RIP Gay Victims of Abuse: Will YOU Wear Purple on October 20th?

 

LGBT flag Image via Wikipedia

 

This post follows a previous article on Tyler Clemente Dead at 18: Teasing and Bullying Teenagers is an Epidemic.  Please click there before continuing…

Tyler Clemente wasn’t the only recent teenage victim of persecution for being gay.  There was also Asher Brown (an 8th grader who shot himself in the head after suffering abuse by other students), Seth Walsh (hung himself at 13 after school officials ignored the problem), Justin Aaberg (at 15 hung himself following three of five suicides thought related to struggles with sexual identity), Raymond Chase (hung himself at 19) and Billy Lucas (hung himself at 15 after making administrators aware of his LGBT bullying, and they did nothing).

According to the Miami Herald, Campus Pride (which recently released a study on attitudes towards LGBT students on campus) issued a statement in reaction to the deaths:

…the recent pattern of LGBT youth suicides is cause for grave concern. Campus Pride demands national action be taken to address youth bullying, harassment and the need for safety and inclusion for LGBT youth at colleges and universities across the country. We must not let these tragic deaths go unnoticed. Together we must act decisively to curb anti-LGBT bias incidents, harassment and acts of violence.

Many consider this terrible pattern of abuse as a call to action.

Tyler Clemente Dead at 18: Teasing and Bullying Teenagers is an Epidemic

This issue continues here: RIP Gay Victims of Abuse: Will YOU Wear Purple on October 20th?

From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl7z1N6LFh8

My heart goes out to everyone who suffers from teasing and bullying.  They are forms of persecution, and it’s treated far to lightly in our culture when its targeted at children and teenagers.  Teenagers are already going through a difficult transition point in their lives, a point at which they are establishing their identity.  It’s an especially vulnerable time to be subject to attacks on that identity.

Miasma and the Mentally Ill

Miasma: ritual pollution or defilement.

Is mental illness, and disease in general, inflicted by the gods as punishment for hubris and other “sins”? Are we punished for approaching the gods when afflicted by Miasma (ritual impurity), or simply ignored? Or, is Miasma the result of physical and mental illness, which when afflicts us, bars us from approaching the theoi (gods)? If so, what can we do to seek Their help when we most need it (when ill) and yet do so with respect?

How did the ancients approach this issue?