School Bullying is defended constantly by many men and women, mostly parents and teachers, who say it is simply a part of the right of passage to adulthood. If you can't make it through some teasing in grade school and high school, how are you going to make it through life?
I've thought a great deal about their perspective because I was one of those kids who was bullied - all the time. Everyone says how cruel kids can be, but it seems to always be said with a bit of nonchalance, even smug pride, because the persons I've known who express these beliefs most often seem to be the parents and authority figures who have adolescents who do this horrific bullying. And, my gosh, it's almost a point of pride to know your kid is aggresive enough to be doing the bully bit and not receiving it - they're practicaally ready to follow Mommy and Daddy into corporate America, right?
No, my observation is not a scientific study, it's just based upon my own experience.
"Oh, come on, toughen up", I was told. Or, to my parents, "Donnie is just too sensitive!". There seemed a multitude of excuses for allowing and/or not interfering in this supposed 'ritual passage'. I learned quickly that bringing it to the attention of my parents or teachers resulted in simply being more clearly marked as a target. So, I stopped telling - it was bad enough without the lime-light of being further noted as a 'tattler.' I decided being called a 'pussy' and a 'cock-sucker' and 'faggot', amongst other nasty monikers, definitely trumped being followed after school, ambushed, beaten-up and having my things stolen. The only trouble being that lying low was no insurance policy of avoiding the latter.
The truth is that this is NO normal right of passage. It is a pack mentality of systematically rooting out group members who don't meet the fraternities code of 'uniformity'. We see it all the time in the animal kingdom. Those animals considered weak and ineffectual are abandoned, or, if they try to hang on at the fringes to survive, they are finally attacked and killed by their own kind.
Perhaps at this point you're thinking, oh here's another softy who thinks his childhood experiences uniquely terrible - and he's blown them out of proportion. After all, all kids go through this stuff. I say in return, not so. I was in fact one of the luckier ones - the ostracism and fear I dealt with were somewhat assuaged by delving into books and clinging to alone time filled with things I passionately loved. I hid in the pursuit of knowledge and used intellectual aloofness to ward off those whom I saw as dangerous. The trouble with withdrawl is that you lose the benefits of teamwork and comradery. And, not facing the attacks means I've never taken away the residual fear I've felt for years - even today at 49 years of age, 6' 2" tall and some 200 pounds I still find interacting with others difficult. How will they treat me? Will I be targeted again?
But this post isn't about me. Because when I was a kid all the other youngsters really understood is that I was somehow different. I had different interests and a different outlook on life, but neither they or I identified this difference with homosexuality until I was in my late teens. My parents had done a thorough job of eliminating homosexual references in media from our home - and those hints of queerness which slipped by were innocuous enough for me not to recognize them. I came into the adult world without a clue about sexuality and life and found adjusting to a heterosexual landscape a hormonal nightmare. If you were gay you lived in a closet. It's taken years to truly know that silence about one's sexuality cripples. As ACT-UP said it: SILENCE = DEATH! And AIDS isn't the only way to die.
Today, it's very different for most young gay men and lesbians. These children and young adults know what homosexuality is, and they often know when they are attracted to a member of their own sex what it may imply about their own sexuality. So do their peers. Imagine then how the 'bullies' must see this critical difference in a classmate and imagine what a misery they're going to make of that young person's life - even if they're not gay, just different. (Yes, that happens, too.)
Recently, in an attempt to pass two State bills (Florida and Iowa) which would require school officials, both teachers and administrators, to take steps to stop this type of verbal and physical abuse, some stories were told by parents of gay children. During the hearings Mrs. Debbie Johnson told of how her son, Jeffery, 15, hung himself because he simply could no longer face the relentless torment of his peers at school. Mr. Bobbie Bean, who's son was rushed to the ER in critical condition because of his classmates' beatings, (which began on the school bus and continued at school), caused severe injuries to the boy. Bean later told news media that "For 22 minutes of my life I had to sit there and watch that clock tick by, and I had to contemplate I was going to have to go home and tell my wife we didn't have a son no more," Yet many, many anti-gay adults see nothing wrong in their children's virulent anti-gay attacks.
