14 DAY TRIAL // American Idol star Clay Aiken has joined the list of celebrities to speak up for concrete measures to be taken to prevent bullying in schools on grounds like orientation and religion. The singer is backing up a series of legal measures that are being considered.
As JustJared reports, Aiken uses his own case as an example of why teens need legislation to protect them from bullying.
“The 31-year-old singer teamed up with GLSEN to back the Safe Schools Improvement Act and the Student Non-Discrimination Act,” the celebrity e-zine writes.
As Aiken puts it, it’s hard to be a teen and not have anyone say there’s nothing wrong with being different – bullying makes matters even worse.
“I never had someone who told me that it was okay to be different… that it was okay to be me. What I did hear was that it would get better once I was out of high school… that things would get better,” the singer, who is openly gay, says.
“But from where I sat, I could not possibly believe that to be true,” Clay adds. Because of this, he doesn’t want other teens to go through the same.
“We need federal leadership from Congress to encourage all states and districts and each and every school to create safe learning environments where all students can learn and succeed,” Aiken concludes by saying.
As noted above, Aiken is not the only celebrity to speak up against bullying in schools, which has generated a wave of teen suicides sweeping the US, since the list also includes Barack Obama and another gay American Idol Adam Lambert.
While the President underlined in his “It Gets Better” video he didn’t personally know what it was like to be bullied, Adam made a point of telling gay teens that being different was no reason to feel ashamed. On the contrary, actually.
“At the end of the day, if you give those bullies and those people that are so ignorant and fearful of your lifestyle, if you give them the power to affect you, you’re letting them win, and they don’t deserve that,” Adam said back in October this year.
“I believe in you. I think it’s great. There are a ton of us out here in this world that are just like you, that believe in you,” he added, as we also informed you at the time.