Bullying leads to another kid's death.

Brandon Bitner was just 14-years-old when he intentionally ran in front of a semi truck. He left a suicide note at his home and disappeared in the middle of the night. His family discovered his absence at 3:45 am and were notified of his death at 4:30 am.

Bitner left his home in the middle of the night and walked 13 miles before taking action.

Friends of Bitner say he was bullied at school for being gay. The school, says they know of no such incidents, but Bitner's friends report a regular problem.

What compounds the problem is that the only church Bitner was reported to attend was a fundamentalist church with anti-gay policies. The youth pastor at the church says that kids in the church are encouraged to "reach out to the hurting" but doesn't say what happens after that. The problem is that fundamentalists insist that being gay is evil and sinful and that such "hurting" kids must change, something that doesn't seem possible. Fundamentalists churches reaching out to gay kids is NOT a good thing. It is just theological bullying with a saccharine lilt to the voice, when it isn't screeching hell fire and brimstone.

To illustrate this point the New York Times just ran an article on November 6th reporting how anti-bullying efforts in government schools face fierce opposition from—who else?—fundamentalist churches. When Montana introduce lessons on tolerance and sexuality the fundamentalists went to war, along with help from the Big Sky Tea Party. Rick DeMato, a fundamentalist minister from the misnamed Liberty Baptist Church said: "We do not want the minds of our children to be polluted with the things of a carnal-minded society."

DeMato says they are against bullying but doesn't define how he interprets bullying. But he says all anti-bullying campaigns involving gay students has to be excluded because "the Bible says very clearly that homosexuality is wrong and Christians don't want the schools to teach subjects that are repulsive to their values." Presumably, since DeMato believes state schools are supposed to teach according to a fundamentalist curriculum he would be happy if gay kids were told they were "repulsive," but that bullying is wrong. Of course, most bullying at the schools that is directed at gay kids is more in line with constant verbal taunts quite similar to how DeMato talks.

The right-wing fundamentalist group Focus on the Family has also come out in opposition to anti-bullying efforts in the schools claiming they are "promoting homosexual lessons."

The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—those were the people who started their own denomination precisely because they believed God wanted them to own other human beings as slave—says that "gay activists accuse conservative Christians of homophobia" but "they are wrong." He says their anti-gay views "is not rooted in fear, but in faithfulness to the Bible—and faithfulness means telling the truth." I have always opposed using the word homophobia precisely for that reason. Bigotry is not fear, it is is hate. I do not call such people homophobic because they don't have a fear the way many people have a fear of heights. They hold views that require them to hate a person, and hate is not the same thing as fear.

If anything I believe the term "homophobia" lets them off too easily.

Focus on the Family insists that the school should just say it is against bullying and NEVER mention the fact that gay students are disproportionately targeted for such hatred. They want the schools to only discuss "the wrong actions of the bully—not on the bully's perceived thoughts or motivations." Please note that what this means is that the school would not be allowed to take preventative measures regarding bullying by promoting tolerance of all students. To do that would be to discuss motivations. Focusing on actions requires actions to have already taken place. In other words, Focus on the Family prefers schools only do something about bullying AFTER it was already done.

Consider this policy and our latest victim of the bullies: Brandon Bitner. Now that Bitner is dead the school is aware that he was bullied and the school could take action against the bullies but must not discuss the motivation for the bullying. However, prior to the actual death of Brandon the school would not be able to discuss motivations that cause kids to bully one another. They would be unable to take action to prevent bullying, only respond to it after the fact.

Let me be blunt, as if I ever fail at that: the reason that fundamentalists don't want the motives of bullies discussed is because it requires one to talk about the rabid anti-gay prejudices that permeate the fundamentalist sub-culture.

Many fundamentalists have actually resorted to arguing that the disproportionate number of gay teens killing themselves is the result of too much tolerance of gay people. Tony Perkins of the antigay Family Research Council says "there's no empirical evidence for the claim that society's disapproval of homosexuality causes the mental health problems (including depression and suicide) that are found among homosexuals."

Most Americans disagree. A poll by the Public Religion Research Institute was released at the end of October. That poll reported that 72% of the public think that religious messages regarding homosexuality encourage "negative views" regarding gay people and 65% said there is a connection between those views and the suicides of gay kids.

The one group most satisfied with their churches attitudes toward gay people are fundamentalist
Christians.