This term called 'bullying' seems far too mild a word to describe what actually happens. 'Bully' conjures up old movies with the mischief of 'Little Rascals' or Judy and Mickey simply reasoning with a friends mildly anti-social remarks - and then they're all chums again and off to give a show. If you think that's what I'm talking about you're dead wrong. And so are a lot of young people.
I'm talking about broken bones, deep bruises, head traumas and living with the constant untenable knowledge that it may happen again... and again. And about verbal abuse so disturbing that self-esteem, so vulnerable at puberty, is often completely shattered. Don't be taken in by those who believe it's just a normal and edifying tradition we all go through. It is instead a brutal singling out of someone perceived as a 'threat' and doing everything possible, including even murder (Matthew Shephard) to eliminate this so called 'threat'. The deeply disturbing part is finding out that it is with great regularity that teachers and parents of these abusive young men and women will defend their pupil's/children's actions as acceptable and normal - that 'rite of passage' I spoke of previously. It would seem laughable to me to know that anyone could defend violence against a child that includes severe physical and emotional trauma - but it happens, daily. We cannot allow it be constantly dismissed simply because some of us fear that another childs homosexuality has an influence upon our children.* Aren't these parents really asking to have their fear and hatred codified as a normal, perhaps even exemplary, process to defeat what they believe is an immoral state of being?
The thing is we're not wild animals - we are not in some survival mode at school where those who are different create a risk for the greater group. We're human beings, with integrity and ethics and morals, who have evolved sufficiently to protect those of our families, friends and colleagues whom are different. If you are religious; Christian, Muslim or Jewish, it's even part of your creed. So, why is it so disturbingly common to find schools refusing to offer a safe environment for these children and young people whom are gay? Why does it take the passage of legislation (all of which has been fought with virulence by 'good' parents and 'righteous' school boards across the country) to change the atmosphere and allow a safe and supportive learning place for ALL students?
That's the million dollar question, isn't it? There is no one answer, I suppose. But there is one partial solution to the problem: we can stop encouraging the unethical behavior by advocating punitive action against the perpetrators. If it takes a law with penalties for schools and parents who ignore the abuse, so be it. It seems that it should simply require notifying an administrator or teacher that verbal and physical abuse is dangerous and that gay students have the same basic rights to be safe to learn.. Yet, informing those responsible for gay kids safety has proved not to work, time and time again. It apparently takes the legal pressure of financial sanctions, recording anti-social intimidation in student and employee records and forcing policy violators mandatory attendance at education classes about tolerance.
If it takes a step by step legal process to fight this reckless emotional and physical abuse, school by school, district by district, we can do so. It will change the prevalent attitude that these abusive actions and their deliberate oversight is non-consequential. Laws are a powerful deterrent - they may never change the heart or mind of those whom believe their prejudice is justifiable, but these laws will do much to stop these attacks when school's and parent's pocketbooks and permament records are liable to be forfeit for the cruelty and injuries inflicted upon young gay men and women.
Support local and national efforts to make schools safe for everyone, please. Your speaking out will save lives. Every precious and beautiful queer child lost to us leaves a gaping hole in the societal diversity which makes us strong. Report abuse to Llamba Legal, the ACLU or an attorney whom has a track record of student rights advocation.
*Persons with deep religious reservations concerning homosexuality have in our Country have a Constitutional right to the expression of their faith-based belief, but the Constitution does NOT allow anyone to advocate violence, verbal or physical, towards any person or group, including gays and lesbians. Religious Freedom works both ways. One is free to believe in God, church, doctrine and tradition; but it must be remembered that the Constitution equally protects our right to reject and not believe in any or all religious practice. We are never entitled to verbally insite violence or to physically injure, maim or kill those with whom we disagree. While one may believe God hates homosexuality, one may also sincerely believe God does not hate homosexuality.** I imagine if God hates at all, He hates the violence a great deal more, for His greatest commandment is to Love.
