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Fifth grade Illinois girl commits suicide, family blames bullies

A fifth-grader in Illinois is dead and her family says bullies are to blame. The 10-year-old girl committed suicide after asking her mom if she could be homeschooled.

"I really thought she had it all under control because I thought she was listening to me," said Stacy Conner, Ashlynn's mother.

Stacy has talked to her daughter about bullying before but she never expected that her daughter, Ashlynn, an honor roll student at Ridgefarm Elementary, would take her life at just 10 years old.

"I thought my kids are strong kids, that my words to them for guidance and advice was going to have more weight than what these kids could be saying," said Stacy.

Her mother said Ashlynn was teased by kids around the neighborhood and at school.

"Ashlynn's ugly, look Ashlynn's ugly. She's fat. They'd call her a slut."

She knew what was going on, she just didn't know what to do. Conner said when Ashlynn came home last Thursday, she had asked to be home schooled.

"It was the first time ever that she had asked me if she could be homeschooled and I told her 'no.'"

The next day, Ashlynn's sister found her inside a closet. She had hanged herself with a scarf.

"I will never see that smile ever again."

The family is at a loss for words.

"It is so unnecessary. It shouldn't be," said Lory Hackney, Ashlynn's grandmother.

They are struggling to cope.

"She wanted to be a veterinarian because she loved animals and she didn't want to see any of them sick or hurting," Hackney said.

She said she's hoping Ashlynn's story can keep it from happening again.

"I don't know what it is going to take to stop it, but no child should ever have to feel that they need to kill themselves to stop that kind of pain."


http://www.ktla.com/videogallery/66090095/News/Family-says-bully-made-10-year-old-commit-suicide

Anti-gay post on teacher’s Facebook page stirs firestorm

UNION TOWNSHIP, N.J.(RNS) It began last week with a single online comment, one critical of a high school display marking Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender History Month.
It soon ballooned into a harangue against homosexuality, a “perverted spirit” and a “sin” that “breeds like cancer.”

 

“Why parade your unnatural immoral behaviors before the rest of us?” a woman who identified herself as Viki Knox wrote on Facebook. “I DO NOT HAVE TO TOLERATE ANYTHING OTHERS WISH TO DO. I DO HAVE TO LOVE AND SPEAK AND DO WHAT’S RIGHT!”

Had the comments appeared without a name on some anonymous message board, they almost certainly would have been lost in the flotsam of the Internet.

But Knox is a teacher at Union High School, and the inflammatory thread on her public Facebook page has created a firestorm in Union Township and beyond, with calls for her dismissal, an investigation by the school district and criticism from state gay rights advocates.

“Ms. Knox has the freedom to say whatever she wants. But her employer has every right to hold her accountable,” said Steven Goldstein, chairman of the gay rights group Garden State Equality. “Teachers are supposed to be role models for our children, not hatemongers.”

The controversy raises a broader question about the free speech rights of teachers in the age of social media as more educators come under fire for posting their views online. It also prompted Goldstein to question whether a teacher intolerant of homosexuality or alternative lifestyles could enforce New Jersey’s new anti-bullying law.

Knox did not return several phone messages. Her husband, encountered outside the couple’s home, declined to comment.

Union Chief School Administrator Patrick Martin said the district is investigating the comments. He declined to provide any information about Knox, including the grade level or subject she teaches or whether any action has been taken.

State records show Knox has taught for at least 20 years, including 10 in the district, and earns $70,688 a year. On her Facebook page, she describes herself as a special education teacher.

Knox is also faculty adviser for the school’s Bible study group, the Seekers Fellowship, according to district records. On Facebook, she refers to herself under her religious views as a “Jesus freak.”

It was last Wednesday (Oct. 5) when comments about the LGBT History Month display at the Union County school appeared on Facebook. The display, meant to promote tolerance, included photos of famous gay and transgender people.

“And it’s still there!” the posting on Knox’s page said. “I’m pitching a fit.”
A handful of commentators agreed with that view, but others soon began objecting, leading to a passionate back-and-forth.

Later in the thread, a Union Township resident, Judy Amorosa, challenged the anti-gay stance. The thread shows Knox responding in religious terms.

