Brandon Bitner Commits Suicide After Anti-Gay Bullying

@ DeserayWell pathetic or not, they're dead now.  You don't get it do you.Kids who are not black don't get called "Nigger", the way some kids who are not gay get called "Faggot".  They get this because some children resemble the stereotype of a gay boy.  It's not considered masculine to be a good student, read books, dress well, play a musical instrument, help old ladies across the street etc.  Only faggots would stoop to such unmasculine behaviour, in the minds of teenage bullies at least.  Adults may well know these stereotypes are not true, but these are kids we're talking about, some physically powerful beyond their mental development.Agreed, 'Gay' is a universally accepted put-down, because there's nothing a kid would more rather not be than gay.  Even kitchen appliances and cars get called "so gay" if they malfunction.  All this abuse heaped upon a harmless minority who never did anything bad to their attackers that could possibly justify vilification, violence and at the worst, murder in the first degree as befell 21yo Matthew Shepard.  Blaming a victim for being bullied or killed is no different to blaming a female for being raped.The worst bullies of them all are oftentimes gay kids who do not fit the stereotype and know too well that if they lie and pretend to be straight, are violent, homophobic, then they will be accepted and survive, just like you managed to by resorting to violence.  You might be surprised how many men have been convicted of homophobic violence when the whole time they were gay themselves.  A fully secure straight person in my experience is far less likely to be concerned about what gay boys are doing, because they're too busy chasing females.  I am gay myself but I was never bullied at school for it nor rejected by my family, and most of my friends are straight.  They manifest no need to abuse or bash me.  We know what we are and don't try to change each other.In a school and in some communities it's all very different.  Being gay is lower than anything else bad that you can possibly be.  You'd get more respect if you were a gun runner.  If you're bullied for being black however, you can always go home to your black mum and dad and they will be on your side.  But if you're gay, you don't have a gay mum and dad to go home to, and more often than not, you would live in a home that is hostile to your homosexuality, and would beat the bejesus out of you if they found out.  So you lie to them too.  You *do not* tell them about your homophobic classmates bullying you for being gay so as to invite further violence against you at home.Most gay kids are out on their own.  They have no support from their peers at school who hate them for being gay, some teachers who are homophobic may not intervene because they privately feel the kid deserves everything he gets for being gay, their parents will kick them out on the street, or try to beat the crap out of them until they stop saying they're gay.  And the church? Well there lies the basic reason all this came about - they teach that gay is evil, and you're possessed by the devil if you're gay.  Your only salvation lies in marrying a total stranger you have not the slightest sexual interest in, to please a god that doesn't even resemble the teachings of Jesus Christ, so you can spend eternity in the company of a bunch of homophobic, bible bashing bigots.  Speaking for myself, I would prefer Hell to that.That in a nutshell is why so often gay kids don't stand up for themselves, because they are hopelessly outnumbered by bullies, often twice their size and much older.  Many of the kids who die by their own hand are only 13 or 14, and often fit the stereotype outlined above.  They're not naturally violent and so they perish.  Of course once they've killed themselves, the problem has gone away, the bullies remain at the school high-fiving each other as heroes, like they did after 15yo Billy Lucas hanged himself in his granny's barn.  Not content with that, they went on to post messages of hate on his memorial Facebook page, the same as they have been doing to Brandon Bitner.When no-one loves you, and you have no hope, no future, why would you not kill yourself?If you are really serious about effectuating change, the only path is through education authorities stopping being so frightened to say the word "gay", running serious anti-homphobia programmes in schools with real live witnesses, such as the parents of kids who died by their own hand, and sane gay people who can articulate and win people over.  This must be coupled with rigorous prosecution of offenders, professionally based counselling.  This is how racism is being slowly tackled.Bullying is not a crime, but it should be.