Anti-Gay Bigotry Claims Another Gay Teen

I hope Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins, Pope Benedict XVI and their fellow anti-gay hate mongers are happy.  Yet another gay teen has taken his own life to escape the Christianist approved and and sustained anti-gay bullying.  Few prejudices and forms of bigotry continue to survive with church supported campaigns of hate, but anti-gay hate and prejudice is one of them.  And even as young lives are needlessly ended, the self-congratulatory modern day Pharisees continue to pat themselves on the back and revel in their message of hate and bigotry.  It sickens me beyond words and is one of the principal reasons I've more or less walked away from Christianity.  Yes, there are "gay accepting" churches but they remain largely silent when it comes to openly and loudly challenging and condemning the hate merchants who have stolen control of the Christian moniker.    Here are highlights from KFOX-TV 14 in El Paso:

EL PASO, Texas — An Andres High School student, Brandon Elizares, 16, took his own life on Saturday, according to his family and friends. KFOX14 News spoke Elizares's friends and mother, Zachalyn Elizares, at her Northeast home on Friday, and she said that her son was bullied at school for two years because he did not want to hide the fact that he was gay.

Elizares said that Brandon's friends told her that there was an incident on Friday at school where someone insulted her son and planned to fight him the next week.

Saturday, Elizares was running errands and came home to discover her son's body.

While speaking with KFOX14, Elizares tried to stay strong and hold back her tears as long as she could. But the thought of careless words and hateful threats brought on the tears.

"My son had every right to live his live the way that he wanted to, without having to fear that people would call him names or threaten to beat him up," Elizares said.

EPISD could not comment on this specific case, but did want to remind students that bullying needs to be reported.

"What a bully is looking for is to try to scare you not to report it, so that nothing is done," said Debra Carden, EPISD's bullying committee leader.

Religious based hate and prejudice is a cancer that needs to be removed from the face of the earth.  Once again we see that at bottom, religion is a pervasive evil.  It needs to be recognized as such and stripped of all its special rights and privileges.