Only 7% of Americans believe that their are positive messages coming from the churches regarding gay people, 43% say the message is negative and the rest don't know or say it is not discussed. Asked to assign grades to how well the churches deal with the issue only 16% give the churches an A or B grade, while 42% give them a D or F. Thirty percent give them a C grade.

Asked if they believe anti-gay messages in the church contribute to gay teen suicide rates one third say the message contributes "a lot," while another third say it makes some contribution. Only 21% say it has no impact.

The facts are that anti-gay messages do send messages to gay kids and to the bullies. That is what they are meant to do. Fundamentalists repeatedly say they wish all gay people would go back into the closet so that no one had to see them or deal with them. Some, such a major leaders of the old Moral Majority, openly called for incarcerating gay people and publicly supported the death penalty for being gay. The reason fundamentalists don't want motivations for bullying discussed is because they are a major source for providing those motivations.

Little things make a difference.

This is a touching short commercial about bullying. I like the understated nature of it, but yet it makes the message clear.

The Rat Comes Out of His Hole.

Andrew Shirvell, the anti-gay bigot who is obsessed with a gay college student and spends his spare time harassing the boy, has come out of his hole. Last night CNN's Anderson Cooper reported on Shirvell's obsession and interviewed Shirvell. Here is the clip of that encounter.


This blog covered this story two weeks ago, but I've noticed CNN is often slow on stories like this. Cooper's take is sufficient but a bit short on details, in order to give Shirvell time to try to defend himself. For more information on exactly how obsessive and hateful Shirvell has been read our original story.

Remember Shirvell is a fundamentalist Catholic. He's more Catholic than the Pope. But, like the Pope, he is obsessed with attacking gay people. So far, unlike the Pope, he hasn't tried to blame the Catholic-priest-child-abuse epidemic on gay people. But Shirvell's obsession goes back for years. Sort of like the anti-gay attacks of people like George Recker, Bishop Long, and Ted Haggard. I wonder who is lifting Shirvell's luggage?

In one article from 2005 Shirvell was attacking the New York Pizza Depot in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The pizzaria offended Shirvell because it had a rainbow flag sticker on display. Shirvell says the flag is offensive because it represent radical homosexuals. He claimed that the pizzeria told him that the gay community "forced" them to display it after some altercation. He said they "had to put up the rainbow flag decal in order to appease the homosexuals." But the man Shirvell claimed told him this denies they ever had that conversation and said it simply wasn't true. Apparently Shirvell has been lying about gay people for some years now. The difference today is that is obsession is focues entirely on one young man who has done nothing to Shirvell.

Personally I suspect Shirvell would rather bed the young man but two things stand in his way: 1) his own fantatical Catholicism; and 2) the young man probably doesn't go dumpster diving for his sexual partners.

Given that two teenage boys killed themselves in the last few days I want to personally call out Andrew Shirvell for contributing to the sort of hatred that encourages anti-gay bullies in the schools. Shirvell and his ilk encourage hatred and teach it to children. Those children, like Shirvell, then turn their attention to some victim and inflict misery on them without stop, as Shirvell is trying to do with this college student. Because of this anti-gay bullying two teens, who were alive only days ago, are now dead.

Another dead kid, thanks to hate.

Asher Brown, left, was just 13-years-old. A few days ago he took a pistol to his head and killed himself. He was the unrelenting victim of anti-gay bullies. He attended Hamilton Middles School, in Cypress, Texas, just outside of Houston.

When Asher's step-father, David Truong, returned home from work he found the boy. "I thought he was laying there reading a book or something. My son put a gun to his head because he couldn't take what he was hearing and the constant teasing." Shortly after the boy's mother, Amy, returned home to find the police and discover that her boy was dead.

Fox News reports: "The Truongs say over this past summer, Brown [Asher] confided in them that he was gay. The paper says: "Facebook is now full of condolences for the 13-year-old student. An outpouring of love from his peers over his death. Love he obviously did not feel in life."

Asher, according to Houston Chronicle, regularly "had been called names and endured harassment from other students." Because of this he "stuck with a small group of friends who suffered similar harassment from other students."

Reports say that boys grabbed Asher in gym class and forced him to pretend that he was having sex with them. In an incident that took place the day before his death, Asher was walking down the stairs at school when a boy purposely tripped him. Asher fell down the stairs to the next landing. His books were scattered on the landing. The other boy then came down and kicked the books down the next flight of stairs. He did the same to Asher as well.