“God cannot abide, tolerate, accept, go along with SIN. That’s why Jesus came and gave his life as an offering for our souls; so we could once again be right-standing,” Knox’s page said. “Everything God has created, Satan has perverted, EVERYTHING! Sin is sin. Wrong is wrong.”

A parent copied the remarks and forwarded them to attorney John Paragano, a former Union resident. Paragano, a former township councilman and municipal court judge, wrote on Saturday to the school district’s chief administrator, urging Knox be dismissed.

“Hateful public comments from a teacher cannot be tolerated,” Paragano wrote. “She has a right to say it. But she does not have a right to keep her job after saying it.”

It’s unclear if Knox was at school, at home or both when the comments were posted. She posted some shortly after noon last Wednesday.

Ed Barocas, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, said Knox’s Facebook comments are protected by the Constitution.

“Although we do not agree with the sentiments expressed on Ms. Knox’s personal Facebook page, her comments are protected by the First Amendment,” Barocas said. “The ACLU believes that the response to offensive speech is not the restriction of speech, but more speech.”

(Jeanette Rundquist and Steve Strunsky write for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. Ryan Hutchins and Mark Mueller of The Star-Ledger contributed to this report.)

Wear your Purple tomorrow

GLAAD sends a reminder:

Millions of Americans wear purple on Spirit Day as a sign of support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth and to speak out against bullying. Spirit Day was started in 2010 by teenager Brittany McMillan as a response to the young people who had taken their own lives. Observed annually on October 20, individuals, schools, organizations, corporations, media professionals and celebrities wear purple, which symbolizes spirit on the rainbow flag. Getting involved is easy -- participants are asked to simply "go purple" on October 20 as we work to create a world in which LGBT teens are celebrated and accepted for who they are.

Cops Investigate Gay Bullying in Arizona

In the wake of Jamie Rodermeyer’s death, everyone from Anderson Cooper to President Obama has been focused on preventing more teen suicides and the scourge of anti-gay bullying. That hasn’t stopped kids from Tucson, Arizona’s Sabino High School, however, from bullying of their own. According to Tucson’s KVOA TV, the Pima County Sheriff's department is investigating an exchange between a gay Tanque Verde student and some Sabino High School students who allegedly made threatening comments after the gay student — who asked to remain anonymous — posted a comment about Rodemeyer’s death on Facebook.

“One of the guys who I went to middle school with supported the bullying and congratulated them on all the things they had done,” says the teen victim, who has often been bullied on the way home from school, with other students driving by yelling threats and gay slurs. The bully's comment sparked hundreds more, says KOVA, and while most were positive and encouraging, several of the bullies comments escalated to “terrifying and disgusting” levels.

“It's terrible. It's more frightening than anything else. It just seems like the stuff that progresses into violence,” the victim told reporters.

The Sheriff's Department spoke to the Sabino school administrators who refused to speak with reporters, but reportedly told the police they “handled it” and have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to bullying.
The victim says the frightening experience has had one positive outcome: “It really alerted me to the support system I have at my school” including staff and fellow students who stepped in to help, including teachers who got involved.

Gay Straight Alliance advisor, Julie Smith, told KOVA, “At first I do have to tell you I sat down and cried. I mean some of the threats on Facebook were physical threats and I was afraid they would be carried out. I just couldn't see myself not stepping in and doing something to help out.”

Jamey Rodemeyer Tormentors Under Criminal Investigation

Police have begun a criminal investigation into the suicide death of Jamey Rodemeyer, the 14-​year old Buffalo-​area teen who was tormented by anti-​gay bullies for years. Local authorities say that while New York does not have anti-​bullying laws, there are other avenues, such as harassment, aggravated harassment, cyber-harassment or hate crimes laws that may apply. Reports state there are several individuals in particular that authorities are investigating.

WATCH: Anderson Cooper: 14-​Year Old Bullied To Death “Even In Sadness, Reaching Out To Help Others”

The Buffalo News today reports, “We’re going to look into whether he was the victim of any crimes leading up to his suicide,” Police Chief John C. Askey said.

