Bullying: This could be your son
Read Time:4 Minute, 13 Second
This past Saturday, while I was planting a flower garden and our son was spending the weekend at a sleepover and maybe you were cleaning or playing with your kids, Kenneth James Weishuhn, a 14-year old high school freshman in rural Iowa, killed himself.
Kenneth was gay, and made the incredibly brave decision to share his sexual orientation with his friends at South O’Brien high school. Some of his friends responded by creating a Facebook page, perpetuating hate against the LGBT community and Kenneth. Others began sending him death threats.
Kenneth was a son, a brother and a friend who was bullied to death. It’s April of 2012, and in the past 4 months, we have lost Ted “Teddy” Molina, age 16, Phillip Parker, age 14, Drew Ferraro, age 15, Lennon Baldwin, age 15, Rafael Morelos, age 14 and Eric James Borges, age 19. I am certain there are more. In Drew Ferraro’s case, investigators are mum on the details, but claim there is no proof that Drew was being bullied, although Drew’s family says differently.
Seven young people, under the age of twenty, dead by their own hand. Three were the same age as my son. Who do we blame? Do we blame the parents for failing to notice their child was suffering? Do we blame the schools for ignoring bullying, often defending the bullies rather than the victims? Do we blame the media for the 24-hour news cycle that brings so many of these stories into our homes, perhaps giving bullied and harassed teens the idea?
No. Here’s who is to blame:
Rick Santorum: “Isn’t that the ultimate homeland security, standing up and defending marriage?”
Bryan Fischer: “The homosexual agenda represents the single greatest modern threat to freedom of religion and conscience…” and “Same sex marriage will only increase sexual confusion in children and encourage dangerous sexual experimentation among the nation’s youth.”
Dr. Richard Swier: “This is not bullying. It is peer pressure and it is healthy. There are many bad behaviors such as smoking, under age drinking and drug use that are behaviors that cannot be condoned. Homosexuality falls into this category. Homosexuality is simply bad behavior that youth see as such and rightly pressure their peers to stop it.”
Dr. James Dobson: “I don’t blame homosexuals for being angry when people say they’ve made a choice to be gay, because they don’t. It usually comes out of very, very early childhood, and this is very controversial, but this is what I believe and many other people believe, that it has to do with an identity crisis that occurs too early to remember it, where a boy is born with an attachment to his mother and she is everything to him for about 18 months, and between 18 months and five years, he needs to detach from her and to reattach to his father. It’s a very important developmental task, and if his dad is gone or abusive or disinterested or maybe there’s just not a good fit there, what’s he going to do?”
Newt Gingrich: “It’s pretty simple: marriage is between a man and a woman. This is a historic doctrine driven deep into the Bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and it’s a perfect example of what I mean by the rise of paganism. The effort to create alternatives to marriage between a man and a woman are perfectly natural pagan behaviors, but they are a fundamental violation of our civilization.”
Mitt Romney signed The National Organization for Marriage’s pledge, promising to support a federal constitutional amendment “ defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.“ Romney has also been endorsed by the group.
That’s who you blame. An entire political party that has marginalized, demeaned and demonized the LGBT community in any way they can. Writers like Rich Swier who promote hate and bullying against gay teens. Presidential candidates equating gay marriage with paganism and saying defending marriage is “homeland security.” Religious leaders who use false research and flat out lies to defend their hatred of homosexuals.
As parents, it is our primary job to teach our children not to hate. Bullies are made at home, and bullies are unmade at home as well. That’s our job. If your child is being bullied, and you cannot get the school to help you, find an advocate in your community. Make your child talk to you, don’t just let it slide, thinking it’s no big deal.
We’re burying our future. Literally. It needs to stop, now. Bullycide needs to be a recognized hate crime, schools need to be more involved with helping kids dealing with both sides of this issue. America, stop hating and start listening. This could be your son.
Huffington Post, SPLC, Right Wing Watch, Truthdig and Towelrod contributed to this story.
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Oh Kenneth, I may not know you but I do know you are a brave, wonderful and a loved person by everyone… You are so brave to tell the world you are gay, but you are not alone, I know how it feels because my mother is gay and I get judged for it…but honestly if you have positive friends and family, you can conquer anything… I send all my condolences to Kenneth’s family. And Kenneth if you are reading this in Heaven then I would like to tell you I love you with all my heart, and I am truly sorry for the people who have bullied you because they feel they have to bully such a wonderful young man to make themselves feel
I am going to let this speak for what I feel about all this suicide by bullying. They wrote this after Tyler Clementi jumped off a bridge as part of the It gets better project. I’ve included the lyrics for all and if any of you are so inclined the Trevor Project does great work for LGBTQ kids.
http://youtu.be/koBk0sEZAPo
Great video Jess!
Isn’t it? I bought 40 copies of that CD when it came out and gave it away at every opportunity and told people to listen to track 4 on it and learn from it. Still too many kids are dying from bullying when they shouldn’t be. I mean ffs we arrest adults when they assault why can we not arrest kids instead of this bullshit, oh it’s just kids being kids or it’s peer pressure and we all go through it to toughen us up. I remember my bullies and they were not even close to what some kids today are like and it never lasted long, because the ‘rents and school took care of it immediately.
Stunning song. Thank you so much for sharing it.
It certainly is. I know I have posted it in other posts here, there and everywhere. The official video is way better but this had the lyrics attached, for people that don’t understand the young uns music 🙂
Who do you blame? Blame the archaic thinkers who wrote the Bible. Leviticus 18:22 and Corinthians 6:9. Better yet, blame those who follow this dark age bigotry, the bible thumpers. Study a little bit of Science and biology and before you know it you’ll realize that we don’t choose homosexuality, our genes do that for us! I suppose our genes might choose how ignorant, biased, bigoted, and hateful we are too, or is that indoctrinated into us by a 2000 year old dogma?
I’ve tackled the “choice” argument before. If it was a choice, do right wing bigots truly believe a 12 year old kid would choose to be discriminated against, bullied, injured, told they cannot marry the person they love, cannot adopt children? People choose to be hateful and ignorant, they are raised to be bullies.
I don’t know where we go from here.