I don’t think it’s unfair. I just don’t think (in your example) you love your child.
That post was not supposed to be a crack at you (this one is, obviously). It was just informing BunBun that these issues have a history on these Boards.
Sure. The parents didn’t pull the trigger, as it were, the most proximate cause for the boy’s death. But do you think they have no responsibility for engineering the circumstances within which he thought death was a preferable option to endurance?
Still assuming the outline of the story is true, of course, since right now, that’s about all we have to go on.
Your question makes no sense. Nobody benefitted from it, least of all the kid. Suicide is not an act of selfishness but an act of self-loathing. That self-loathing is largely reinforced by those around the victims. When a kid is told by his parents, the people he should most be able to trust, that he is not wanted because of something he was born with and cannot change, sometimes that kid believes the. He acually believes that he is a degenerate, sinful pervert who does not deserve to live. We are talking about some very distorted psyches here, these kids are not thinking objectively or clearly. No decent person places moral conditions on the love of their children. Any clear thinking parent would immediately and instinctively place the love of their children far above any religious “rules.” Anyb religion that tells you to reject a child because of how he was born is a false religion. Any parents who can not intuitively understand that have severe emotional issues of their own.
I hope, with everything I have, that if my daughter came to me and said she was gay, that I would be the best parent in the world. I should be. My career in the arts has always meant that I was around a lot of gay people. I have been exposed to good and bad relationships along most points of the gender spectrum. But, I suspect that I wouldn’t be as good as I hope. I would probably grieve the grandchildren that suddenly became much less likely. I would be sad for my child who would have a much harder life than if she was straight. I hope I would see through all of my emotions, and remember how much this child loved and is a miracle unto herself no matter what path her life takes. I hope that there are good people around while I am being an idiot, to help see her through to the other end.
Joe_Cool You are also making assumptions. Over the years I have watched how AIDs affected familys. I have watched as parents who wrote off their sons came after the funeral to take everything that son and his partner (who was actualy there for the dying) had built over a fifteen year relationship. I have also seen parents who came to realise that they loved their child no matter what. Either way, when I look at my child, the only thing I can think of as a worse hell than burying her, is burying her with her thinking she wasnt loved.
Well, Joe_Cool, you’ve certainly shown us all how a truly superior person behaves.
But then, this argument, or pile-on, or debate, or whatever you wish to call it, is basically meaningless, is it not? Because nothing anyone could ever say to you could ever cause you to question for even a moment the dubious moral highground of your particular brand of belief, could it? Nothing anyone could say would ever allow you to look past what you must surely see as a defense of your spiritual brethren to the horrifying implications that they may, in fact, have been more than just passingly responsible for the death by suicide of their own child. And rather than address the topic at hand, namely the incomprehensibly sick actions of a parent towards its own offspring, you choose to haggle over semantics.
But then, why should any of this affect you? Why should the words of anyone else on this message board carry any weight with you? Aren’t we all just diseased and hell-bound, unable to see the Word of God until it’s rammed down our throats like a fiery brick on Judgement Day? Man, I bet you’re looking forward to that, huh? There’s nothing quite so satisfying as to be so divinely and cosmically right all the time, is there?
Poor Daryl. All he wanted was to be accepted and loved as he was. And now the vultures descend, and make his death an eyesore of theological bickering and a platform from which to preach their own dirty little agendas.
Sleep sound, Daryl. Take comfort, andygirl. Neither of you is alone.
The point is that you’re making an unfounded accusation. You don’t have any idea if this case is representative of that ongoing problem. You are making blind assumptions. Stopping further mistreatment of kids is a noble cause, but you are WRONG in your method. You cannot make that kind of assumption and accusation with no knowledge of what really happened.
You know damned well that’s not what I’m saying. Don’t pose and get all pious with me. You know exactly what I’m saying. I’ve said it clearly and repeatedly, and for you to intentionally misinterpret what I’ve said belittles us both.
I don’t know that they’re “good christians” any more than I know that they said they no longer had a son. What I’m saying is that you CANNOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED, SINCE WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT DID HAPPEN.
Bravo, Diogenes.
Joe, at risk of being hunted down by the metaphor police:
If you choose not to feed a starving person, and he dies of starvation, then you aren’t legally responsible for his death. (I think). I could even make a good case that it would not be immoral to not feed him, because his need for food did not translate into your responsibility to provide it. But having the option to feed a starving person and not doing so when you have plenty of food to give makes you an asshat of the first caliber, regardless of moral or legal guilt. Now, replace food with love, and random starving person with your own child. Regardless of whether or not you have an inherent obligation to love you child always, disowning your child when he needs love is fucking wrong. Are we in agreement about this?
I’m always amused at the incredible antics that the homophobic monsters are capable of, when they’re trying to distract our attention from issues that deserve to be discussed.
It’s astonishing that Joe has been able to take an event that might have been a rallying point for people who want to make a commitment to helping gay teens, and has turned it into a quibble over the definition of hearsay. Bravo, Joe. Your efforts to stop gay kids from getting help are nothing if not spectacular.
