Too long post
Click to viewI was going to observe that she said basically nothing in terms of policy and spent the entire time expressing platitudes and the same thing your school councilor could have told you.
But then I reflected on the question itself.
Frankly, I don't think it's the President's responsibility to take action (as President of the United States) to reduce the gay teen depression and suicide rate, whether by trying to do something about the culture in schools or otherwise. There are things for the POTUS to worry about; the atmosphere in your school isn't one of them. Does the school matter? Yes. But it's run by the state, by local school board members, by teachers and a local principal, the students in your community. And we all have a role to play in defining the culture.
Ultimately, Hillary did the right thing -- Q: "What will you do about this issue?" A: "Uh, nothing, but I will put a concerned tone of voice on and say how things ought to be." And that's really as far as what the POTUS can do about it, to say that it's wrong, parents should raise their kids better, something vague about the value of "services" and not feeling alone.
I mean, what do you expect? A sweeping national agenda to reduce the gay teen suicide rate? Millions of dollars in funding for training for teachers to deal with gay teens? It's a kind of silly question. The problem is cultural, and it'll be only really defeated when there's more tolerance in our culture and our kids. The people who have the power to do that are people like parents, or the media when they decide to run television shows with gay characters portrayed positively.
A politician can play a role too, with a few pieces of legislation that may have an effect on redefining or asserting the social standards of right and wrong -- whether it's hate crimes legislation, looking at Don't Ask Don't Tell, or gay marriage. But mainly they're limited to making concerned noises and fluttering about when someone asks them a question they can't really answer, because it's not their job to deal with it. It's like a guy saying "Help, I lost my job, what will you do to stop that from happening?" Um, nothing, but let me talk about my economic policies.
Ultimately we need to realize that just because somebody is prominent and important doesn't mean that they necessarily control the direction of the parts of our lives that matter most. Hillary Clinton can talk about LGBT youth, but my school councilor could have said the same thing and more with more confidence. Hillary's not going to solve the LGBT community's problems, and Obama's not going to solve the LGBT community's problems. It's how we go about our daily lives that makes the biggest difference -- how you present yourself to the world, your shame or pride, your nervousness or confidence, your apparent strength or weakness morally in the eyes of others. Are you a friend, or a jerk? Are you creepy, or normal?
I don't believe that anybody owes a debt to society to behave in a certain way. It's just something you can do for yourself, to decide to actively set an example, or not to set an example, and if you are concerned with how you present yourself, what kind of an example you choose to set, what is important to you, what messages do you want to communicate.
Bill Cosby decided he wanted to set an example. In The Cosby Show, he had a lot of creative influence, and he decided he wanted an upper middle class black family headed by a doctor and a lawyer with sharp kids and they were going to make you laugh while running morality plays and teaching you something about life and your role as a kid or parent in society. He didn't have to do that, but he was passionate about it, and they called him America's Dad.
So you're not a celebrity, but you've got more influence than Cosby does, he's just got longer reach. He's some guy on the TV. You're flesh and blood in person. Your friends and family and the people who know you are much more influenced by you than they are by Bill Cosby. You can choose to set an example or not set an example. No obligation, but the point is that you have enormous influence over the culture around you, just as he did. He had broader reach, but so what? He's an entertainer. It's to be expected.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand? What is she supposed to do? She's not an entertainer. She's running for President. What's the President going to do about gay suicides? Bill Cosby could run a show on it or something, but she can make a soft face and repeat the question back to the person asking it with a concerned tone of voice and then talk vaguely about needing more services and how she thought a school in New York City just for gay teens was a good idea. People would care about the morality play Bill Cosby could run, and the people around you would care even more about what you could say, but Hillary Clinton answering a question? Nobody is going to be swayed by her concerned face. They just don't care, or if they do, they already agree with what she said. She's just trying to say "I get it" so you'll be more likely to vote for her. But in truth, she's saying nothing, and that lack of saying anything is her way of saying that it's not her job to try to fix every problem, little or big, in our country or our lives. That responsibility goes to the people living our lives, us.
There's no one person in the world who can do much to fix the gay teen suicide and depression rate statistics in large numbers. But just the four or five people still reading this (you) have more power than Hillary does as she faces the camera and answers that question with a resounding "I will make no policy changes to solve your problems." I hope that you can see that, and don't look to someone else to do it for you. Sure, you might say, "Well, no, that's not true, it's not my problem at all, I'm not in that statistic." But maybe you actually have the power to reduce that number by one, over the course of your life. And if everyone reduced that statistic by one, it would be so far in the negative, the world would implode over the mathematical impossibility of it. For that one person, you had a infinitely more power than Hillary Clinton or John McCain or Barack Obama. They are way too busy to worry about teen depression anyway.
So yeah, I was going to say that Hillary basically dodged the question and said nothing, and will do nothing. But in truth it's just not her job to do anything about LGBT teen suicides. It's yours and mine.