Joel Burns (Texas councilman) speech to gay teens

[DirtyMartini]

link to Guardian blog

massively moving to watch.

my god, thats so moving.

that man is very brave.

oh good, someone watched it :)

I know. I'm all puffy from trying not to cry. DP has popped to the shops and will be when he gets in to find me red-eyed.

Well I cried, alot.

That first little boy looks very much like my 4 year old son who is very effeminate and could easily be picked on for similar reasons and it breaks my heart to think of any child going through such hell at the hands of anyone.

Dan Savage started the 'It Gets Better' project, I have a feeling this speech is part of that movement. Really a great idea.

Thanks for that link. It's very moving I agree. Blubbing a bit here.

Here's the video on the It Gets Better youtube channel

That should be shown in every high/secondary school, gay, straight, black, white, fat, thin teenagers need to see it. They are such hard years.

Blinking back tears here and totally agree it should shown to children in schools.

Oh those darling boys. What a hero Joe is.

Thank you Dirty Martini.

That was so not what I was expecting from the title. What a brave man.

Although the spate of suicides which prompted it is tragic, it is encouraging that a speech like that could have been made (and receive mostly standing ovation) in Texas.

What a brave speech. I agree that everyone should see this, we are all so different.

that was incredible

very moving,and should be shown to every young person in the world.

inspiring stuff.

i just send him an e-mail. i don't do stuff like that as a rule. but he is awsome

i know, I very nearly did too Custy...he's inspiring. I want to be his friend.

I wonder what sort of coverage (if any) this is getting in the US?

Not sure, it was a US friend who brought it to my attention though. She shared it on FB. Her link was to another site entirely with lots of flashing bits etc, so I posted the GU link here as I figured it would be more familiar.

But the site she linked to said it had been 'shared' x amount of times and it seemed a v high number. So whether or not it's getting coverage in the mainstream media, it's prob still making an impact.

wonder what jon stewart will say about it.

www.joelburns.com

i just have to bump this

and again.

I wonder if Jon Stewart did cover it? We haven't been watching the Daily Show much this past week or two, as everyone has been ill and bedtimes seem to be taking ages.

I just googled "joel burns daily show" and "joel burns jon stewart" but no direct hits.

Still, he seems like the kind of guest they might bring on the show at some point, which would be good.

What a beautiful,heartfelt speech,and what an incredible man.

DP and I just watched it.It had us both in tears.

bump

iw atch the daily shwo fairly regularly and i haven;t seen it. i hope jon stewart doe shave him on as a guest.