Kelli Durham, a spokeswoman for the school district, simultaneously claimed that this incident was investigated but also claimed the school had no idea the boy was being bullied. The Chronicle reports: "Durham said that incident was investigated, but turned up no witnesses or video footage to corroborate the couple's claims." Elsewhere, the same article reports she said, "no students, school employees or the boy's parents ever reported that he was being bullied." So, if no one reported the bullying then exactly how were they able to "investigate" an incident they didn't know about?

Amy Truong couldn't believe the claims: "That's absolutely inaccurate—it's completely false. I did not hallucinate phone calls to counselors and assistant principals. We have no reason to make this up... It's like they're calling us liars." The Chronicle reported that students and parents left messages at the Fox News site stating "that the boy had been bullied by classmates for several years and claimed Cy-Fair ISD [Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District] does nothing to stop such harassment."

The boy's mother said: "It has to stop. I don't want any other family to have to go make funeral arrangements like I did for my son. He wasn't supposed to die at 13."

Yes, it has to stop. But it won't. At least it won't until every anti-gay bigot out there knows that their view are "not okay." I am not saying ban their speech, I am saying we have to condemn it. I don't give a flying-fuck if you think that you are channeling Jehovah, Jesus or Allah, when you express your hatred for gay people. You can take your holy book and shove it, for all I care. Kids are dying, damn it. Can't you get it through your thick skull that your religion is teaching your kids to hate other kids. And that those other kids go home and kill themselves.

In just the last few weeks I had to report on Seth Walsh, (left) 14, of Tehachapi, CA, who hanged himself from a tree in his family's yard. Seth was harassed for being gay. UPDATE: Sadly I must report that Seth died yesterday. Billy Lucas, (left) 15, of Greensburg, Indiana, went into the family's barn, to be with his horse. It was there he hanged himself. He was bullied and attacked for supposedly being gay. Justin Aaberg (right), 15, of Anoka, Minnesota, was gay, he was bullied, and he too, is now dead because of it. Three other students in his school district, according to various sources, recently killed themselves as well, because of anti-gay harassment.

Yet, during the mourning period for Justin the Catholic Church mailed out over 1 million anti-gay DVDs to their members, to fight gay couples being give equality of rights. As if that corrupt, vile institution has any moral standing any more. When priests rape kids they cover it up, when two adults of the same gender love one another however, they are deeply offended.

An example of the sort of hatred that gay teens face comes from Justin's own school district. Two teachers Diane Cleveland and Walter Filson "are accused of repeatedly harassing one of their students because they thought he was gay." Yes, I said they were teachers.

Jaheem Herrera (left) didn't even make it to his teens. He was eleven years old! The student from Dunaire Elementary School in DeKalb, Georgia went home and took a belt and hanged himself in his closet. His mother said: "He used to say Mom they keep telling me this... this gay word, this gay, gay, gay. I'm tired of hearing it, they're telling me the same thing over and over." Jaheem's mother, like many of the other parents of dead children, said she reported the bullying to the school but they refused to do anything about it. Instead it "just got worse and worse and worse." The morning of his death he didn't want to go to school again. When he came home that afternoon he gave his report card to his mother—it was good—and went upstairs. His younger sister discovered him, she grabbed her brother and tried to lift him up to prevent the belt from strangling him, while screaming for help. It was too late. School officials tried to claim that when other students were bullying the boy as "gay" that what they really meant was that he was "happy."

Carl Walker-Hoover (right), was in sixth grade. He too was just 11-years-old. He was relentlessly attacked by other kids for being gay. His mother, like most the other parents referred to here, reported the attacks to the school, New Leadership Charter School in Springfield, MA. He also hanged himself when he couldn't take it any longer. The Boston Globe editorialized that "an act so desperate by one so young is a clear reminder of how schools can become torture chambers for students perceived as different."

Below is a memorial video that was produced to honor Justin Aaberg, The music you will hear is a recording of Justin playing the cello. While it was created for Justin, I don't think those who created it will mind if it acts as a memorial for all these kids, victims of the anti-gay prejudices that are pushed by the Religious Right and the Republican Party. Never, never, never, let one of these bastards ever get away with the fraudulent claim that they are "doing it for the kids." They are doing it to the kids. Never forget that.