This is why I can be so "humorless" about using the GLBT, especially gay men and trans women, as the butt of jokes or as methods of attack against opponents. All of those "jokes" add up and take a toll on people's self-esteem. For all the cries to examine one's white and male privileges, people need to start examining their straight privilege as well as their "contributions" to heterosexism and homophobia and work to battle it. Sporting a rainbow flag is all well and good, but there MUCH more which needs to be done.

Have them in Church every time the doors open, (you can take that as either sarcasm or my opinion of a potential factor in their behavior. I lean toward the latter.)

Kids are coming out at younger age, there needs to be some sort of protocol/recommendation developed when that happens. Maybe parents need to join some support group with their kids, talk about possibility of bullying and how to deal with it, etc. This story is so heart breaking, the kid did not kill himself (he was only 9 years old) - it was other kids who killed him and they learned himophobia from their parents.

you know the bigoted parents would be against it.

but there should be some requirement .

to convince a little boy to kill himself? Schools are not safe places in the least.

to going to school and being himself .

And burst out crying. I had to leave for a few minutes. To think of that poor boy in that much pain to take his own life is heart-ripping.

bullied because his classmates knew he was gay. My friend got called from work when neighbors discovered her son tried to hang himself from a tree in his backyard. At age 10. Thankfully they intervened and saved him before he was too late. He's a young adult now and adjusted. Could have been tragic.

I didn't know about it until I saw an interview with Jamel's mom this morning on CNN. It's inexcusable that Jamel was bullied for being who he is, but this is what life has become like in The Age of Trump. The parents of the kids who bullied Jamel are probably proud of what their kids did.