Youth Guide

Leadership & wellness for all youth

New Jersey Supreme Court Says Same-Sex Marriages Can Begin

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No one can stop an idea whose time has come, and that definitely applies to same sex marriage. The idea that two people cannot get married over something so basic is ridiculous. No matter who you are, you should be able to join hands and get married. From a legal standpoint, there are numerous rights that are given to those in a traditional marriage. Why shouldn’t same sex couples enjoy those policies as well? Indeed, you cannot even adopt together as a gay couple in some places. When will people realize that we deserve the same rights as everyone else, and you cannot use a religion to say that we cannot have secular rights? Gay marriage doesn’t threaten traditional marriage. We are more than happy to avoid getting married in a church, and many gay people are okay with following religious codes. We’d be happy with a courthouse wedding, to be perfectly honest.

Well, here’s some good news for a change: the New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that the ban of same sex marriage is unconstitutional, and thus these marriages will begin taking place from the 21st of October onward.

New Jersey Supreme Court

This is an excellent time to be a resident of New Jersey. Of course, Governor Chris Christie isn’t quite pleased, and lost his bid for a delay.

Sorry, Governor, you don’t get to win this time. This is a magical time for gay people living in New Jersey. Have they ever considered that if they would just give us the same rights that they get to enjoy, we would back down?

This has bigger lesson and takeaways for the gay community at large. Our time is definitely here. More and more straight allies are standing up to say that the way we are treated is wrong. Don’t get sucked into the Westboro Baptist Church. They are extremists, and they’re going to get you mad. Focus on the love that straight people have for our cause. Focus on the devotion that they have to our rights.

And more importantly…treat them like people too. I know it’s hard to see them as your ally when so many have probably hurt you in the past. Let no innocent person bear the crimes of another person. Our legal system is based on this premise, and let’s face it — would you really want to pay the crimes of someone else? I sure wouldn’t.

If you see someone online from New Jersey involved in a same sex relationship, definitely pass them on the good news.

But what do you really think? Is there anything else that New Jersey needs to do for its growing gay community? Sound off in the comments!

The Hinterlands, An Original Musical Web Series Tackles Gay Teen Bullying

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When you live in the middle of nowhere, growing up gay is pretty much the worst thing you can be.  The Hinterlands is an original musical web series about Paul, a 16-year old kid who lives in a rural area where there are few resources and little tolerance for LGBTQ kids, causing him to feel very isolated and terribly alone. Walking down the hallway at school every morning is like running a gauntlet; he is unable to avoid the insults, name-calling and physical confrontations that are launched at him, day after day, just because he’s gay. Paul begins to wonder if it’s worth it, as he doubts the bullying and suffering will ever end. He contemplates taking his own life, but comes to develop and nurture a sense of resiliency that will help him move forward in his life, despite aversion and obstacles.

Paul and his classmates have been assigned to make a mini-documentary about their lives. Through this construct, The Hinterlands allows Paul to tell his own story through a combination of iPhone self-documentation, web-cam confessions and traditional cinematography. The goal of The Hinterlands is to tell an authentic teen story from a teen perspective, so that kids can relate to the character and place themselves in the story, regardless of their own specific situation.

The Hinterlands was devised by the writing team of Michelle Elliott and Danny Larsen (Cloaked, The Yellow Wood) and was directed by Brandon Ivie (A Christmas Story, First Date). The web series stars a number of establish and up and coming Broadway stars including Connor Russell (Disney’s Aladdin world premiere) as Paul, Erin Dilly (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Nice Work If You Can Get It) as his mother, John Bolton (A Christmas Story, Curtains, Spamalot) as his father and Zoe Considine (A Christmas Story) as his sister, Janie. Playing Paul’s peers at school are Caitlin Kinnunen (The Bridges of Madison County, Spring Awakening, next to normal), Daniel Quadrino (Newsies, Bye Bye Birdie), Andrew Brewer (Off-Broadway’s Cougar, The Musical and Nymph Errant) and Brianne Wylie. David Andrew Anderson (Meet John Doe) plays Gus.

The Hinterlands premieres October 28, 2013 and will be available online for FREE for kids across the country, along with resources and information for kids, parents and teachers who are confronting bullying. Watch the trailer below:

LGBT Shortfilm

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I was contacted by an aspiring filmmaker who just successfully completed a lesbian short film that was shot in New Jersey and New York.

“‘Reds & Blues’ takes place in Asbury Park, NJ in 1997. It is a visual journey into the thoughts of Daphne, who hasn’t gotten over the death of her girlfriend Haylie. Both couldn’t be together because of the manipulation from Haylie’s aunt Dolores who convinced Haylie to think she was in fact straight, which led to her suicide. Despite this fact, the suicide is not shown and it is all more of a visual collage.

