Parents of LGBT kids can't let bullies win: Connie Schultz
Published: Wednesday, October 06, 2010, 6:00 AM
It's fair to say that more than one gay teenager has committed suicide in recent weeks after being harassed and bullied by their peers. Like Tyler Clementi, whose death has been well-publicized, they finally succumbed to a hopelessness most parents cannot imagine.
How can despair claim so young a life, we wonder. And how can some kids be so cruel?
Tyler Clementi's death has been widely publicized, in part because the circumstances terrify parents who want to believe their own children are incapable of the cruelty visited on this young man's life by two of his fellow students.
Eighteen-year-old Clementi was a shy kid, and a talented violinist. He was into only the third week of his freshman year at Rutgers University when his roommate and another student decided that Clementi's homosexuality would make for entertaining video.
Prosecutors say the pair, both also 18, secretly planted a webcam in Clementi's dorm and transmitted live video of his sexual encounter with a man.
Three days later, Clementi posted a final update on Facebook: "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry."
Then he walked on to the George Washington Bridge and jumped. His body was found a week later.
The two students who made the videos face invasion of privacy charges. The New Jersey attorney general is weighing whether to add hate-crime charges.
And so we ask: Where do kids ever get the idea that it's all right to harass and bully homosexuals?
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