Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Gay Prof’s Message to Gay Youth Goes National: “God Loves You!”

Fort Worth, Texas – A gay divinity school professor’s short video message of God’s acceptance and love for LGBTQ youth has “gone national,” according to The Dallas Voice.  Reporting on an Associated Press story about the It Gets Better Project started by Dan Savage to speak directly to American gay young people who have been shaken by multiple teen gay suicide throughout the nation, Dallas Voice online editor, John Wright, opined that Dr. Stephen Sprinkle’s Santa Claus-like demeanor and grandfatherly message has struck a positive chord among thousands of YouTube watchers.  Sprinkle’s 4-minute video was one of only four featured in a national AP story about submissions to the effort to give LGBTQ teens and young adults a reason to resist suicide because of despair.  Savage told the New York Times what he hoped would happen as gay men and lesbians caught onto the idea of sending a positive message to LGBTQ teens through YouTube.  He said, “I don’t want it to be ‘lifestyles of the gay and fabulous.’  What we want to say to kids is that if you don’t win the economic lottery, and most people don’t, you can have a good and decent and fun life that brings love.” In barely two weeks, the It Gets Better Channel on YouTube has had over 1,000 video uploads selected by Savage, and a million visitors.  As the AP story says, “comment threads are growing and e-mails are pouring in from bullied and closeted teens.”  Among the many emails Sprinkle has received have been two so far from young men struggling with God and their sexuality.  One who is 18 told Sprinkle he was on the verge of “exploding” over the question of God and gays.  As a closeted gay person, the teen doubts that God can love and approve of a same-gender-loving person.  Over and over, he asked Sprinkle “Does God hate me? Are you sure?”  Sprinkle replied, “Heavens no!  God created you wonderfully and beautifully as a gay person. God doesn’t make mistakes.”  Then Sprinkle says he connected the youth with counseling help so that the healing can begin in this young man’s life.  At this point, over 12,000 viewers have seen Sprinkle’s video.  When asked about how the sudden popular response to the video makes him feel, Sprinkle said, “My hope is that, regardless of the messenger, the message gets through that God fully and thoroughly accepts and loves LGBTQ young people.”

October 8, 2010 Posted by | African Americans, Anglo Americans, Bisexual persons, gay men, gay teens, hate crimes prevention, Heterosexism and homophobia, It Gets Better Project (IGBP), Latino and Latina Americans, Lesbian women, LGBT teen suicide prevention, LGBTQ suicide, Media Issues, Popular Culture, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia, Trevor Project | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Gay Prof’s Message to Gay Youth Goes National: “God Loves You!”

Bullied Gay Teen Dies 9 Days After Suicide Attempt

Seth Walsh, posted by teen friends on Facebook

Tehachapi, CA – A 13-year-old gay teen boy, bullied beyond endurance, died nine days after hanging himself from a tree in his backyard.  Seth Walsh, a former student at Jacobsen Middle School, was tormented incessantly for years by school bullies for being gay and bisexual, according to KGET-TV News.  The bullying and name-calling got so bad that Seth’s parents pulled him out of Jacobsen and independently schooled him, but the bullies follow Seth with their mission to harass him.  The torment shifted from school to a park nearby Seth’s home in Kern County, California, according to friends.  They say he never fully revealed how desperate the verbal attacks made him feel, but instead kept his despair bottled up inside himself until he couldn’t stand another day.  On Sunday, September 19, he quietly went into the backyard, and hanged himself from the limb of a tree.  When Seth was found hanging from the branch, he was unconscious and barely alive. Parameds rushed him to a nearby medical center where he hung onto life supported by a ventilator and other heroic measures.  Nine days of struggle later, on Tuesday, September 28, Seth died.  Classmates from Jacobsen Middle School said to KGET-TV that though the school administration had an anti-bullying program in place, nobody at the school offered Seth any real guidance or protection from the bullying they knew he was going through.  Tehachapi police investigators interviewed students suspected of teasing and bullying the 13-year-old for being gay, but now say that nothing they did to Seth constituted a crime.  They will not be charged in his death, though the intensity of their torment was likely the factor most responsible for Seth’s desperate attempt to kill himself.  Police Chief Jeff Kermode told KGET, “Several of the kids that we talked to broke down into tears. They had never expected an outcome such as this.” A memorial service for Seth was held at the First Baptist Church of Tehecapi on Friday afternoon.  Towelroad reports that suicide prevention counselor Daryl Thiesen does not believe that acts of contrition and sorrow by the kids responsible for bullying Seth, or an outpouring of grief from the school and community now, will break through what Thiesen calls the “culture of silence” surrounding anti-gay bullying in the schools. Students who know about bullying incidents, or teens who are the victims of school bullying, are driven into silence about it out of peer pressure and the fear of being labeled “snitches” or “tattlers.”  From all reports, Seth was a sweet-natured youth who loved life and just wanted to be allowed to live it.  Deeply ingrained homophobia in the school and the town influenced those prone to bullying to harass this ordinary, loving, so-so-very-young kid to death.  It is good that friends and neighbors are rallying to support Seth’s family now.  What must be done to prevent further senseless loss of life among our young is an all-out effort to teach tolerance, acceptance, and anti-violence in our schools, churches, and families.

