It Still Happens

[Steve]

In this day and age bullying is still alive and well in the US. This is nothing short of a horror story. So much for the "It Gets Better" campaign.

Gay Teen Assault

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[LJay]

This town is just a few miles from where I live and the story would surprise no one around here. A single campaign such as "It gets Better" simply will not eliminate all of these incidents. One hopes that the case of this injured teen will help toward progress, but I can guarantee you that more than one parent at that high school will be telling their kids that 'He got what was coming to him.' No, it is not right, but it is what happens.

[spilovn]

The police sound worse than the bullies.

[jaxc]

And my hope for humanity has sunk to a new low this week, well off to my fortress of misanthropy and pessimism :biggrin:

[Doofus89]

Tragic story. But, there's nothing anyone can do about bullying. It's been around since the dawn of time and will be around for ages to come. There's no dealing with an irrational mind. Only thing you can try and do is minimize the happenings. But, with unreported attacks and uncooperative people it's hard to do so. Especially if your area is heavily bigoted.

I can't agree with the judgment call by the cops here, even though "they were doing their job." Even if he did throw the first punch, he was nearly beaten half to death. In my opinion that should overshadow his punch. But, unfortunately, that's not how the law works...

[CuriousPhoenix]

This is outrageous. The school should be the one's getting in trouble. A fight should never have gone on long enough for him to be beaten so badly. Period end of story. A teacher or an administrator should have stepped in. Also if no adult was around, then the school should be found negligent. Students are not to be left alone without some kind of adult supervision. If the teachers and administrators just stood around and watched this happening because they don't like homosexuals then they should be fired immediately. Some one at the that school knew this kid was being bullied by his classmates and should have helped him.

Anyway he should never be charged for assault, he didn't instigate the fight, the bullies did by verbally abusing him, over and over again, until he felt his life was threatened. I am a teacher and would be ashamed of my school if this ever happened at it. Ridiculous. Those four kids should be suspended and expelled as well, for bullying and assault. It doesn't matter who started it, they were all involved and most schools have a zero tolerance for fighting too.

I'm so angry.

[Virge]

4 against 1.... ??? That story is only 24 hours old. Give it until Tuesday and you can bet there'll be a few dozen of the big guns blazing making this a national issue. I've listened to nothing but news since 4 this morning and it's 15 after midnight now. I haven't heard it mentioned on any channel yet. But I'll be by Tuesday morning it will be a lead story on the morning news shows.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Actually it does, has and is getting better.

Back when I was a student such 'news' would be casually brushed to the side and no one would know that another gay had been beaten into hamburger.

And yes while these things are still happening, they are not happening no where as near as often.

With a population of 317 million the few handful of cases that do happen are actually very small compared to the 47% of those still opposed to homosexuality.



Shows a general downward trend in 'hate crimes' against LGBT - while this shows the link between gay marriage (acceptance of it) and hate crimes, regardless of the underlying cause it is getting better.

We have moved out of the era of under-reporting. Back when I was a kid in my 20's a lot of baseball bats where swung and no one cared to talk about it. Today a baseball bat gets swung and it becomes national and international news.

My 'gay parents' (those from the general before me) report a much higher instance of severe gay bashing back in their day - like murders, lynch mobs, you know really ugly things compared to the more mild instances of a gang of thugs learning a person about "Gods Love" with a baseball bat, or crow bar or similar.

Even when we read stuff like this: http://www.businessinsider.com/hate-crim...ica-2013-5

We have to understand that the 'rise' in the statistics is based on reporting not the number of cases. LGBT are no longer as afraid to report these things when they happen, largely because we have a support group or many and have learned that we are now protected by a few laws and have rights and are not going to be subject to a moral majority who wants us dead, instead a majority gets pissed off when they hear of senseless violence.

Today each case of violence is reported and pushed the general public to seek more laws and protections for the victims. It also increases awareness and pushes people to be more tolerant of LGBT in general.

So yes the ugly is now having an overall positive impact, which will lead to less ugly in future.

It may look like a pessimistic outcome, but it is a hell of a lot better than 20 years before, and that was a hella lot better than 20 years before that.

[happyschizoid]

On it goes, bullying for an extended period and no one does anything. When the bullied fight back they are charged with a crime. And the police wonder why they aren't trusted.

[ceez]

4 against 1.... ??? That story is only 24 hours old. Give it until Tuesday and you can bet there'll be a few dozen of the big guns blazing making this a national issue. I've listened to nothing but news since 4 this morning and it's 15 after midnight now. I haven't heard it mentioned on any channel yet. But I'll be by Tuesday morning it will be a lead story on the morning news shows.

Not in VA, LJay is right, very few people here have sympathy for lgbt. A few years ago a gay walmart employee was beaten to death, I heard about from a friend that was working there and didn't even see the story on the local news. If I ever decide to come out then first I'm going to get a conealed carry permit.