Pissant.
Oh, yeah, this is the Pit, let me add my .02$ meta-discussion psychobabble:
When most of us hear (from what we view a reliable source) that Christian parents disown their gay child, and that their child commits suicide as a result of this, we don’t doubt it. It sounds reasonable, we have no reason to doubt the source, and if there were any other suicide-inducing traumas in said gay child’s life, so we assume that it is true, mainly for the reason that we are not given any reason to believe that it is false.
[psychobabble]
Joe does have a reason to doubt; In Joe’s worldview, good Christian parents do not cause the deaths of their children. On the other hand, good Christian parents do not let their children be gay all over the place, either. In attempting to reconcile these two statements, Joe suffers cognitave dissonance, and prefers to simply start from the point of view that it might not have happened that way. Since (as has been pointed out) proving that the parents’ action caused the suicide is a bitch, Joe is now free to relagate this incident to “it’s not proven” land, and not have to reconcile said statements.
[/psychobabble]
Just my unsubstanciated opinion.
I’d venture to say that Joe Cool is in agreement with you on this point. I’d also venture to say that he seems entirely unwilling to accept as fact that Daryl’s parents did that.
Absent the parents publicly admitting that they did, I don’t anticipate Joe ever accepting it, even provisionally.
I still think the least we could do here is to deprive Joe of the opportunity to play the martyr at the bottom of the pile-on.
Well hold on a second here. I haven’t read anywhere in this thread where Joe said gay teens shouldn’t be helped.
But, I think the point he is trying to make is that your rallying point is around your derision and revulsion of Daryl’s parents who may, or may not, be guilty of role you think they had in his death.
Now lets assume that they acted in the manner originally suggested, I don’t understand why this would be such a surprise. Did Daryl not even have a clue about how his parents might react? What was he doing the entire time he was growing up? Was he so self absorded that he didn’t pick up on how his parents felt about this subject? Imagine that you’re sitting at the dinner table and your son tells you he’s gay? Well, if your world view, based upon what you think God’s will is, equates being gay with being a pedophile and a murderer what would you expect their reaction to be? Now I think that view is warped, but I feel that about any religion and their kooky beliefs. But it is still their belief and their son knew this, yet he expected them to forget all that and act in a way contrary to their nature. Eventually they may have come around and changed their opinion, but he only gave them a week to cope with this revelation. Do you think that you can change your most deeply held beliefs in that short a time?
This is a total hijack. It has nothing to do with what I’ve said through this whole thread. It really makes me angry that some people will automatically bash God or Christianity simply because I’m participating in a discussion. It makes me angry that some jacksons are calling me an “outraged fundamentalist” and making snide remarks about my looking forward to judgment day. But since you people can’t discuss something with me without mocking my faith and bashing me for unrelated (and false) things, I’ll bite.
No. A child is not more important than God or his word. I will always love my child and any future ones, but that does not mean I have to accept what they do or who they love if it goes against my beliefs. First, I would not have married my wife if we disagreed on such fundamental beliefs. Second, if we do disagree on a serious matter, yes, my rules DO take precedence. I know you have a problem with that, but guess what? I don’t care. Handle your relationships however you like, and I’ll handle mine.
Read it again. I said I wouldn’t be surprised if his parents reacted in a way similar to the way I would react (NOT saying “we have no son”), and he blew that up disproportionately, the way teenagers do. Pay attention if you want to argue.
If you mean that a truly superior person doesn’t blame grieving parents for the suicide of their son without evidence, then I guess you’re right.
My “brand of belief” has nothing to do with anything here. The only belief of mine that’s relevant here is the belief that you don’t condemn the parents for the death of their son, and you don’t make assumptions about what they said to him without any knowledge of what they said.
I don’t know that they’re my spiritual brethren any more than I know that they said “we have no son”.
Semantics? SEMANTICS?! “Don’t make unfounded accusations” and “don’t accuse without evidence” are arguing over semantics? Maybe you should acquaint yourself with a dictionary and look up the word.
This is some kind of a joke, right? Maybe you could point to something I’ve said somewhere that is even remotely close to this pile of garbage?
My thoughts exactly. You guys should be ashamed, trying to politicize a teenager’s death and use it to convict his parents without trial or even evidence.
As for me, I have no dog in the fight. I don’t care that the guy was gay. I’m not glad he’s dead. And I don’t claim that his parents are perfect, or even passable. I’m just angry at the accusations flying, when nobody has any idea of what really happened (no, not even andygirl). And I’m angry that the crowd has latched onto this case, without knowing anything about it, as an example in their crusade for gay rights, with absolutely no concern for the grief and pain that the family is currently experiencing. The same way anti-gun crusaders were on podiums, mugging for the cameras, the day after the columbine shootings. No shame at all, as long as the incident fuels your agenda.
