hips, I bumped right back into her. That was the end of that. She never did it again. Turning the other cheek once is one thing, but allowing someone to bully you is quite another thing. It should never be allowed, or it most often gets worse. I was very athletic, a fast runner and stong since we even had archery in our gym classes back then. I would never start a fight, but neither would I back down from one if the person was clearly in the wrong. I also had to defend my younger brother one time, as the oldest in a family, which I was, usually knows how to defend someone else too, but most of the time, they should learn to defend themselves. Sometimes we DO have to fight for the right, or we are considered cowards, and no one admires a coward.

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  5. I once knew a young student studying to be a psychiatrist - he was in a phase of training that he saw patients for 6 weeks. He commented to me that most of his 'patients' were homosexuals but he emphasized that they were seeing him for other reasons. He also mentioned that none of them were making much progress with the problems that they had come to him for.

    I pointed out to him that perhaps progress wasn't being made because the problem was homosexuality - and that the other manifestations (the things they were ostensibly seeing him about) were manifestations of a deeply rooted disorientation of their gender identity)

    I do think that in most cases people do not choose to have a homosexual orientation - although it is hogwash that it is their nature to be that way. I do believe that it is a psychological problem and a homosexual needs to deal with that problem (Because of course homosexual actions are always sinful). In many cases they will eventually be cured and can enjoy marriage - in some cases they may never get over it and then they are required to live chastely.

    The psychological angle might explain why so many young homosexual commit suicide. This gender disorientation has a whole lot of other baggage that comes along with it.

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  6. I agree with all the comments - just want to add that we must teach our kids to defend themselves (though it's not PC). So often the one responding is the one who is punished by the "authorities".

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  7. What they never seem to bring up are teens who commit suicide because they were molested by older homosexual men. It does happen. Why are these suicides never mentioned by the media? And Lady Gaga's lyrics are clearly demonic. There are no other words for them.

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  8. If Jamey's mother admires Lady Gaga, she seems to be a significant part of the problem. She is just as bad as the parents who let their young sons sleep with Michael Jackson. What decent parent does that? The answer is none.

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  9. Concerning my post about Michael Jackson, the point is that no matter whether he molested those children or not, he had no business putting them in his bed. A man with that kind of money could have given them a whole room of their own. They should not have been there without their parents, either. He could have afforded to put up both the child and his parent or parents for the night if he really wanted to help those children. It would have been the proper thing to do for the child's protection and Jackson's protection. The parents were seriouly wrong, too, for allowing it.

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  10. Bye the way, Mary Anne, Ex-president Bill Clinton was just sung to by Lady Gaga at his 65th Birthday Party, so that tells you how far some of our politicians have come, and they wonder why very few Americans have any respect for them anymore. When decent Americans are trying to get labeling on CDs for their children and teens, men like Clinton are encouraging such disgusting lyrics.

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