National Coming Out Day is coming up on Monday. It may seem that this observance does not have a major effect on the lives of the majority of the population — at Ball State or nationally.
But whether you are gay or straight, this year's celebration of openness and acceptance about sexuality should have a special significance.
Even if we don't participate in the day ourselves, we should keep Tyler Clementi in mind.
Clementi is the 18-year-old Rutgers University student who killed himself by jumping off the George Washington Bridge two weeks ago. Why did he do it? Clementi didn't say in his suicide note, but it's pretty likely he was beyond humiliated when his roommate posted an Internet video of Clementi kissing another man in his dorm room.
It shouldn't be this way, though. People should be free to love whoever they want without repercussions from their friends, family or society.
What someone does in the privacy of the bedroom is between that person and whoever else chooses to participate. No one should have to tell anyone about his or her sex life. If people want to keep their orientation a secret, it is their right to do so.
Yet we live in an age where "Facebook makes it official." Our relationships and friendships aren't "real" until we post them on the Internet. We have almost made it mandatory for people to disclose personal information for anyone to see.
We monitor one another's love lives, taking our gossip into a high-tech environment.
Then someone takes it too far and "outs" someone via the Internet, allegedly broadcasting a video to show Clementi "making out with a dude," as if it were some sort of joke.
Molly Wei and Clementi's roommate Dharun Ravi have been charged with invasion of privacy in connection with the broadcast. Prosecutors are considering charging them with a hate crime as well.
If Clementi's death were the only case like this, it would be bad enough. But he was just one of many to commit suicide after being the victim of gay slurs. Billy Lucas, a 15-year-old from Greensburg, Ind., killed himself in September as well after being bullied. And there are many more.
So what can we do?
By standing up to the bigots and supporting the friends and strangers among us who are in the GLBT community, we make the world a better place. By taking a stand, we make sure that everybody gets an equal shot at living a normal life. Nobody should be ashamed of the way God or genetics — whichever you believe — made them.
Let's make National Coming Out Day a moment where Ball State says it won't stand for intolerance. Let's be allies for our friends.
Let's show we can learn from the recent tragedies and be a better society for it.
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