Tonight, Lifetime TV premiered “Prayers for Bobby,” a made-for-television movie of the actual story of Bobby Griffin, a gay teen who killed himself due to his inability to reconcile his homosexuality with his conservative religious upbringing.
This was a deeply moving and very well done movie. I am 58 years old and have been with my partner for 21 years. I am surprised at the sense of sadness and pain that it called up in me as I watched the movie. None of this was overstated or overdone. This is the reality of life for millions of gay and lesbian teens. The only difference is that the majority of us never told our families as we were growing up, instead living a life of loneliness, shame and fear.
This isolation is the most significant difference that gay and lesbian people face from other minorities. Where racial and ethnic minority kids have their families to help instill a sense of self-worth and filter against the hatred of the dominate culture, gays and lesbians do not. Very often as we saw in the movie, the family is a major contributor to the poisonous culture.
I like to think that things are changing, and while advances have been made, gay and lesbian people can be hated and vilified without reproach. In this very week when we celebrated the election of the first African American president, we saw that he chose Rev. Rick Warren, the conservative evangelical baptist minister, to deliver the innovation. This is the man who has compared gay and lesbian relationships to incest, polygamy and pedophilia.
It takes an enormous amount of determination and work to negotiate such a hateful and discriminatory culture. I do not know of any gay or lesbian person who has not seriously considered suicide.
I hope the airing of this important movie will take a step in the direction of education and enlightenment. Lifetime, thank you for an extraordinary contribution.
