The authors of a new fairtyale book about two men falling in love are hoping to shift cultural attitudes towards the LGBTI community and prevent teens from being bullied to death.
Promised Land was released on Valentine's Day and tells the story of a prince named Leo and a farm boy named Jack who meet in an enchanted forest, become friends and fall in love.
"We were sick of reading stories of teenagers killing themselves after being bullied about being gay," co-author Chaz Harris told the ABC.
Mr Harris, who is based in New Zealand, said the tragic loss of Australian teenager Tyrone Unsworth last year as a result of homophobic bullying was something that the pair hoped to prevent in the future with their book.
"What happened to Tyrone could happen to any gay teen," he said, adding that he himself was severely bullied in high school for his sexuality.
"Any LGBTI teen who has experienced bullying in school looks at what happened [to Tyrone] and thinks that could have been me.
"If you don't have that support around you, if you don't have those positive messages coming through, it makes it hard.
"So my initial reaction was that you identify with it, you think that could have been me, and that's what we're trying to change with our book. We're hoping to show that love is love, so that things like this don't happen."
Isaac Torres
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Justin Reyes
Bullies have existed forever They taught children a valuable life lesson that they will encounter people throughout life that share different beliefs and how to deal with it emotionally. Conflict resolution. No wonder all these people literally cried/shook to death/vomited when Trump was elected president. None of them learned how to deal with shit they didn't like in school.
Gabriel Hughes
Where is the lesbian incest? Frozen has showed it sells.
Gabriel Anderson
So what? This is a non issue
Joshua Morgan
Lets just tell kids the world is your own little safespace where they belong.
I'm going to hack every retailer that sells this book, find everyone who bought it, and beat the shit out of them with the book.
Jonathan Sanchez
Tyrone was a fag, I'm glad he's dead
William Jackson
>LGBTI >I
what did they mean by this
Jackson Collins
Intersex is an identity apparently.
Jonathan Adams
I have six fingers, what gender am I?
Nolan Murphy
I mean the idea is fine, but the book itself looks gay.
Parker Gutierrez
:(
Liam Ramirez
The correct way to interact with bullies is to assault them with a brick until they cant talk no more. Unfortunately, in these cases the bully usually gets away with the torment and the tormented gets in quite a bit of trouble. You are advocating teaching children to tolerate degeneracy forced upon them by a protected person. This is the same logic that calls upon us to accept self-identified transdegenerates and liberals as whatever sort of alien they say they are. Reconsider your life.
Tyler Butler
They are shitting on a genre that is the continuation of thousand years old European storytelling. They are shitting on an ancient form of European storytelling.
Henry Bailey
Ok good. All these threads start with 6's. Do you have fairy tales? I guess these are more authentic. Only no demons
Daniel Nelson
This wont stop the hate on gay people faggots gunna fag
Fuck gay people desu
Jordan Hughes
art looks like shit desu
Easton Long
Why are the people of this magical forest a mix of white people and middle eastern looking ones? Isn't that pretty racist against asians and Africans? Why aren't they allowed to live in the enchanted forest? Are leftists trying to erase the concept of evolution to normalise multiculturalism?
Or is that the two fuckin' white males aren't sexually interested in those races and thus have omitted them from the book?
Kevin Martinez
How many people that actually have kids would actually buy this for them?
Robert Clark
>australian teenager Tyrone Unsworth
kek
Gabriel Roberts
>LGBTI- What the fuck is the I? Or the - for that matter?
Camden Torres
People will learn, way too late, that trans-acceptance is the cause of such a high suicide rate in these people. Gender dysphoria is an illness, and needs to be treated, not pandered to.
Tyler Rivera
The I is for intersex. From the joke "inter? I hardly know her!"
Jaxson Lewis
No it doesn't, let them wallow in their degenerate life! Let them kill themselves!
Camden Martinez
>Why contain it?
Hunter Gomez
oh, hey, it's sweden
Jonathan Roberts
>same kid
Noah Williams
>Conflict resolution.
James Bailey
They are mentally ill. They're gonna end up killing themselves anyway. A faggy book with pretty pictures ain't gonna make a lick of difference. If anything it'll make things worse for them and speed up their suicides when they realise their shitting existence is nothing like the rainbows, candy cane and unicorns in the book.
Austin Lopez
>raise awareness How much more aware are we going to become of these fucking faggots? If anything, it's this neverending awareness raising that has caused the massive right wing backlash.
Nolan Barnes
Fuck this. I bet the kid got bullied because he creeper out other kids.
Also I bet any kid who was given this as a gift would cringe hard and probably suicide from the fucking embarrassment. Adults who think they're helping are the god damn worst. This author should be put up on charges.