My crew and I shot over 3 weekends and other weekdays at my Brooklyn apartment. We successfully funded our campaigns with private investors and indiegogo. Our very talented cast is from different NYC conservatories and our crew was formed by undergraduate students and alumni from the School of Visual Arts here in Manhattan.”

 

Miles Grady

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With such a title as “Miles Grady”, you might wonder what this is all about. We love to reach out to our fellow LGBT members of the community on a wide variety of issues, not just stuff involving “our issues”. Finance matters as well.

Since we have an international audience, I felt that it was important to warn you about the scams going on with Miles Grady and the Paymatters LLC group as a whole. This is a company that specializes in debt management and debt settlement, which means that they work things out with you and your credits. Unfortunately, they ended up hurting the public by including VAT, when they didn’t need to collect it in the first place. When you don’t inform the public of such a thing, we call that fraud.

It’s absolutely disgusting, and we wanted to reach out to let you know about it. Debt management is a topic that’s near and dear to our hearts, because debt hurts people. All people. Teens, young adults, older adults, children. It hurts even the children because when they are looking at how the adults handle their problems. So when you’re swindled by a debt management company, things start going downhill pretty fast.

3d man tied with text 'fraud' after committing crime.

There’s no reason to feel angry at yourself. If you’ve been scammed by Miles Grady and the rest of the PayMatters LLC team, the truth is that you can’t blame yourself. Remember that these are people with superior information of the law and the way finances work in general. When you are drowning in debt and someone tells you that they have a solution, it’s very tempting to listen to them. You feel like they have something good to offer you. You start thinking that there’s no need to worry or double check. We put a lot of trust in organizations to help us, of course.

There’s something important to be said about the process here. As long as you’re moving towards a better future, it doesn’t matter what people think. So you were harmed by a company. Fight back and don’t worry about who tells you to be reasonable. Don’t worry about who tells you to relax and take it easy. You are not going to take this lying down. You need to stand up for yourself — something that many members of the LGBT understand instinctively, better than anyone else I’d say. Good luck!

Weary of Bullies – Stand Up to Them

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Bullying is a problem that exists in virtually every single school. In fact, we can’t think of a school that doesn’t have a bullying problem. Of course, statistics can be brought in and said that some schools have less of a problem with bullying than other schools. But the truth is that you definitely still have a problem with bullies. You definitely still have to figure out how to deal with bullies. You can’t just hope and pray that everything is going to be all right. You have to make sure that you know what’s going on all the time, not just when you think everything’s okay. There’s no time like the present to really make sure that you have things covered.

You have to think about the bigger picture no matter what you do. You can’t get worked up about the bullying if you’re part of it. Are you lashing out at people that don’t agree with you? I know it’s not fair, but we can’t afford fair when we’re the ones that are “different”. We have to show that we’re willing to be more than tolerant of other people’s beliefs. We have to show that we’re willing to take the conversation to a higher level. Attitudes about gay marriage are changing, slowly but surely. DOMA being struck down was a major victory for us, but we still have some roads to walk down before we can really feel equal in the eyes of others. That’s the problem, isn’t it? We’re trying to show that we’re just as good as anyone else. This has positive and negative implications.
You have to think about how to stand up to bullies in your life. You’re not going to be the only person bullied. Far too often we forget that bullying affects everyone.

Bullying

If you really want to put an end to the bullies in your life, you have to stand up for yourself. This can be tough when you feel like it’s only going to make it worse. But what you may fail to realize is that if you don’t stand up to them, they’re going to keep trying to hurt you. They know that their words are getting to you, so guess what you’re going to get in return? More words, more anger, more hurt and more pain.

Bullies have often been bullied themselves. In essence, they’re trying to seek power. Plain and simple. They’re trying to get into a world where they can’t seem to get things moving in the right direction. They’re hurting and they want to try to figure out how to make the pain go away. It’s the way it is.

Pain begets more pain, more misery, more sickness, more sadness. It’s the way it is. Just when you think that you’re going to be spared, there’s more pain involved. It’s hurtful. But somewhere down deep, you will find a courage within to stand up to the bullies. Once you cut off their power, bullies realize that they have to go somewhere else. There’s nothing like waking up to a world where you have resources to deal with issues. It can hurt dealing with people that want to see you suffer, but that’s part of life.

We can’t shrink away from bullies. Although we’re writing for gay teens, we are past the teenager stage…and guess what? There are still bullies. Standing up to them isn’t easy, but they’re everywhere. And they can tell whether you’ll fight them or not. The small abuses you put up with today can easily morph into bigger issues that you’ll need to face later down the road. The more that you focus on this, the more likely it is that you’ll get the type of resolution that you’re really looking for. Good luck!