Bullying and Suicide...

So, last week a 17 year old senior at the High School a few minutes down the road shot himself four days after his birthday after being tormented, teased, beat up and bullied.  From what I understand from other students - the fact that he was gay was the reason he was attacked.

What the Hell?

Are you kidding me?

This child, this poor innocent child, is gone.  Dead and gone.  No chance to see the world from a different perspective, stuck with the only experiences he will ever have having been the horrendous world of High School.  His family will never get to see their son grow up, face the world, be treated like an equal, or be happy. 

I hope those bullies grow up, have children, and realize the horror of what they have done and can never look themselves in the mirror again.

Murder.

That is the only name for what they have done.  Murder, because of arrogance and bigotry.  Murder, because of small-mindedness and hatred.   Murder, because we live in a world where these kind of bully kids are "popular" and life goes on for them.  Do you think these kids were suspended, charged with a crime, or even shunned at school?  Nope.  They got away with murder.

My heart is broken.  The fact that I live in a world, that I brought three children into a world, where this kind of hate is not only allowed to exist, but grown and tended like a garden in the hearts of our children, sickens me. 

We allow school board members in Texas to write messages on their facebook wall's about how they wish all "f*gs" would kill themselves. 
http://www.hrcbackstory.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/ClintMcCance-Facebook-image.pdf

We  allow candidates to run for office who say things like Homosexuality is an Identity Disorder" like Christine O'Donnell.

Really?  We allow this crap?  I am so angry, so frustrated, so hurt, and so pained by the world that we live in, that this stuff happens in our world, our state, and apparently in my back yard.

I wish I could go back two weeks, find this young man in the store, and have the chance to look him in the eye and tell him that he is WORTH the life that he has.  He is just fine just the way he is, and not to give power to this hatred.  Love yourself for who you are, and know that High School is such a small snippet of your life, and it will be over so quickly.  The world is so much bigger than your small town high school, and you deserve the chance to live in it.  To be in the world that will embrace you, understand you, and love you FOR who you are, not despite who you are.  I want to take his hand, and tell him that there are people out there that are awful and horrible, they have no heart, no conscience, and no one who has taught them to love, but that not everyone is like that.  I just wish I could let him know that being gay is not bad, or wrong, or anything to be ashamed of.  Hatred is, bigotry is, intolerance is, but being gay is NOT.

So Jordan, wherever you are, if you can hear my greatest wish for you right now, I hope you know that even strangers believe in you, that people who didn't get a chance to know you in life are saddened by that fact, and that the world is less of a beautiful face without you in it.

Rest in peace.