“We’re not indicating, not speculating at this point, that that is the cause of his death, … but independently, there may have been crimes that have been committed against him.”
Askey said he spoke Wednesday with Williamsville School Superintendent Scott G. Martzloff, who has pledged the district’s cooperation.
Members of the public, including those from the school community, have reached out to police in recent days with information suggesting that Jamey had been subjected to what would amount to criminal harassment, Askey said.
“We’ve heard that there were some specific students, an identifiable group of students, that had specifically targeted Jamey, or had been picking on him for a period of time,” Askey said.
While investigators are focusing on what may have transpired in the recent past, he said, police are under the impression that one to three students may have been bothering Jamey since he was a student at Heim Middle School.
“We’re looking into it to see if he was the victim of any crimes, and that’s the bottom line,” the chief said. “We’re going to be speaking to school officials and students and anyone with direct information about crimes that may have been committed against this individual.”
Jamey’s mother had previously told The Buffalo News that she believed that a core group of middle school students bullied her son and that the situation worsened for him about a year ago, when many anonymous posts began showing up on Jamey’s Formspring blog stating that he would be better off dead.
…
In a short YouTube video Jamey did in May, he expressed regret for creating the Formspring account “because people would just constantly send me hate.”
The anonymous posts included:
* “Kill your self!!!! You have nothing left!”
* “Listen to us, you’re a bad person, you don’t belong here, jump off a bridge or something!”
* “Go kill yourself, you’re worthless, ugly and dont have a point to live.”
* “You werent born this way. You shouldnt have ever been born.”
Seven months ago, in response to the Formspring question: What’s one thing people don’t know about you? Jamey answered, “How much I hate my life. Maybe it’s cause I’m bullied. a lot.”
His parents and friends said that it took a lot of work and encouragement to get Jamey through that dark period. Eventually, toward the end of last school year, Jamey stopped using Formspring altogether.

The Buffalo News also had published these comments from Jamey Rodemeyer’s FormSpring account:

“JAMIE IS STUPID, GAY, FAT ANND UGLY. HE MUST DIE!” read one post.
Another read: “I wouldn’t care if you died. No one would. So just do it  It would make everyone WAY more happier!”

“The Amherst Police Department’s Special Victims Unit has said it will determine whether to charge some students with harassment, cyber-​harassment or hate crimes,” reports ABC News. “Police said three students in particular might have been involved. Jamey was a student at Heim Middle School.”

Jamey had just started his freshman year at Williamsville North High School. (Both Amherst and Williamsville are just outside Buffalo.) But the bullying had begun during middle school, according to his parents. He had told family and friends that he had endured hateful comments in school and online, mostly related to his sexual orientation.
…
“Justin was a smiley, happy boy who loved to play his cello,” said his parents. “School systems need to do more to protect LGBT students from bullying, and not turn their back on them because of their sexual orientation.”

Straight Man Banned from Donating Blood for "Appearing Homosexual"

 Aaron Pace is admittedly and noticeably effeminate, but he says he is not homosexual.

 

Still, his looks, character and behavior prompted a blood donation center to reject him when he tried to donate blood recently and he’s miffed, to say the least.

“I was humiliated and embarrassed,” said Pace, 22. of Gary. “It’s not right that homeless people can give blood but homosexuals can’t. And I’m not even a homosexual.”

Pace visited Bio-Blood Components Inc. in Gary, which pays for blood and plasma donations, up to $40 a visit. But during the interview screening process, Pace said he was told he could not be a blood donor there because he “appears to be a homosexual.”

A few things:

• The blood ban on gay men is insane. All blood in the United States is screened for HIV, hepatitis B and C, and a legion of other diseases. A flat ban on gay men (or men who have had even a single gay experience) is bad business and medically unsound. (In the UK, gay men may donate blood after ten years of celibacy.)

• While male-to-male sexual contact infection rates are quite high, so are high-risk heterosexual contact infection rates.

• Does anyone else think it’s weird that the Chicago Sun-Times calls Mr. Pace “noticeable effeminate”? Talk about fueling the flames of ignorance here…

Teens in Suicide Pact Kill themselves

A pair of Minnesota teens who felt bullied and ostracized by fellow middle school students killed themselves this weekend during what appeared to be an innocent sleepover.
Haylee Fentress and Paige Moravetz were found Saturday in the small town of Lynd. The two 14-year-olds hanged themselves and left notes in an apparent suicide pact.
"I think they've had this for some time," Robin Settle, Fentress' aunt, told ABC News. The two were found by Fentress' mother. Moravetz was sleeping over at her best-friend's home because her parents were on vacation in Hawaii. "She attempted to resuscitate them," Settle said, but it was too late.

