Over the past year, the national spotlight has focused on the deeply tragic stories of young people who were so severely bullied based on their real or perceived sexual orientation that they took the desperate step of ending their own lives.
These tragedies were entirely preventable. Schools were not protecting these children -- some as young as 11-years-old. For them, school was not the safe place of learning and growth that it should be, but a place of anguish and fear.
Justin Aaberg was a gay high school student who lived in Anoka, Minnesota. He played the cello and his mom says he always had a smile on his face. But Justin was gay, and kids bullied him at school. This summer, he hanged himself.
Carl Walker Hoover was tormented daily at his Massachusetts school for "acting gay." His mother talked to teachers and administrators, demanding action, but the situation didn't improve. Carl was only 11 years old when he killed himself this April.
Asher Brown was a straight-A student at his Texas school. After being bullied for years -- bullying that included other students forcing him to simulate sex acts during their gym class -- Asher killed himself last month. He was in 8th grade.
There are many more stories that have same ending. To those of us who haven't been in school recently, it may be hard for us to see these as anything but a string of isolated incidents. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) surveyed more than 7,000 middle and high school students last year and found that nearly 9 in 10 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students had experienced harassment at school and nearly two-thirds felt unsafe because of their sexual orientation. States that gather data on the health risks faced by LGBT students also show that they are consistently more likely than their heterosexual peers to face violence at school and attempt suicide.
We are both working to turn this situation around by making schools safe for LGBT students. To that end, the Human Rights Campaign is working with schools across the country to implement Welcoming Schools -- a resource to help schools embrace family diversity, avoid gender stereotyping and end name-calling and bullying. If our schools taught children to respect their differences at an early age and school personnel were prepared to respond to bullying, we might have been able to avoid the kind of tragedy that recently happened at Rutgers University. Just a few days ago, Freshman Tyler Clementi jumped off a bridge to his death after his roommate allegedly secretly filmed him in a sexual encounter with another man.
But we also need strong laws in place to prevent the harassment of LGBT students. That is why we need to pass the Student Non-Discrimination Act, introduced by Senator Franken. This critical legislation would forbid schools from discriminating against or ignoring the harassment of students based on actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. The bill would also provide meaningful remedies for such discrimination, modeled on Title IX.
Some view this epidemic of suicides as a wake-up call and are looking for ways to prevent future tragedies. We firmly believe that if schools work to create positive cultures and if Congress passes the Student Non-Discrimination Act, those steps will be a huge stride forward in protecting LGBT students from the bullying and harassment that is all too common in schools today.
After he hanged himself, Justin Aaberg's mother started talking with other LGBT youth to understand why her son decided to take his own life. "These kids, they just hate themselves," she told a local radio station. "They literally feel like they want to die." It is inexcusable that toxic school environments have been contributing to the deaths of innocent children. We must act now to prevent these tragedies.
Gareth Higgins: Tyler Clementi's Death: We're All Part of the Problem
Rev. Patrick S. Cheng, Ph.D.: Faith, Hope and Love: Ending LGBT Teen Suicide
Rev. James Martin, S.J.: 'A Prayer When I Feel Hated': Helping Prevent Gay Teen Suicide
Rev. Dr. Janet Edwards: Gay Teen Suicides: People of Faith, Step Up for Our Youth!
They. Are. Kids.
Children aren't born with with a fully developed sense of proper behavior. Primarily, parents must inculcate that proper behavior, not the federal government.
Perhaps if children were permitted to take what they learned on Sunday to school on Monday without bullying from the government....
He should have been on tv immediately speaking out against this kind of bullying and harassment. But he isn't, and never will be. He relies on us voting for the lesser of two evils. I am angry.
Shouldn't these people be fined and punished for the same psychological, emotional, and physical abuse that we would if it happened in other places have the book thrown at them?
Now, everyone can sit around and say to themselves "oh, that won't happen" however it happens everyday. A man sees a women and thinks, what would she look like...and women see an attractive man and do the same thing. It's human nature to imagine lustful thinking. Homosexuals are not different in this area. They do this as well, and just as a straight man would love to shower with a group of women, so too, would the homosexual.
We as people sometimes fail to look past a rule or law, and realize that it's there for protection. DADT protects the homosexuals from bashing and criticism from their peers in the army. I say this because I know people in the army, and i can tell you right now, a gay man running around telling the men he showered with that he's gay is inviting problems. That gay man will be beat to a pulp for looking at straight men who are not gay.
Although I've had gay associates in the past, I would not want them peeping.
Attempted suicide is not a normal in humans. People also need to recognize that there is probably a lot more going on with someone who attempts suicide than bullying by kids at school (who they probably don't even like or respect). Many, many people, gay and straight get bullied and, somehow, manage to cope without attempted suicide, so we need to stop jumping to facile conclusions and try to figure out what really is going on with the kids who attempt suicide.
For your peers to constantly be on your case at that age is surely unbearable.
Your statement, like so many others, chooses to blame the victim for not being "strong and confident" enough and I find that incredibly offensive and immeasurable insensitive as we know non-heterosexual teens are four times more likely to attemp to succeed at suicide.
I don't believe that for a second. So, you're saying this gay boy who jumped off the bridge had tried at minimum, 100 times before he actually figured out how to kill himself?
A person who fails 100 to 200 times to kill themselves does not really want to die. What they want is attention. Must like the women who burned her own face with house hold chemicals in a strange attempt to kill herself. She wasn't really trying to kill herself, she just wanted attention. If she really wanted to die, she would have drank these elements, not rubbed them on her face.
