Portland's openly gay mayor, Sam Adams,
has joined the effort to end the bullying of gay teens.
Adams, the first openly gay mayor of a
top-30 U.S. city, shared his story in a video for openly gay
author-activist Dan Savage's It Gets Better campaign, which benefits
The Trevor
Project, a national group centered on crisis and suicide
prevention efforts for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
youth.
“It was lonely. It was hard,”
Adams says in the video. “Especially when the teasing term of the
day included 'fag.' And I kept wondering, 'How do they know?'”
“I can tell you that it's not easy,
necessarily, to get through those kind of tough times, but you must
because you have your whole life in front of you.” (The video is
embedded in the right panel of this page.)
Adams fought back demands that he
resign in 2009 after admitting that he covered up a sexual affair
with an 18-year-old boy during his mayoral campaign.
Other openly gay celebrities who have
also joined the campaign include Project
Runway
celebrity judge Tim Gunn, talk
show host Ellen DeGeneres,
How I Met Your Mother star
Neil Patrick Harris and former 'NSYNCer Lance Bass.