The Foul Handiwork of Homophobes

Every time I see another story about the suicide of a gay teen my blood boils.  Needless deaths spurred on by foul individuals like Maggie Gallagher, who seems to have gone over the edge mentally after her unwed mother pregnancy in colleges, Tony Perkins, who has white supremacist ties in addition to homophobia, and Benedict XVI who prances around saying that gays are "disordered" even as he himself continues to oversee a world wide conspiracy to protect child rapists.  These individuals should not be leading any movement or organization and instead, in my view ought to be undergoing mandatory psychiatric help.  As for Benedict XVI, the man should be behind bars, plain and simple.  Yet sadly, instead they continue to fan the flames of anti-gay bigotry as they cling to a neolithic understanding of sexual orientation and set the stage for deaths like that of Tim Ribberink in The Netherlands.  Homophobia and anti-gay bullying are learned behaviors and rather than be treated with respect, the Gallaghers, Perkins and Benedicts of the world ought to be Parrish.  Huffington Post looks at the sad death of Tim Ribberink whose parents took out a newspaper ad to try to make people open their eyes to the harm that the self-congratulatory "godly" folk do wreak on virtually a daily basis.  Here are highlights:

The parents of a young man who took his own life after allegedly having being bullied for being gay published their son's heart-breaking suicide note in a local newspaper "because this should never happen again." The 20-year-old Tim Ribberink wrote:

Dear Mum and Dad, All my life I have been ridiculed, abused, bullied and excluded. You guys are fantastic. I hope you’re not angry. Until we meet again, Tim.

According to the Twentsche Courant Tubantia, Ribberink's parents said in a statement their son was a "sweet boy," and they were unaware of the extent of his suffering until his suicide last week.

The Irish Times writes that Ribberink, who was training to be a history teacher, had reportedly been mocked on the internet and that bullies had uploaded two fake messages in his name. The first message reportedly dates back to 2010, and a second posted during summer 2011 said: "I am a loser and a homo.”
 
"We are incredibly shocked by what happened," said Peter Koopman, director of the college where Ribberink was studying, according to the Flemish newspaper De Standaard.   "Tim was a student here for two years and we came to know him as an open, enthusiastic and studious boy who loved to show that he wanted to be history teacher. In school, we have never noticed that he was bullied that badly and that he was that unhappy," Koopman added. 

These stories make me physically sick and the only reason we continue to see them boils down to one thing from which homophobia flows: religion.  Once again I find myself believing the world would be a far better place if both Christianity and Islam ceased to exist.