Tragic Killing

On February 12, 2008 an openly gay fifteen year old, Larry King, was murdered by a classmate. He was murdered by the boy he'd ask to be his valentine in light of the impending holiday. That's right, the boy he asked to be his valentine. Somewhere along the line, this classmate decided it was so horrible, so horrific that Larry wanted to be his valentine that he would rectify the situation by simply killing him.

Something has to change.

Our views must change.

Gays are not second class citizens. I am not a second class citizen. There should never be an instance where someone is killed simply because they are gay.

Maybe this kid learned this fear of homosexuality from our culture and the media. From gays being the punchline in some joke, the gay that's made fun of in perhaps even the, "that's gay" phrase that seems to be so popular nowadays. I can even admit to deeming something "gay" every once in awhile. I had a conversation with a coworker just the other day about this. We were talking about how swear words actually start out as being ordinary words, but people start putting different meanings to them and then you get your swear word. He was saying that "gay" had reached that status, I wasn't quite in agreement, but perhaps I should have been. Perhaps by my use of this simple phrase I'm helping spread the homophobia that young kids adopt.

Think about what you say.

Think about the impact this may have on someone with a young mind. Think of the influence you're exerting.

Cause this is unacceptable. Killing because someone is gay is completely unacceptable.


Edited by Scriblerus to incorperate the link properly into the post at 2am on March 2nd