If you are Christian, as am I, you may recall the account of the stoning of the prostitute. Many believe the prostitute was Mary the Magdalene. Christ, appearing at the scene of the execution, made it very clear that those committed to the killing bore no fewer sins, nor any less responsibility for their sins, than this woman sentenced to a brutal death. The fact that the sin of which the Magdalene was accused was likely sexual in nature should, it seems to me, be particularly inspirational to anyone whose platform is that being Gay and sexually active is some unfathomable abomination - not just a difference of genetics or upbringing but a choice to do evil. As Jesus demonstartes with His actions to save the Magdalene, prostitution is in God's eyes a sin no more grave than the mob's rage which permitted attacking and killing the woman. If this were not so, would He have asked of those gathered there whom among them was without sin? It seems to me unlikely that all the sins Jesus inscribed in the sand were sexual in nature. ( Sexual sins being particularly grave in our eyes) So, what transgressions were revealed? They were serious enough to cause visible shame and the hurried exit of many people present. I have often wondered if 'hatred' was not rather prevalently written in the sand.
What did Christ actually scratch that day upon the dry earth of Judea? I do not know. What I do know is that it means this: it is God's right, and His alone, to decide what is a sin and to declare to what justice is for any person. His justice for the Magdalene was forgiveness for her transgression, not injury. Importantly, it is not recorded that she first asked for this forgiveness, rather Jesus gave it to her freely at a time when she must have been in a state of sheer terror for her life. And more importantly, it is only Mary and Jesus who know the sin for which she was actully forgiven. Was it the sexual act itself, of selling her body, or was it her loss of faith in the reality of intimacy and love - certainly a common result of marketing one's self-esteem.** We do know it was her acceptance of God's Intimate Love that day which changed her heart, for her tears washed Jesus' feet to demonstrate her humble conversion. Unique among men, Jesus, as Man and God, alone knows the heart of each of us. As a Christian I am asked to follow this example and refrain from judgement of others, Gay men - and Evangelicals both.
I've thought a great deal about their perspective because I was one of those kids who was bullied - all the time. Everyone says how cruel kids can be, but it seems to always be said with a bit of nonchalance, even smug pride, because the persons I've known who express these beliefs most often seem to be the parents and authority figures who have adolescents who do this horrific bullying. And, my gosh, it's almost a point of pride to know your kid is aggresive enough to be doing the bully bit and not receiving it - they're practicaally ready to follow Mommy and Daddy into corporate America, right?
No, my observation is not a scientific study, it's just based upon my own experience.
"Oh, come on, toughen up", I was told. Or, to my parents, "Donnie is just too sensitive!". There seemed a multitude of excuses for allowing and/or not interfering in this supposed 'ritual passage'. I learned quickly that bringing it to the attention of my parents or teachers resulted in simply being more clearly marked as a target. So, I stopped telling - it was bad enough without the lime-light of being further noted as a 'tattler.' I decided being called a 'pussy' and a 'cock-sucker' and 'faggot', amongst other nasty monikers, definitely trumped being followed after school, ambushed, beaten-up and having my things stolen. The only trouble being that lying low was no insurance policy of avoiding the latter.
The truth is that this is NO normal right of passage. It is a pack mentality of systematically rooting out group members who don't meet the fraternities code of 'uniformity'. We see it all the time in the animal kingdom. Those animals considered weak and ineffectual are abandoned, or, if they try to hang on at the fringes to survive, they are finally attacked and killed by their own kind.
Perhaps at this point you're thinking, oh here's another softy who thinks his childhood experiences uniquely terrible - and he's blown them out of proportion. After all, all kids go through this stuff. I say in return, not so. I was in fact one of the luckier ones - the ostracism and fear I dealt with were somewhat assuaged by delving into books and clinging to alone time filled with things I passionately loved. I hid in the pursuit of knowledge and used intellectual aloofness to ward off those whom I saw as dangerous. The trouble with withdrawl is that you lose the benefits of teamwork and comradery. And, not facing the attacks means I've never taken away the residual fear I've felt for years - even today at 49 years of age, 6' 2" tall and some 200 pounds I still find interacting with others difficult. How will they treat me? Will I be targeted again?
But this post isn't about me. Because when I was a kid all the other youngsters really understood is that I was somehow different. I had different interests and a different outlook on life, but neither they or I identified this difference with homosexuality until I was in my late teens. My parents had done a thorough job of eliminating homosexual references in media from our home - and those hints of queerness which slipped by were innocuous enough for me not to recognize them. I came into the adult world without a clue about sexuality and life and found adjusting to a heterosexual landscape a hormonal nightmare. If you were gay you lived in a closet. It's taken years to truly know that silence about one's sexuality cripples. As ACT-UP said it: SILENCE = DEATH! And AIDS isn't the only way to die.
