The Importance of Community

November 26, 2010 @ 6:36 PM

Back in September, my best friend Justin flew out to visit from Los Angeles. West Hollywood to be exact. For those who are not familiar, West Hollywood is probably the gayest concentration of people in all of North America, aside from the Castro District in San Francisco or the crowd at any Lady Gaga concert. They don’t just have a gay community, they have a gay Mecca. It is an area filled with gay bars next to gay diners and shops next to the gay gym and gay coffeehouse next to...well you get the idea. It's gay. Very gay.

Naturally I was a little worried about what his reaction would be to a place like Fort Wayne. After all, where would we go? What would we do? The social options for gay men and woman in this area are rather limited (to say the least), even more so when you are an outsider coming to visit. Regardless of what his initial reaction would be, I resolved that we would make the most of his visit and find fun wherever possible. If there was no fun to ...

A Wake-Up Call To America On Bullying

October 1, 2010 @ 8:00 AM

Sixth grade was a very rough year.

After years of hating elementary school for the never-ending bullying and harassment from fellow classmates, I was thrown into the social chaos known as Junior High. But being from a tall family and hitting my growth spurt at an early age made me tower over my fellow classmates, so I was very lucky not to have to worry about being physically threatened by the other boys in my class. All of that was about to change in sixth grade.

From the very first day of sixth grade, I was bullied and harassed physically and verbally by a new set of peers: The seventh and eighth grade boys who were far meaner and aggressive than the boys in my grade, and many just as big as me, if not bigger. Getting shoved and tripped in the hallways, cornered when teachers were not around, and called every vile name in existence were becoming common daily occurrences. I could not get through a day of school without being completely humiliated for one reason or ...

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