Actor-comedian Stephen Colbert, the
host of cabler Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, tells
troubled gay teens to hang in there because people get nicer.
In Colbert's
two-minute-twenty-three-second video for the It
Get Better Project, he advices LGBT youth to empower themselves.
He relates a story about a friend from
high school, Pat, who instead of running away from a bully who called
him queer turned around and asked for a kiss.
“I was stunned. I couldn't believe
the magic that Pat had just worked,” Colbert said. “He had
somehow figured out that if you don't give power to the words that
people throw at you to hurt you, they don't hurt you anymore. And
you actually have power over those people.”
Colbert is among the thousands of
everyday folks, celebrities, politicians, sports figures and
companies to record a video for gay activist Dan Savage's It Gets
Better campaign, which urges gay teens to hang in there because life
eventually gets better.
“Because it gets better,” Colbert
concluded. “People get nicer, too.” (The video is embedded in
the right panel of this page.)