Today, it's very different for most young gay men and lesbians. These children and young adults know what homosexuality is, and they often know when they are attracted to a member of their own sex what it may imply about their own sexuality. So do their peers. Imagine then how the 'bullies' must see this critical difference in a classmate and imagine what a misery they're going to make of that young person's life - even if they're not gay, just different. (Yes, that happens, too.)
Recently, in an attempt to pass two State bills (Florida and Iowa) which would require school officials, both teachers and administrators, to take steps to stop this type of verbal and physical abuse, some stories were told by parents of gay children. During the hearings Mrs. Debbie Johnson told of how her son, Jeffery, 15, hung himself because he simply could no longer face the relentless torment of his peers at school. Mr. Bobbie Bean, who's son was rushed to the ER in critical condition because of his classmates' beatings, (which began on the school bus and continued at school), caused severe injuries to the boy. Bean later told news media that "For 22 minutes of my life I had to sit there and watch that clock tick by, and I had to contemplate I was going to have to go home and tell my wife we didn't have a son no more," Yet many, many anti-gay adults see nothing wrong in their children's virulent anti-gay attacks.
This term called 'bullying' seems far too mild a word to describe what actually happens. 'Bully' conjures up old movies with the mischief of 'Little Rascals' or Judy and Mickey simply reasoning with a friends mildly anti-social remarks - and then they're all chums again and off to give a show. If you think that's what I'm talking about you're dead wrong. And so are a lot of young people.
I'm talking about broken bones, deep bruises, head traumas and living with the constant untenable knowledge that it may happen again... and again. And about verbal abuse so disturbing that self-esteem, so vulnerable at puberty, is often completely shattered. Don't be taken in by those who believe it's just a normal and edifying tradition we all go through. It is instead a brutal singling out of someone perceived as a 'threat' and doing everything possible, including even murder (Matthew Shephard) to eliminate this so called 'threat'. The deeply disturbing part is finding out that it is with great regularity that teachers and parents of these abusive young men and women will defend their pupil's/children's actions as acceptable and normal - that 'rite of passage' I spoke of previously. It would seem laughable to me to know that anyone could defend violence against a child that includes severe physical and emotional trauma - but it happens, daily. We cannot allow it be constantly dismissed simply because some of us fear that another childs homosexuality has an influence upon our children.* Aren't these parents really asking to have their fear and hatred codified as a normal, perhaps even exemplary, process to defeat what they believe is an immoral state of being?
The thing is we're not wild animals - we are not in some survival mode at school where those who are different create a risk for the greater group. We're human beings, with integrity and ethics and morals, who have evolved sufficiently to protect those of our families, friends and colleagues whom are different. If you are religious; Christian, Muslim or Jewish, it's even part of your creed. So, why is it so disturbingly common to find schools refusing to offer a safe environment for these children and young people whom are gay? Why does it take the passage of legislation (all of which has been fought with virulence by 'good' parents and 'righteous' school boards across the country) to change the atmosphere and allow a safe and supportive learning place for ALL students?
That's the million dollar question, isn't it? There is no one answer, I suppose. But there is one partial solution to the problem: we can stop encouraging the unethical behavior by advocating punitive action against the perpetrators. If it takes a law with penalties for schools and parents who ignore the abuse, so be it. It seems that it should simply require notifying an administrator or teacher that verbal and physical abuse is dangerous and that gay students have the same basic rights to be safe to learn.. Yet, informing those responsible for gay kids safety has proved not to work, time and time again. It apparently takes the legal pressure of financial sanctions, recording anti-social intimidation in student and employee records and forcing policy violators mandatory attendance at education classes about tolerance.
If it takes a step by step legal process to fight this reckless emotional and physical abuse, school by school, district by district, we can do so. It will change the prevalent attitude that these abusive actions and their deliberate oversight is non-consequential. Laws are a powerful deterrent - they may never change the heart or mind of those whom believe their prejudice is justifiable, but these laws will do much to stop these attacks when school's and parent's pocketbooks and permament records are liable to be forfeit for the cruelty and injuries inflicted upon young gay men and women.
