Refuge51

Remember when Jenny Jones had the straight guy on her show who thought a female had a crush on him? But instead it was a man?

He ended up killing that man.

I really think one should find out first if the other guy is gay before asking him to be your Valentine. Especially boys who are just coming into their teenage years. They're insecure enough as it is. Perhaps he asked him in front of other classmates?

There is no excuse for what he did to Lawrence, and this boy should not get away with it. But, someone should have taught him years earlier to walk away or laugh it off. He could have said "Hey I don't sway that way, but we can be friends" He could have said "Fuck you" even, but to resort to murder, which he obviously planned out shows his mindset was flawed and he should be locked up for a very long time.

Kanadesaga

This is typical behavior propogated by right wingers. This is what they want dead children, in Iraq, in our schools if they don't conform. You can lay this directly at the feet of right wing hate speech radio and religious conservatism and probably inbreds from Kentucky or other backward state where it's ok to screw your sister but not your brother.

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HarperLee

I googled this story to find out where the murder occurred and I see it was Oxnard, California. I know nothing about the demographics
of even size of that town/city.

My gut reaction would be that it is the attitude of the parents.
When I went to high school many years ago in a small town, we were so naive that we barely knew what "gay" meant. When my daughter went to a metropolitan, Middle Western high school, it seemed like
many young men and women identified themselves as "gay" and were
well accepted. Perhaps this was because my daughter's attitude was
influenced by my attitude -- but there were certainly no incidents of violence.

This is a heartbreaking story.

gorillamom

Yes, those taboos that children are taught out of fear.

__________________

The Clock of life is wound but once,
And no man has the power,
To tell just when the hands will stop
On what day or what hour.
Now is the only time we have,
So live it with a will,
Don't wait until tomorrow,
The hands may then be still.

Jonesy

Better to call them fascists or even nazi's. Fascists and communists have a fatal weakness. On the surface, they seem capable and superior... but this is merely to over-compensate for their inferiority and incapability. You can easily destroy them by aggravating their sense of either inferiority (fascist) or incapability (communist), and then taking advantage of their reaction (which is almost always the exact same thing - capability or superiority exertion attempts).

Little lesson for the iggy's... Nazi's were not really anti-Jew. They were anti-'impurity'. Jews were simply the prime representative of 'racial impurity'.

Kanadesaga

Sorry dude, they were anti-Semetic. They were were anti-communist, anti-homosexual, anti-crippled, anti-Gypsy, anti-everything but Aryan. You call it purity, but take a look at the Nazi High command. None of them blonde and blue eyed. Goebbles was a gimp, Goering was a fat bastard and Hitler was part Jew. Rhetoric and reality seldom coincide.

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Jonesy

It is definitely true the parents should be indicted. There is no greater influence on a child than their parents. Even later, when they look more to peers, they still have the early influences deep-seeded to a 'subconscious' 'second-nature' degree.

The killer himself should not be given a stiff jail sentence. Jail fails. He should be put into a true correctional facility, while he is still young enough to have his brain 're-programmed'.

W.M.DEEEZ

Thankfully, many things have changed in the last 40 or so years. Blame it on the drugs of the 60's, but acceptance is more widely....accepted.

There is still a stranglehold on what is "morally acceptable" to be seen on the public airwaves.

When we stray from "sin based" legislation, and trade sexual repression, for violence repression, we will make huge leaps toward a better society.

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Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone

Vicariously I

Still being fairly young I can tell you that when I was in high school that saying this or that is gay doesn't start out as hating gays. In fact when people would say bad things about gays it wasn't out of hate it was more a way to prove to your friends in some fucked up way that you were not or never would be gay. It's hard to explain but it kinda comes out of no where or at least it seems to.

My parents were very open minded people and always taught us not to discriminate against anyone. They had gay friends, in fact they had all kinds of friends and so being around different types of people was a norm for me. Yet despite my parents teachings I found myself saying things like "thats gay" or "don't be a f a g" to my friends.

I never meant anything mean towards gay people it just kinda came outta nowhere. One of my best friends talked that way and he's gay. Despite what one would think, based on the way we talked, no one hated him for it and we all stayed friends without skipping a beat. Nobody talked about it behind his back or anything in fact after a while it just made sense. I mean come on he was way to well dressed compared to rest of us and his house was the nicest I think I've ever been in.

Now my friend continued to talk the same way until a while after he had come out. It wasn't until he was a part of the gay community that he realized saying those things regardless of what you mean by them isn't right.

I guess my point in all of this is that there are things in this society that seep into the minds of teenagers regardless of how they are raised. Teenagers are under a lot of social pressure as we all know but the kids today seem to be under FAAAAR more then even I was 11 years ago. Things like using the word gay start off innocent enough and like I said for the kids using it, it kinda comes out of no where. It's like saying any other slur or slang. It's like kids from religious families saying Jesus Christ all the time. The influence of society especially in high school is often more powerful then what your parents teach you. Especially in the years when your rebelling against them. This kids parents may in fact be great people but the pressure he was under and his inability to deal with how this made him feel more then likely caused this. I would like someone to find out who his "friends" were and what they were like.

This problem is like many other problems in this country and world. We need to take a deeper look at things. We need to find a way to be more understanding and less judgemental. To me it starts with our governments way of turning the world into US vs. THEM. They need us to be divided because once we find a way to truly work and live together, not just in this country but others, they will lose all their power.

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"It's hard to face reality when you're busy living in the American Dream."

Vicariously I

HarperLee

Thank you for that thoughtful post, Vicariously.

While reading it, something occurred to me. For perhaps the last
twenty years big corporations have had mandatory sexual discrimination consciousness raising classes for all employees.
It takes time -- and threats of lawsuits -- but over the years I have
seen a big decrease in some of the more blatant forms of sexual discrimination in the workplace. (It also took the ascent of many women into positions of power.)

I am passionately against the public schools teaching morals, but I
just wonder about the feasibility of some kind of conscious raising
discussion groups in junior highs addressing the issue of gay rights (and maybe related issues), and a zero tolerance policy regarding gay bashing by school boards.