2010 gay suicides
Suicides highlight pressures faced by gay teenagers
When Seth Walsh was in the sixth grade, he turned to his mother one evening and told her he had something to say.
"I was folding clothes, and he said, 'Mom, I'm gay,'" said Wendy Walsh, a single mother of four. "I said, 'OK, sweetheart, I love you no matter what.'"
Last month, Seth went into the backyard of his residence in the desert town of Tehachapi, Calif., and hanged himself, apparently unable to bear a persistent barrage of taunting, bullying and other abuse at the hands of his peers.
After a little more than a week on life support, he died last Tuesday. He was 13.
The case of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University freshman who jumped off the George Washington Bridge after a sexual meeting with another man was broadcast online, has shocked many.
But his death is just one of several suicides in recent weeks by young gay teenagers who had been harassed by classmates, both in person and online.
The list includes Billy Lucas, a 15-year-old from Greensburg, Ind., who hanged himself on Sept. 9 after what classmates reportedly called a constant stream of invective against him at school.
Less than two weeks later, Asher Brown,
Religious Right Claims Same-sex attracted Advocates to Condemn for Suicides
More than a little rhetorical contortionism is required to follow their logic, but according to several better-known leaders of the religious right, responsibility for the recent wave of suicides of gay teens rests largely with… gay-rights activists.
The argument goes something like this: New homosexuals who are relentlessly bullied and taunted commit suicide because gay-rights advocates (eager to “recruit” new homosexuals and to make the world gay-friendly) promote acceptance of homosexuality among normal (meaning straight) children, which confuses them about their own sexual “preference.” That, added to gay-rights activists’ purported efforts to “bully” Christians to prevent them from condemning homosexuality, creates an intolerable level of emotional press, leading to tragedy.
Five teenagers nationwide pledged suicide during a three-week span in September after entity bullied, taunted or outed as homosexuals. Seven student suicides — at least four of which apparently involved anti-gay bullying — rocked a single Minnesota school district during the last year. On Tuesday, a 19-year-old Oakland University stude
National LGBT community reeling from 4th teen suicide in a month
The U.S. LGBT community is reeling from a series of gay teen suicides that has inspired many people leaders to communicate out on what is being called an epidemic of deaths inspired by harassment and bullying.
According to reports from several news outlets, Tyler Clementi, 18, leapt to his death Sept. 22 from the George Washington Bridge close his New Jersey college campus after classmates allegedly air him in a same-sex encounter behind closed doors in his dorm room, and apparently invited others, via Twitter, to view it online. Regardless of his roommate’s alleged tweet, Clementi had apparently made no statement about his own sexual orientation.
Bruce Kaplan, prosecutor for Middlesex County, N.J., has filed charges against Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei for causing Clementi’s death. They’ve been charged under the state’s invasion-of-privacy laws and under the transmission and distribution of nudity and sexual contact laws, lesser charges. Ravi and Wei secretly set up a webcam in his dorm room and recorded him having sex with another male. Clementi did not know he was being filmed.
Seth Walsh, a
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) Asher Brown was just 13 when he killed himself last month. So was Seth Walsh. Both were allegedly targets of anti-gay bullying.
According to gay activists, so were recent suicide victims Justin Aaberg, 15, Tyler Clementi, 18, and Billy Lucas, 15.
Now schools are trying to combat the apparent teen suicide surge among young men dealing with anti-gay abuse, but the politics of sexual identity threaten to find in the way.
Gay-rights supporters insist that anti-bullying programs must address harassment of gay youth. Religious conservatives call that an opportunistic manipulation to sway fresh people's views of homosexuality.
The invective is "some of the worst I've ever seen," said Dennis Carlson, superintendent of Minnesota's Anoka-Hennepin School District, where Justin Aaberg killed himself in July. "We may request the Department of Justice to come in and help us mediate this discussion between people who seem to want to go at each other."
Case in point.
"We believe the bullying policy should lay the emphasis on the wrong actions of the bullies and not the characteristics of the victims," said Chuck Darrell of the conservative Minnesota Family Council.
N
Fifth Gay Teen Suicide in Three Weeks Sparks Debate
Oct. 3, 2010— -- Mourners at Rutgers University honored the memory of Tyler Clementi, whose death last week was one of five suicides by lgbtq+ teenagers in the last three weeks.
Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge Tuesday, days after his roommate allegedly posted video on the Internet of him having sex with another man.
The recent eruption of gay teen suicides has been across the country, from the East Coast to Indiana, Texas to California, where 13-year-old Seth Walsh, who recently hanged himself, was memorialized Friday night.
Walsh, whose family said he was harassed by bullies for creature gay, died Tuesday, after being in a coma for nine days.
"The harassment and the teasing and the taunting just became too much," Seth's grandmother, Judly Walsh said Friday night at a memorial service in Tehachapi, Calif.
Police interviewed some of the young people who taunted Seth the day he died, but determined that their actions do not constitute a crime.
In Clementi's case, the young man's roommate, Dharun Ravi, and another classmate, Molly Wei, face several charges of invasion of privac