Today, October 11, LGBT people around the U.S. and their allies are celebrating National Coming Out Day.
While it's still a good occasion to celebrate the liberating feeling of being true to who you really are, this year's celebration is marred by the recent wave of suicides by both LGBT and straight youth who had been bullied at school.
In September alone, seven teenagers committed suicide in the U.S. after being relentlessly bullied for being gay -- or accused of being gay. And these are just the ones we know about:
• Billy Lucas, 15, of Greensburg, IN (died September 9)
• Cody Barker, 17, of Schiocton, WI (died September 13)
• Tyler Clementi, 18, of Ridgewood, NJ (died September 22)
• Asher Brown, 13, of Cypress TX (died September 23)
• Seth Walsh, 13, of Tehachapi, CA (died September 28)
• Raymond Chase, 19, of Johnson & Wales University, Providence, RI (died September 29)
• Caleb Nolt, 14, of Fort Wayne, IN (died September 30)
They were accompanied out of this life by two other teen suicides whose sexual orientation I could not confirm:
• Harrison Chase Brown, 15, of Fort Collins, CO (died September 25)
• Felix Sacco, 17, of Saugus, MA (died September 29) - Probably straight, as he had recently broken up with a girlfriend.
Gay or straight, nobody deserves to be bullied to death.
May they rest in peace as they couldn't in this life.
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