I was always afraid of violence when I was growing up. Northern Ireland was a European centre of politically-motivated killing for most of my childhood. Politicians and public officials were killed all the time. Political activists who espoused violence were often killed, too. And people who had no direct involvement...

Of course I never knew Tyler Clementi, the young Rutgers student who took his own life last month in a tragedy so unfathomably horrific that it doesn't permit adequate attempts at description. The story that has emerged so far is that Tyler was enjoying a romantic moment with another guy,...