An Important Message - From Ellen DeGeneres (Gay Suicide)

Serendipity

Last week, Julianna and I were going into the Wawa and a man approached me and asked me how old my daughter was. It did cross my mind to wonder why a stranger wanted to know Julianna’s age but I had neither a clue what nefarious thing he could do with that information nor were any red flags waving so I replied, “She’s eleven.” He went on to ask me if she had ever been bullied. “Not to my knowledge,” was my response.
He went on to tell me that his thirteen year old daughter had been bullied with the brand of cruelty that has made, “Mean Girls,” genre of movies consistently popular with the teen and tweenaged demographic.
The poor man was distraught about his daughter and mortified that he had troubled a perfect stranger. I, on the other hand, was starting to see God’s hand in the situation and told him as much because I am the mother of five girls and I am quite familiar with this brand of bullying. I told him that this was a huge problem, that his daughter needs to be protected from the bully and the school should be forced to take the kind of action against verbal bullying that they take against fist fights within school property.
He wanted to pay for the food I had ordered but I wouldn’t accept. “Pay it forward,’ I told him. God has blessed me so abundantly I don’t need the money and the laws of nature work such that paying it forward keeps blessings flowing in the proper direction.
I am saddened to see a rash of teen suicides that are a result of bullying. In many cases, the bullying was anti-gay or outing teens that were perceived to be gay.
This must be stopped period. We need to be safe places for teens to go through the process of finding their authentic selves.