Bullied 11-Year-Old Hangs Himself

There are times when it's hard for me to hold back my anger at the Christianists who seem to do everything in their power to sow hatred against gays and those perceived to be gay with absolutely no regard for the lives being ruined on a daily basis. A sad story out of Massachusetts demonstrates what happens when individuals feel that they are morally superior - and perhaps even doing God's work - in tormenting LGBT youths and individuals. As a parent, I cannot imagine the fury and pain that the family of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover (in the photo), particularly since his mother made weekly pleas to his school to address the problem of anti-gay bullying that he was enduring. What a horrible waste! I hope the family sues the school since unfortunately it seems that only the fear of large monetary judgments is the only thing that gets school administrators to do what's right. Here are highlights from GLESEN that tell this sad tale:

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An 11-year-old Massachusetts boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, hung himself Monday after enduring bullying at school, including daily taunts of being gay, despite his mother’s weekly pleas to the school to address the problem. This is at least the fourth suicide of a middle-school aged child linked to bullying this year.

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Carl, a junior at New Leadership Charter School in Springfield who did not identify as gay, would have turned 12 on April 17, the same day hundreds of thousands of students will participate in the 13th annual National Day of Silence by taking some form of a vow of silence to bring attention to anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) bullying and harassment at school. The other three known cases of suicide among middle-school students took place in Chatham, Evanston and Chicago, Ill., in the month of February.

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"As was the case with Carl, you do not have to identify as gay to be attacked with anti-LGBT language," Byard said. "From their earliest years on the school playground, students learn to use anti-LGBT language as the ultimate weapon to degrade their peers. In many cases, schools and teachers either ignore the behavior or don’t know how to intervene."

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Nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT youth (86.2%) reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation, nearly half (44.1%) reported being physically harassed and about a quarter (22.1%) reported being physically assaulted, according to GLSEN’s 2007 National School Climate Survey of more than 6,000 LGBT students.

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GLSEN recommends four simple approaches schools can take to begin addressing bullying now. Said Walker in the Springfield Republican: "If anything can come of this, it's that another child doesn't have to suffer like this and there can be some justice for some other child. I don't want any other parent to go through this."