October 1, 2010 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Bullying in schools, California, gay teens, harassment, hate crimes prevention, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, LGBT teen suicide prevention, LGBTQ suicide, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slurs and epithets | , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Indiana Teenager Bullied To Death

Billy Lucas, Bullied to Death in Indiana

Greensburg, Indiana – Fifteen-year-old Billy Lucas, pushed beyond the limit by bullies at Greensburg High School, committed suicide on September 9.  His mother found his lifeless body hanging in the family barn.  Waves of regret are sweeping over the Indiana town, too little and too late for Billy, but, pray God, not too late for many other youth who are targeted by bullies because they are believed to be lesbian or gay.  Fox News 59 reports that Billy was harassed for being gay since the day he entered the troubled school.  Dillen Swango told reporters that Billy was singled out for being gay, harassed mercilessly with taunts like, “You are a piece of dirt,” and “You don’t deserve to live.”  Student Bobby Quinlan said, “He got a chair pulled out from him and was told to go hang himself.” The Greensburg school has a troubled past when it comes to bullying.  An anonymous graduate of Greensburg High, interviewed on Fox 59, said that he had been similarly hounded for being gay when he was Billy’s age, and reported the harassment to school officials, who did nothing with the information.  The former student is now 21, and counts himself lucky to have lived.  School Principal, Phillip Chapple, claimed not to know about the way Billy was targeted by bullies, but acknowledged to reporters that it was well-known that bullying was going on in the school.  Local people and concerned citizens across the nation are outraged that school officials tolerated bullying in the school.  Calls are being made by lawmakers to toughen Indiana’s anti-bullying law for schools.  Yet there are not plans to charge anyone for the anguish and harm done to Billy at Greensburg.  As is common in these instances, blame is shifted, apologies are muttered, flowers are sent to a grave, and, because this was a suicide, little change follows except the inestimable loss to family and friends of a fine young man who students say was dogged by harassment since he was in the fourth grade.  As quoted by Towelroad.com, Charles Robbins, Executive Director of the Trevor Project, the nation’s largest anti-teen suicide advocacy group, released this statement following Billy Lucas’s death: “We are saddened to once again hear of another young person who died of suicide as a result of school bullying. Billy Lucas, a 15-year-old at Greensburg High School stood out among the 630 students in the school because he was different. Other students perceived that Billy was gay and he was relentlessly tormented as a result.While the school district does have anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies, the policies do not specifically protect youth from harassment due to real or perceived sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression. Only eleven states in the country offer fully inclusive anti-harassment and anti-bullying education policies, and Indiana is not among them.” The Trevor Project offers a resource page listing warning signs of possible teen suicide, which may be accessed here. Students have opened a memorial page on Facebook, and readers are encouraged to visit the site.  Most of all, school officials must be compelled to institute a ZERO TOLERANCE policy for harassing behavior in their schools, and law makers in Indiana and around the nation must enact comprehensive, tough laws criminalizing bullying behaviors and school official negligence when they suspect bullying is taking place, but tacitly agree with the bad behavior by doing nothing to prevent it.  Billy Lucas’s death may have been his own act, but the bullies and impotent school officials who created the toxic environment for this needless suicide are clearly to blame.  What Billy Lucas suffered was an anti_LGBT hate crime, plain and simple.  The LGBTQ community and its allies must find the outrage within, strong enough to press for safe schools for everyone until change comes about in Greensburg and around the nation.  (The Unfinished Lives Team thanks Richard W. Fitch for contributing to this post).

September 15, 2010 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Blame the victim, Bullying in schools, gay teens, harassment, Hate Crimes, hate crimes prevention, hate speech, Heterosexism and homophobia, Indiana, Legislation, LGBT teen suicide prevention, LGBTQ suicide, Mistaken as LGBT, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Remembrances, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, Special Comments, Trevor Project | , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

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