What Kind of Horrible Person Thinks This is OK?
By Saintless. Filed in LGBTQ |
Children across this country are being bullied at school, being called gay, and harassed for it. Not all of these children are gay. But, they are being tormented over it. So far this year, at least 2 children have killed themselves because of it. 11 year-old Carl Walker-Hoover felt so tormented by other children at school that he hung himself just a couple of weeks ago. Last week, Jaheem Herrera followed that same path.
On Thursday afternoon, after returning home from school, fifth-grader Jaheem quietly went into his room and hanged himself. His 10-year-old sister, Yerralis, also a fifth-grader, discovered Jaheem’s dead body.
“His sister was screaming, ‘Get him down, get him down,’” said Norman Keene, who helped raise Jaheem since the boy was two years old.
When Keene got to the room, he saw Yerralis holding her brother, trying to remove the pressure of the noose her brother had fashioned with a fabric belt.
Jaheem was bullied relentlessly, his family said. Keene said the family knew the boy was a target, but until his death they didn’t understand the scope.
“We’d ask him, ‘Jaheem, what’s wrong with you?’” Keene recalled. “He’d never tell us.”
He didn’t want his sister to tell, either. She witnessed much of the bullying, and many times rose to her brother’s defense, Keene said.
“They called him gay and a snitch,” his stepfather said. “All the time they’d call him this.”
This should not be happening to our children. It just shouldn’t. These people calling themselves Christians who spread the idea that it’s ok to hate and harass people for being gay must have read about a different Christ than I did. It makes me think of what Mahatma Gandhi said:
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Being so mean to an 11 year old boy that he commits suicide is just something I cannot fathom. Each of these boys had endured this enough that their parents were trying to get the school to help. This wasn’t a one time thing for either of them. This was ongoing, and so hurtful that they each took their own lives. My heart is broken, I am sitting at my desk in tears.
And then I find this atrocity, by the Illinois Family Institute, a group pretending to spread the ideas of Christ:
If you cannot bring yourself to watch all of it, here is part of what I took away from it. The music in the background is a bit ominous, and it seems to be aimed at children. The purpose is for them to not participate in the Day of Silence, which was April 16, and was intended to bring attention anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools.
The video is titled Dare to Stand: Rethinking the Day of Silence.
It tells children that “schools are being …coerced…to bring attention to anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender name calling, bullying, and harassment.”
So, it’s telling children that bullying and harassing other children for being gay is ok.
It goes on to say “Hiding beneath this glossy veneer is the truth than in nearly every study it is the homosexual who is more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs, to accept abusive relationships, to acquire and spread sexually transmitted diseases, to suffer in depression and doubt, even to view suicide as a solution.”
My jaw dropped at this. It’s almost as if they’re trying to tell these kids that if they bully another kid for being gay, and that kid commits suicide, it’s just because the kid was gay, and the harassment had nothing to do with it.
The video portrays this teacher with a ruler slapping a child for reading a bible, and then throwing it away. The child goes on to “stand up” for the bible and for the idea that homosexuality is wrong.
This video made me sick. The video is seriously defending bullies. It’s a response to the Day of Silence, and a response to these 11 year old boys who took their own lives as a result of anti-gay bullying. It’s just so wrong I want to scream. This is NOT CHRISTIAN. Jesus Christ would NEVER have done this, or condoned this. You take your beliefs that being gay is wrong and believe whatever you want, but the moment it hurts someone else, even if it’s just their feelings, you become the worst kind of hypocrite imaginable.
Not another child should ever die for a reason like this. Ever.
Tags: Christianity, Day of Silence, suicide
Tuesday, April 21st 2009 at 9:01 am |
I think the real issue here is the bullying, not the method of bullying used.
Tuesday, April 21st 2009 at 9:10 am |
Oh good grief — “we are the ones at the back of the bus” – what nonsense. It’s starting to feel like religious people are becoming more and more unstable to me. Their reasoning is getting weaker and more insane as time goes by.
Tuesday, April 21st 2009 at 9:17 am |
Jesse,
I have to disagree. Yes, the bullying in and of itself is an issue. However, the anti-gay bullying takes it to another level. And the religious response to anti-gay bullying is really disgusting.
