With Love, Uncle Bruce (the Sodomite)

I can't remember the last time I was interested in a Time magazine article, but this week's cover story on gay teens is certainly worth a read. The report looks at how gay youths are challenging the right — and the left. And what it means to society that people are now "coming out" when they're still children.

This topic was particularly interesting to me because I happened to meet a 20-year-old kid over the summer in the Hamptons who had come out when he was still in high school back in Idaho. I was so curious to see if the process had been as easy for him as my 30-something friends and I had been imagining — what with the great strides made by society since we were teens (gay marriage, all of the visible gay people on TV, gay-straight alliances at so many schools, etc). This kid truly shocked me by telling me how my experience didn't sound different from his at all. If anything, his was much worse given the fact that he had been thrown out of his house and cut off from most of his family. But even looking at things from a bigger-picture perspective, he said things hadn't changed much. He still thought he was "the only gay person in the world" growing up. He still heard all of the jokes and put-downs about gays. He still lived in fear of being "found out." And as for the aforementioned visible gays on television, it sounded like Jack McFarland & Co. were about as helpful to a kid coming to terms with his sexuality as Jodie Dallas was for us. Talk about a reality check.

Favorite part of the Time article:
Bruce Lindstrom, 60, is the brainchild of the Point Foundation, which gives lavish scholarships to gay students. Lindstrom grew up in an evangelical family in Riverside, Calif., and says when his parents and two brothers learned he was gay, they stopped talking to him. His nephew, Nathan Lindstrom, 29, says whenever Bruce sent gifts home, the kids were told, "This is from Uncle Bruce, the sodomite."

Full story: The Battle Over Gay Teens (via Time)