Vigil planned to show support for gay youth
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~ By Mary Meehan
A nationwide outreach to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth after a number of well-publicized suicides tied to bullying has prompted several Central Kentucky advocacy groups to hold a vigil.
"We need to raise awareness so those kinds of drastic things don't happen," said Sandy Linville, president of the Lexington chapter of Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
The vigil, planned for 7 p.m. Friday at Phoenix Park in downtown Lexington, will include several speakers from the gay community. But, Linville said, she hopes it is also an opportunity for other people to show support and learn how serious bullying can be.
The suicides that made headlines are "not a fluke," Linville said. Studies have shown that gay teens are at a much higher risk of suicide than their straight peers.
The Gay and Lesbian Services Organization and Lexington's Gay-Straight Alliance are helping organize the vigil. Afterward, a champagne toast at Soundbar will serve as a fund-raiser for the Trevor Project, a national suicide hotline for teens.
Scott Rollins, a Frankfort minister and PFLAG member, said he is involved in the group because he saw how a friend was treated after she came out as an adult.
Rollins, pastor at Highland Christian Church, said he wants to help send the message to the gay community that "there are people who love you in the church and I'm sorry you don't see it more often."
He also said he hopes to help Christians see that even if they consider homosexuality a sin, they should love the sinner.
"Jesus didn't teach us to tolerate people, he told us to love people and we are not anywhere near that in our culture," when it comes to dealing with issues of sexual orientation, he said.
Taylor Cunningham, a freshman at the University of Kentucky, said that although many more young people are coming out, it can still be hard on parents. Cunningham, whose mother is gay and who is doing a research project on PFLAG for school, hopes the vigil will shed light on what he calls "the modern-day civil rights movement."
Linville, the PFLAG president, said that as a parent she went through a range of emotions when her daughter, Audrey, came out two years ago. She said she wondered how her friends would accept the news, whether her family would think that she had somehow "caused" her daughter to be gay, and worried about how her child would fare at school.
But, she said, the support of others in PFLAG proved invaluable. It's important for friends and family of take a stand against bullying, she said. "If we don't make an issue of it, nobody is going to," she said.
In addition to the vigil, Lexington residents are offering support as part of the It Gets Better Project, an online effort started by Seattle columnist Dan Savage. Scores of videos have been posted on YouTube encouraging gay and lesbian teens to hold on through tough times. Amanda Fallin, a nursing graduate student at UK, has created a Facebook page to collect local videos and has posted a handful (search for "it gets better Lexington" on Facebook).
"When the 'It Gets Better Project' started nationally," Fallin said, "I thought it was something that I could do to help out."
Reach Mary Meehan at (859) 231-3261 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3261.IF YOU GO
It Gets Better Lexington vigil
When: 7 p.m. Nov. 5
Where: Phoenix Park, Limestone and Main St.
Learn more: (859) 259-1072. GLSO.org.
After-party: It Gets Better Lexington: A Toast in Support of Bullied LGBT Youth. 9-10:30 p.m. Nov. 5. Soundbar, 208 S. Limestone. 100 percent of proceeds from champagne toast will go to the Trevor Project, organizers say. Learn more on the It Gets Better Lexington page on Facebook by searching for "it gets better Lexington."
I met Rob in Lexington,Ky. and they have one of the strongest Hate Crimes Laws in the nation. It is truly a Gay Friendly city.
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100 people attend Lexington rally for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth
About 100 people turned out at Phoenix Park in downtown Lexington on Friday for a candlelight vigil honoring gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youths who have taken their lives because of bullying.
Speakers included Fayette Circuit Court Judge Ernesto Scorsone, a former state senator; Orvis Kean, events director for the Gay and Lesbian Service Organization; and Mary Crone, facilitator of the Gay Student Alliance for Youth in Lexington.
Though people huddled together cradling white candles, the tone of the gathering was more celebratory than solemn.
The vigil was also held to acknowledge that nationally, there has been a decrease in the number of gay and lesbian youths who have taken their lives due to bullying over the last few years, which Crone sees as a result of programs like GSA.
"I think it is due largely to the efforts of teens and young adults who are working in the schools to confront homophobia," Crone said.
Despite the apparent downward trend, Crone said, gay and lesbian teens are still at a higher risk for suicide. She said four gay or lesbian youths across the country killed themselves in September because of bullying. Two of them were 13 years old, she said.
Scorsone, in his speech, called such deaths "wrong and unacceptable."
"It's been 40 years … since all the major health care professional organizations in this country have affirmed that being gay or a lesbian or bisexual or transgender is not a disease or a disorder," he said.
"And yet, with many, a stigma still persists, and its corrosive effects on young minds and souls continue to take its toll."
Following Scorsone was Sandy Linville, the founder of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, a confidential support group.
Linville told the story about when her daughter, Audrey, came out in seventh grade.
"The hard part for me was ... I couldn't lead her anymore. I'd not been down that path," she said. "What I had to do was give up power, and more importantly, I had to give it to her."
Crone then took the stage surrounded by current and former Lexington high school students who shared stories of the resistance they met from faculty and students when trying to start local GSA chapters, and the success the organizations have had over the years.
Vigil participants then proceeded to Soundbar, which hosted a charity toast for The Trevor Project, a national crisis hotline for gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual people.
It cost $5 to participate in the toast, Kean said, adding that the amount raised at Soundbar would be matched by the Gay and Lesbian Service Organization. Donations collected at the vigil were also matched.
It wasn't immediately clear how much money was raised at the toast. By 3 p.m. Friday, the bar had received $2,400 in pledges, according to its Facebook page.
Sandy Linville, president of the local PFLAG chapter, spoke about her relationship with her daughter Audrey, who started a Gay-Straight Alliance group at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, at the vigil.
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"It Gets Better" vigil to stand up against bullying
Dozens huddled together in Phoenix Park to support Lexington teens picked on for being gay, fighting to fend off bullies.
"If something happens I'll go home and be crying and she's just like 'oh baby' and she'll hug me and just let me cry," says bullying victim Audrey Linville.
Linville finds the strength to stand up against the discrimination in her mother Sandy.
"It's very hard, but we get through it together," says Sandy Linville. " What is my family gonna say? What are my friends gonna say? The neighbors I've had for twenty years, the people I've gone to church with. What if they tell me that I've done a bad thing by raising her? What did I do wrong? So it is very risky and you're very isolated."
The Linvilles have the support of a community, one now raising awareness of the dangerous effects of intolerance and raising money for groups dedicated to helping victims of discrimination.
The It Gets Better campaign is raising money for the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention hotline for gay and questioning youth. They took up donations for the organization at the vigil, and will continue to accept donations Friday night at Soundbar.