If this sort of thing upsets you so much, I’d advise you to leave the SDMB (as well as any other online forums you participate in) forever. You will almost never be in any position to know “what did happen” in relation to anything anyone posts here. If we were to hold off on discussing things until we knew for sure exactly what really happened in real life then we would never discuss anything at all, and that would be the end of this board. Since most of us don’t want to see the end of this board we will continue discussing things even when we don’t know for sure exactly what really happened in real life. If this bothers you then this is obviously not the right place for you to be. Since I doubt there are many here who would miss you once you were gone, I don’t see why you keep hanging around.
Damn, you’re an even bigger tool than I though you were. So what happens if your wife gets out of line, do you smack her around some, show her who’s boss? Does she ever dare to disagree with you?
Joe_Cool, before I buy back my introduction to you, let me explain once again something I’ve explained here before:
When we debate political issues and whatnot, we ask for and provide cites. When someone brings up something that’s not in the news, but happened in their lives, the standard response - both here and IRL - is to take their word for it, unless there’s something really fishy about the story, or the source is unreliable.
andygirl is a reliable source. There’s nothing particularly fishy about the story. If she says Daryl came out to his parents a week ago Saturday, that they were fundamentalist Christians, that they responded by telling him they had no son, and that he committed suicide this past weekend, we have every reason to assume the accuracy of those four facts.
We don’t know Daryl or his parents. We can’t put a name to them. If somehow andy was given inaccurate information, it really doesn’t matter here. We won’t ever know. But our reaction to parents who would do such a thing is just as valid, and there are most certainly parents like that out there.
If I wrote here about an idiotic driver who took out my mailbox with his car, you wouldn’t ask for photos of the tire treads and the stump of my mailbox post. You’d just take my word for it that the story happened as written. So kindly get off your high horse and deal with andy’s story on the assumption that she knows what she’s talking about. Thank you.
matt: amen.
May lightning strike me dead, but I’m actually on JoeCool’s side on this one. You can make assumptions on stuff that doesn’t really have a consequence, but when it comes to parental love and suicide, ferchrissakes, you can’t go condemning them for the kid’s demise unless you know they were unaccepting and actually disowned him.
That said, what a sad commentary on our world. I hope the kid found what he was looking for. And I hope the parents can find some peace. What a tragedy.
Dio, this is the pit, and we’re all pissed. But that’s no reason to go making very insulting criminal accusations against the man. Simmer down. Please.
That being said, WWJ(oe_Cool)D if his wife/child said to him, “Honey/Pops, I’ve been thinking, and I’ve found that I can’t accept the divinity of Jesus Christ as a valid concept anymore?”
I didn’t actually accuse him of anything, I asked a sarcastic question. Frankly, I think that any guy who claims that his authority always takes precedence over that of his wife is a controlling, abusive jerk whether he actually hits her or not.
I really want to know, Joe, what does the head of the household do if his wife defies his authority? I can never get guys who think this way to give me a straight answer to that question.
Oh, the voice of reason speaks up again. But at least you’re consistent in the way you cast aspersions without knowing shit about what you’re talking about. The same way you do with Daryl’s family.
For the record, he seems to have been a nice, well-respected, and intelligent young man (not a teenager, as Polycarp reported. And he killed himself last Wednesday, not Friday, as andygirl reported). I’m sure that his death is a great loss (working on a universal language for mathematics and science? Quite an impressive goal) for everyone who knew him, and even for many who didn’t.
But that doesn’t mean that things necessarily happened the way andygirl said they did. And even if they did, as Uzi pointed out, Daryl hardly gave them sufficient time to come to grips with his revelation.
“Mom, Dad, I have something to tell you. Oh, you’re not happy for me? Ok, bye. END”
Not exactly a reasonable reaction. Like I said, things blow over. Parents come to their senses after responding badly to bombshells like that. But he didn’t give them a chance.
RTFirefly:
The fishy thing about the story is that a gay rights activist group in New Hampshire would have intimate details about what was said during a discussion in a household in Reno, Nevada. I suspect that somebody got a version of what happened, filtered through the mind of a severely depressed and suicidal young man - not the most factually reliable of sources in the first place - filtered it through the minds of grieved friends, then further filtered it through the leadership of a gay activist group. Which is where we pick up on the story.
I’m not suggesting that anybody is lying, but that the chain of “Telephone” is a little too long and tenuous for me to accept it at face value.
Further, as Kalhoun said above, you don’t simply assume the veracity of an unverifiable statement that accuses grieving parents of guilt in the suicide of their son. That is every bit as heartless as what you are accusing me of.
Diogenes, speaking as a Christian woman in a Christian marriage, I have to say that the idea of a male head of the household is not unique. It’s not necessarily the Master/slave relationship you seem to be presenting though. For my husband and I it was a decision we came to mutually, and the ‘husband’ card, as far as I can tell, has only been played once in our eight years of marriage and that was regarding whether or not we’d buy a Dodge Durango or a Stratus.
Mr. Jar decided the Stratus would be best.
It’s more of a tiebreaker in relationship issues, or at least that’s what our parents taught us. When in difficult spots, rather than go back and forth for six months on what we should do I yield to what my husband thinks is best.
However, he is a smart man and knows, for instance, that I know more about our financial situation and bill paying, so those decisions go to me.
Does that make more sense?