How can you only be14 years old and so consumed with hate that you would want to kill someone simply because he is not like you ? What kind of parenting and schooling are we providing?

The information elicited about Lawrence is that he was “freaking out people,” after coming to school dressed in high heeled boots, makeup, jewelry, and painted nails. Sure, this is not your average outfit for the junior high school male in homeroom. But neither is it a basis for murder.

In memorable words which I think will live forever, an insightful Lorri L. Jean, the CEO of the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center, told the newspaper, Bay Windows: “Brandon may have pulled the trigger, but bigotry and hatred loaded the gun.” Awesome words.

Bruce Presley is a respected educator who is serving on the Gay Heroes Foundation Board, working to create a memorial for slain gay youth. Lawrence King now becomes an unexpected, and unwilling honoree, a new name to add on a list getting too long already. Most of America has now heard of Matthew Shepherd being tied to a stake in Wyoming. But the stakes holding down and beating up gay Americans have been planted for decades in all our states.

For years, Bruce Presley and others have sought to tame the horrors of hate and homophobia, serving with an organization we have come to know as GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. It is an active group of passionate individuals and responsible professionals who have worked many long hours to promote teen tolerance and foster diversity training in local school districts.

The main goals of GLSEN have always been to make schools safer for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered children. In a column he published in this week’s Express, Presley noted that “Anti-gay sentiment is so ingrained in our society that many of us, including many of us gay people, simply do not hear it; we have become so accustomed to it.”

Safe Schools South Florida is the name GLSEN now uses for the southeast. A few years back, when the GLSEN program for protecting gender expression and sexual diversity training came before a Fort Lauderdale school Board, a radio host, one Steve Kane, vigorously opposed its implementation.

Objecting on the air and at public forums, Kane railed tumultuously against an initiative designed to promote understanding and awareness. A jaded advertising salesman with a cheap microphone, he nevertheless portrayed GLSEN as a bunch of radical homosexual activists invading our schools. He suggested the group was a front for promoting sexual perversion, slandering honorable spokespersons and decent gay men and women along the way.

The Steve Kanes of the world have the proverbial blood of Lawrence Kings everywhere on their hands today. By opposing programs yesterday intended to reduce homophobia and promote harmony, these persons first fostered and then provided for a world which permitted, perpetuated and ultimately, tolerated intolerance.

Florida has an anti bullying bill in the legislature today, but it is without much teeth. A suddenly awakened California, which already has such a law, is talking of newer legislation to mandate diversity training and sensitivity awareness in high schools. A day of mourning is being contemplated in April to give recognition to the lost life of Lawrence King.

The laws are necessary, but nothing will ever substitute for the leadership of local parents, educators, and community spokespersons. Understanding starts with your neighbor, and it becomes a part of your life when you recognize we all have a lot more in common than we do apart.

Somewhere, in the conservative fortresses of Orange County, California, I suspect some sad and sorry talk host seeking ratings will preach this act of murder was an aberration; that we do not need to teach sensitivity in our schools. He will misrepresent what GLSEN is and was. He will become a public figure and another young gay soul will become a target.

Somewhere else, another Brandon McInerney will hear the words of hurt and harm and homophobia. As a consequence, in a future not far away, somewhere and someplace, we will bury another Lawrence King. If only the Steve Kanes of the world heard the lessons of tolerance that GLSEN preaches, and told the truth, there might be fewer Brandon McInerneys.

Our battle is not over and our war is not won. Here in the Spring of 2008, the blood of another teenage gay victim has just taught us that lesson again.

Related Links:
Boy’s Killing, Labeled a Hate Crime, Stuns a Town