Daniel Pierce Comes Out and Gets Hit

Georgia resident Daniel Pierce, a 20 year old gay man, came out to his family in October.  They recently staged an intervention to somehow "pray away the gay."  Daniel secretly taped what transpired.  Despite attack Bibles waived at him, Daniel very bravely stands his ground.  When it became clear that he was not going to yield, the pious masks fell off and the raw hatred and malice burst out and ended with Daniel's parents hitting him and throwing him out of the house.

He posted this video on Youtube and his Facebook page and it has gone viral with over 2 million hits.  Daniel ignored his stepmother's command to take down the video, and instead, his boyfriend set up a fund to help Daniel that so far has raised over $50,000.

This is painful to listen to, and definitely not safe for work.






"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I want to shout at all my fundamentalist friends.

Mercifully, I was blessed with parents who loved me, and loved me more than a Bronze Age book, and more than the good opinion of their neighbors.
However, even those of us who are gay who were spared this experience know people (usually more than one) who did go through something like this.  I certainly knew people who were expelled and estranged from their families.  I knew others who suffered physical and emotional abuse from frightened and bigoted parents.

Our enemies are out to destroy us, to wipe us off the face of the earth one way or another: whether it's through "therapy," "prayer,"  criminalization, or gas chambers, the result remains the same, a world purified of homosexuality, a world rid of us.

And yet, as this tape abundantly demonstrates, our enemies help our cause so much by just being themselves, their hateful malicious reptilian selves.  They make the closet brothers and sisters mad enough to come out and embrace their identity.  They make the choice for our straight friends and neighbors so much easier by being horrible and repulsive.

Thanks to Daniel Pierce for his courage in standing his ground (armed only with a small camera), and for posting the evidence for all the world to see.

EXTRA:

What Daniel Pierce went through reminds us of what so many LGBTQ kids go through, and also calls our attention to the plight of homeless youth, around 40% of whom identify as LGBTQ.
Here are some services you might want to make a donation to:

The Ali Forney Center which provides local and national services to homeless LGBTQ kids.

And there is the National Runaway Switchboard.


EXTRA:

I removed a sentence from this screed that I myself found offensive.