You're listening to a stranger podcast, www.w.The stranger.com.

Hey, I wanted to say something before the podcast starts this week. It's sort of an important note and a downer, maybe not a downer message, but I wanted to talk to you very seriously before the podcast.

So we'll get to the theme music and the intro rant and your questions in a minute, but I need to say this first.

Another gay teenager in another small town has killed himself.

So I hope you're happy.

American Family Association, all your Christian bastards who keep anti-bullying programs out of our high schools because Billy Lucas, who was just 15 years old,

hanged himself in a barn on his grandmother's property after enduring

intense bullying at the hands of his classmates at his high school, rural Indiana, classmates,

who called him a fag and told him to go kill himself, which he did. His mother found his body.

Nine out of ten gay teenagers experience bullying and harassment at school, and gay teens are four times likely or do attempt suicide.

Many LGBT kids who kill themselves live in rural areas like Billy Lucas did, or exerbs or suburban areas in places really with no gay organizations or services for queer kids or visible gay people at all.

You know, I posted a piece about Billy to my blog,

to slog, and somebody wrote in the comments, my heart breaks for the pain and torment you went through Billy Lucas. I wish I could have told you that things get better. And I thought,

when I read that, I thought, Jesus Christ, that's the

reaction I had. That's the same reaction I have every time I read one of these stories. And there's

been a lot of stories lately about gay teenagers and isolated parts of the country, killing

themselves. And I always think I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish

I could have told Billy Lucas that it gets better. I would have

told him that however bad things are right now, however isolated alone you feel, it gets better.

But, you know, gay adults were not allowed to talk to these kids, these isolated kids. Schools and

churches are not going to bring in gay adults to talk to teenagers who are being bullied or to talk to the people who are bullying them.

Many of these kids have homophobic parents who believe that they can prevent their gay children from growing up to be gay or from ever coming out by depriving them of information and resources and positive role models.

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