Jenni,
I agree. However, I do want to point out, and maybe I should have, that it’s really the fundamentalist religious groups that are this way. There are a lot of religious groups that take a far more Christian stand on this issue. But, the groups that put out trash like that video are so loud that it gives all religion, especially Christianity, a bad name.
Tuesday, April 21st 2009 at 9:25 am |
I agree that the response is, at best, reprehensible, but I would lump those people in with the Westboro Baptist chuckleheads: a loud and ultimately irrelevant minority. And yes, a terrible thing happened. All the same, bullying is bullying. I don’t see a reason to differentiate based on the method used and I don’t see that you’ve made a case for such differentiation. I think you’re still focusing on the wrong part of the story here which is that school staff was either apathetic to or afraid to respond to the repeated complaints.
Tuesday, April 21st 2009 at 9:36 am |
Most of my mother’s family was killed in concentration camps. I have been subject to anti-Semitism. Since moving to SLC, my children have been bullied, taunted and ostracized in school simply because we are not of the major religion here. Sad to admit, I was an active “Messianic Jew” (aka “Jews for Jesus) for 10 years – in a past life. I’ve have seen and heard the hypocrisy and hatred from this group and WAY to many so-called “Christians”, which is why I “apostatized”. Hate is learned and passed on if the cycle is not broken, no matter which group or individual is targeted.
Happily, there are, indeed, groups and people who do follow the precepts of their chosen religion. Sadly, they are the minority. And, like in any group, they really are the ones who paint the picture, and sometimes, you just can’t educate or change the ignorant.
Tuesday, April 21st 2009 at 2:15 pm |
I’m a bit torn between Misty’s position and Jesse’s. To some degree bullying is bullying and it should not happen. Parents were not doing their jobs in both of these situations, and neither were school personnel. On the other hand, insofar as anyone would look the other way or react any less severely to bullying based on their own views regarding homosexuality that is absolutely wrong and more specifically un-Christian. The hardest part of this epidemic in our culture is that the kind of intolerance for homosexuality that would ignore or even promote anti-gay bullying seems to be more common among those who profess to be Christians.
Tuesday, April 21st 2009 at 2:59 pm |
David,
As I told Jesse, I do think bullying should not happen, and it’s an issue that stands alone. Your comments have helped me to better word my position on this.
The source of this particular bullying is the anti-gay attitudes that some in our society hold. That anti-gay attitude is the source of these two children’s deaths. Trying to ignore that source, and lump it in with teasing a child for wearing glasses seems very wrong to me. Society’s attitude has been changing for the better regarding homosexuality. However, we’re not there yet. And to not take the anti-gay sentiments behind this bullying, and these deaths, into consideration would be a tragedy.
Tuesday, April 21st 2009 at 8:30 pm |
I’m trying to figure out how to word this…. and it’s still not going to come out right. This is kind of a lame example, but here it is anyway:
When I was a kid I let some “popular” girls talk me into writing a really mean note to “the poor girl” in class. My teacher saw it, knew it was my handwriting and knew exactly what had happened. She addressed it with the class, with me, with the girls, with our parents. She told me that she was disappointed in my choice of response in the situation and that she knew I was capable of making better choices. She disciplined me in such a way that I knew she loved me and I have never forgotten it.
What happened to learning about consequences for our actions and for being responsible for the impact your actions have on others? What is happening in our homes today if children are bullying to the point that the underdog commits suicide to escape it? How does a kid get to the point that he/she thinks it’s OK to tease another human being THAT BADLY and for THAT LONG?? SERIOUSLY??
What does it matter if someone else is vegetarian or homosexual or goth or Christian or drives a Chevy vs. a Ford? It would be a pretty dull world if we were all the same. We’re not all the same and that’s part of what makes life good.
(and I’ve always loved that Ghandi quote as well)
Tuesday, April 21st 2009 at 8:35 pm |
That’s definitely NOT a lame example, Lori! We need more of that type of discipline in the world, and we need more of the attitude that we’re not all the same but that’s a good thing. Children are always going to be mean to each other in one way or another, but when they start testing those boundaries, they need people to help them reason what is right and what is wrong. Thanks for your comment!
Thursday, April 23rd 2009 at 7:23 pm |
I’m sorry, but…
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT!?!?!?
I mean seriously, why the hell do kids think that homosexuals are like the devil or something?
And IMO…
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” -Ghandi
QFFT. (Quoted For Fucking Truth) The man was a fucking genius.