Support local and national efforts to make schools safe for everyone, please. Your speaking out will save lives. Every precious and beautiful queer child lost to us leaves a gaping hole in the societal diversity which makes us strong. Report abuse to Llamba Legal, the ACLU or an attorney whom has a track record of student rights advocation.
*Persons with deep religious reservations concerning homosexuality have in our Country have a Constitutional right to the expression of their faith-based belief, but the Constitution does NOT allow anyone to advocate violence, verbal or physical, towards any person or group, including gays and lesbians. Religious Freedom works both ways. One is free to believe in God, church, doctrine and tradition; but it must be remembered that the Constitution equally protects our right to reject and not believe in any or all religious practice. We are never entitled to verbally insite violence or to physically injure, maim or kill those with whom we disagree. While one may believe God hates homosexuality, one may also sincerely believe God does not hate homosexuality.** I imagine if God hates at all, He hates the violence a great deal more, for His greatest commandment is to Love.
If you are Christian, as am I, you may recall the account of the stoning of the prostitute. Many believe the prostitute was Mary the Magdalene. Christ, appearing at the scene of the execution, made it very clear that those committed to the killing bore no fewer sins, nor any less responsibility for their sins, than this woman sentenced to a brutal death. The fact that the sin of which the Magdalene was accused was likely sexual in nature should, it seems to me, be particularly inspirational to anyone whose platform is that being Gay and sexually active is some unfathomable abomination - not just a difference of genetics or upbringing but a choice to do evil. As Jesus demonstartes with His actions to save the Magdalene, prostitution is in God's eyes a sin no more grave than the mob's rage which permitted attacking and killing the woman. If this were not so, would He have asked of those gathered there whom among them was without sin? It seems to me unlikely that all the sins Jesus inscribed in the sand were sexual in nature. ( Sexual sins being particularly grave in our eyes) So, what transgressions were revealed? They were serious enough to cause visible shame and the hurried exit of many people present. I have often wondered if 'hatred' was not rather prevalently written in the sand.
What did Christ actually scratch that day upon the dry earth of Judea? I do not know. What I do know is that it means this: it is God's right, and His alone, to decide what is a sin and to declare to what justice is for any person. His justice for the Magdalene was forgiveness for her transgression, not injury. Importantly, it is not recorded that she first asked for this forgiveness, rather Jesus gave it to her freely at a time when she must have been in a state of sheer terror for her life. And more importantly, it is only Mary and Jesus who know the sin for which she was actully forgiven. Was it the sexual act itself, of selling her body, or was it her loss of faith in the reality of intimacy and love - certainly a common result of marketing one's self-esteem.** We do know it was her acceptance of God's Intimate Love that day which changed her heart, for her tears washed Jesus' feet to demonstrate her humble conversion. Unique among men, Jesus, as Man and God, alone knows the heart of each of us. As a Christian I am asked to follow this example and refrain from judgement of others, Gay men - and Evangelicals both.
** (You may preach against homosexuality from the pulpit, but no one may use that pulpit to instruct a congregation on how to vote. Report churches which do so to the IRS. Be specific about when, where and whom said you must or should vote for a certain bill or candidate. Churces are tax exempt because they are not political advocay groups.
***I have found in my own spiritual journey that it is not sexual intercourse in and of itself which has caused me separation from God, but rather my failure to preserve this unique and, I think, sacred, physical expression of love with someone whom I hold and treat as a whole person, and with whom I am willing to be open in mind, spirit and heart, as well as body. This has mainly been found for me in my marriage to Mark. Mark is almost the only person I have ever found sex to be joyful and affirming because he is whom I have been best capable of giving myself without seeking gratuitous gratification foremost. But even though this is my experience I will not allow myself to say that God has not reached others, Gay or heterosexual, in other physical relationships, even if I cannot understand them. It is hardly easy to be humble enough to believe that God's Love can be so universal and magnanamus for each and every being He created that He can forgive what I as a man sometimes cannot. We must, absolutely must, allow only God to judge the hearts of others, allow Him to actually be omnipotent and to say to ourselves Thy Will Be Done. .
Lambda Legal's Help Desk: 212.809.8585 or 866-542-8336) LEGALHELPDESK@lambdalegal.org.
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