We heap a lot of criticism onto the Portland police here on Blogtown, but today they’ve done something sweet and excellent: Released a moving It Gets Better video.
The video takes a cue from the San Fransisco PD and includes about a dozen LGBT uniformed officers speaking plainly about harassment, exclusion, and pain they’ve faced on the road to becoming proud of their sexuality.
Kids and teenagers look up to police as powerful, ethical people in society. Hopefully some of the 22 percent of LGBT teens in Oregon who attempt suicide every year take their message to heart.
I figure the PPB like gay people about as much as they like black people.
This is wonderful.
This is a nice gesture – part of a sea changes in attitudes towards LGBT. But I gotta say: this video also helps me to understand the very bizarre welcome we received from the seemingly-cool lesbian neighbor across the street. Back in March, when my housemates and I were moving into our new rental, she came up to us and asked us if we were Occupy and were squatting the house. We were totally confused. Where would that come from? We just paid a hefty deposit to live in a fairly nice house. Is the house in foreclosure? What were we missing?
Now I see that she’s a cop. Ooookay.