What we really need to be focusing on is creating a country where these kids can see a future for themselves. What we have now is a federal government made up mainly of a political party that openly plays to the hate and bigotry against LGBT Americans and one which sees us and the issues which directly impact our lives as second-class and expendable.
Just as the Democrats have proven to us repeatedly that in the end when it comes to LGBT Americans the only jobs they really care about protecting are their own, so too does the Human Rights Campaign happily sell out the poorest and least politically potent in order to secure rights and advantage exclusively for those like themselves. Barney Frank says "Jump!" and HRC asks "How high and would you like us to do a backflip on the way down?"
It's hard to find efforts by Democrats to protect LGBT students from discrimination credible when they're still running scared and making excuses for failing to protect LGBT adults in the workplace.
Every time the Democrats promise us yet again that they're going to pass ENDA this year but fail to deliver (by my count seven times just this past year) it sends a clear message about what their priorities really are.
These kids are having to deal with that same pain, but without necessarily having that hope of things getting better, or changing if they want it.
Corporations need legislation to "protect" their "right" to BRIBE politicians who take an OATH to REPRESENT the American people's interests... but... an American child can attend a publicly funded school, paid for by the tax payers across America and NOT be PROTECTED as a HUMAN BEING, against the savagery and toxic environments that public school officials and teachers are fully aware of in our classrooms and hallways across America?
Institute meaningful legislation:
- require school officials to DOCUMENT complaints filed by students, parents, regarding acts of bullying, hazing, abuse.
- institute reforms/regulations that insure that PUBLIC TAX PAYER'S FUNDS will be withheld and fines instituted upon school districts that fail to comply with what should be a MANDATE to DOCUMENT ALL REPORTS OF EDUCATIONAL CHILD ABUSE, should school officials fail to document reports of abuse made by students, parents. Institute federal laws that REQUIRE SCHOOLS TO DOCUMENT REPORTS OF ABUSE. Make it unethical and ILLEGAL for school officials to "look the other way". Make it something that will COST them funding.
- create a governance body to oversee the handling of reports filed by parents, students regarding abuse of children in an educational setting, that insures school officials be held accountable to the public for the funds they receive from TAX PAYERS.
- ESTABLISH time limits to PROTECT THE CHILD, in which school officials MUST come up with a written plan, enacting policies that include regulatory enforcements - regarding HOW the school intends to address the complaint.
But lots of kids AREN'T that lucky. Lots of them have parents who spout casual anti-gay slurs, or mimic their heroes on Fox News. They might be immersed in a religious background that makes them feel that they're an abomination -- evil and wrong. They might be socially outcast anyways, and not have any support to look to when they realize that, besides being an "ugly duckling", they're going to be different from their peers forever, in a way that will never change.
My heart goes out to those kids. They need public figures to stand up for them. They need to know the law will protect them, even if they're in some backwards place with recalitrant teachers and administrators.
Here's the truth that kids know: (just ask kids), and a frightening proportion responds with the ugly truth: NO ONE CARES ABOUT THEM.
And... the lack of legislative ( MEANINGFUL LEGISLATIVE EFFORTS TO TRULY TRANSFORM THEIR SUFFERING BY PASSING MEANINGFUL LEGISLATIVE REFORM THAT ACTUALLY HOLDS SCHOOLS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE KIND OF ENVIRONMENT THEY ALLOW TO FESTER IN OUR HALLWAYS) reveals that truth: NO ONE CARES ABOUT THEM.
You're right, and you're wrong. People will always find ways to be cruel to each other. But that doesn't mean that this form of cruelty is acceptable, or that it doesn't need legislators to take the lead in saying "regardless of your personal beliefs, this is the LAW, and you have to protect people equally."
Barely a generation ago, pinching a secretary's butt, or implying promotions for sexual favors was considered "just the way men are" and not something you could, or should legislate against. You may feel that things have gotten overly touchy (indeed, I get sick of the "any kind of sex is rape" types)... but do you really feel there shouldn't be laws against sexual harassment?
However, I am totally against Sen. Franken's proposals. When they say, "...a resource to help schools embrace family diversity..." this means to me that they are going to force upon our children the idea that it's OK to be homosexual. From a moral and theological perspective we do not accept this to be true. It would trample upon our rights as parents and our 1st Amendment rights to indoctrinate our children by the school systems into accepting the homosexuality. The liberals who so profess tolerance should also show tolerance fro divergent philosophies. While I maintain that everyone should be respected regardless of their religious, social or ethnic beliefs it would be complete hypocrisy to trample peoples rights by forcing them to accept ideas contrary to their religious beliefs, no matter if you agree with those beliefs or not.
You're perfectly entitled to your beliefs but you are not entitled to make someone else suffer because of them.
Your comment about Religious types are slow to accept has no authenticity. Perhaps a good educational reform will assist you.
The earth revolving around the sun was issued by a scientist that was a "Religious type" you seem to not agree with. Just as the taxonomic parameters used to describe and name species was created by a devout Religious type (carl linnaeus who in fact, hated gays), just as about every other great science was created and founded by these "Religious types" and is still in play today. Take gregor mendel, who is considered the the father of modern Genetics. He was a Priest at a monastery, and a Religious type.
You have much to learn about "Religious types". Before you start condemning, i suggest you gain some perspective before you start attacking people, and perhaps do a little research.
You can go google everything i've said here. You will find out that it is a fact, unlike your own personal opinion.