War on Gay Teens

I am going to be honest here and say that I have never felt very strong about gay right. Now I'm not saying there shouldn't be gay rights because I believe that if your in love your in love and you should be able to express that. So I do think gay people should have rights, but I wouldn't be the one protesting and advocating for gay rights. Simply for the reason that I don't think I have connections to that in my life, or people close to me who have been really affected by the law.
I do have one experience that I could talk about. I will never forget the first time I learned what it meant to be gay or lesbian. My cousin who is probably about 10 years older then me was came over to my house and brought a girl over, who at the time I thought was just her friend, just like I bring friends place I simply thought she did the same thing. I did start to notice some touching and sitting on each others lap and I remember asking my mom why they did all that, she said she would tell me later. At this point I was about 7 or 8, maybe a little younger and would always ask my oldest cousin if she had a boy friend or if I could be the flower girl at the wedding, thinking there was nothing wrong with that. Immediately after she left our house my parents sat me down and said "your cousin is a lesbian." I was so confused because I really had a slight idea of what that meant, so I asked "what does that mean" my mom answered with, "well you know how dad and I love each other? Well she has those same feelings, but for girls instead of boys." It went something like that right after she told me that before I could even respond to her, the doorbell rang it was my cousin at the door. She came in with a huge smile on her face and goes "I left without giving shira a hug!" and she went in to give me a hug and I ran away from her. I still feel bad about doing that.
Obviously at the time, I did not realize the controversies of lesbian and gay couples, and that I was not the only person who acted that way. I didn't realize how hard it was for her to come out and be comfortable with the fact she is a lesbian, and she wasn't even able to be proud or happy for herself.
After reading, "Our Town's War on Gay Teens" from Rolling Stone magazine the story of my cousin came back and hit me hard. To see and entire town  and school make it so hard for these children to be comfortable in their own skin was so hard for me to read. Imagining if I was in that position, with no one to talk to, and being gay would just be a huge elephant in the room that no teacher was allowed to acknowledge.When I read, "teachers were, of course, reminded to never show personal support for GLBT people" I was shocked and disgusted. They dont need to give preference to GLBT kids for any means, but this in a rule in the school then they wonder why there is such a high suicide rate in the town. Maybe if the kids were treated like normal children from the teachers who are supposed to be role models, there might not be such a high suicide rate. These kids are being treated like they are so different and their feelings are so wrong, and they dont know how to change the way they feel so some of them kill themselves which is horrible.
I really felt like my 7 year old self acted in this horrible way and although I really did not know the extent of the issue at the time, I now understand how important is to accept people for who they are, not who they like.