Moravetz moved to the small Minnesota town a year ago and had a hard time making friends, her aunt said. She and Fentress' friendship appeared to grow out of the pair's shared feeling of being excluded. Settle said her niece told her she was "made fun of for being overweight ... and she didn't fit in."

Fentress didn't want "anybody to be sad for her," according to Settle, and dictated in her suicide note that her funeral have lots of pink, princesses and butterflies.  Marshall Middle School, where the two girls attended, held a gathering Tuesday to reach out to parents and provide information on how to discuss the incident with their children.

"You don't get over it," Marshall Superintendent Klint Willert said, according to the Marshall Independent newspaper. "But by working together, we can get through it."

F*ck H8 newest video

Love this idea a bunch of straign muscle boys posing near naked for gay bois--what is not to LOVE !!  There is the F-bomb quite a bit but who the hell cares when there is so much eye-candy!  $10 like the ad says go get your calender today!
Making of Video: FCKH8 "STR8 AGAINST H8" 2011 Calendar from FCKH8.com on Vimeo.

Anti-gay bullying leads to another tragic teen suicide

RITTMAN, Ohio — Another young life lost to anti-gay bullying.


     Nicholas Kelo Jr. knew what it was like to be relentlessly bullied, his family said, and it may have been what persuaded him to pry open a safe inside his home on Feb. 23, and remove the gun that killed him, reports the Akron Beacon Journal.  He was 13 years old. It is unknown as to whether or not Nick was gay, but that did not stop his bullies or their attacks.

”It had been going on for years,” Jacqueline Kelo [Nick's mother] said. ”We would talk and he would say [of the bullies] that they were not worth his time.”  Nick played football in middle school but gave up the sport this year to participate in high school band.

The switch, Jacqueline Kelo reasoned, resulted in swelling rumors. Some, she said, wrongly assumed that a kid who would prefer to play the tenor sax rather than tossing a pigskin must be gay.  “After that, it [the bullying] spiraled out of control,” she said.

One such incident allegedly happened on a school bus following a football game, explained the mother of another Rittman teenager who said her son is also a victim of bullying. During the incident, Nick allegedly became the victim of an older student who was “glicking” — forcibly spitting on him. Jacqueline Kelo knew something was bothering her son when he came home, but the eighth-grader refused to share the details — telling her that he would handle it himself. The parents became aware of it only after their son’s death.  Jacqueline Kelo said it didn’t surprise her that her son kept his pain to himself. Nick viewed himself as his mother’s protector.

“He was the man of the house,” the single mother said.   Nick’s death is being investigated as a likely suicide, according to Rittman police.  Nick recently scored 152 on an IQ test, which is classified as superior intelligence. He had a second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and was an avid inventor, creating both a waffle fork to remove hot food from a toaster and an incinerator trash can. Nine of Nick’s organs were collected and donated.
News of Nick’s death comes just days after the White House held a high-visibility conference on bullying prevention, with the President and First Lady calling on parents, teachers, students, and communities to address the problem together.

For those who read this blog this story , which i just read about, Rittman is about 20 miles from my home.  I was beside myself, scik to my stomach with the last of the anti'gay teen bullying but with it in my backyard, if you will,makesme madder than hell.  My heart goes out to this singlemother, and it is just breaking for her.  We as the gya and gay supportive community need to do something for this woman immediately as well as for our gay, questioning or just plain bullied for being gay even if they are not.

Straight mat at George Washington University gay bashed

A senior at George Washington University was charged in D.C. superior court Monday with beating another student while calling him antigay slurs, according to the school’s student newspaper, The GW Hatchet.

Metropolitan Police Department officers arrested senior Ross Richardson early Sunday morning in Ivory Tower after he kicked and punched a fellow student while saying, “You fucking fag.”

The student’s name was not released because the Hatchet has a policy of not naming assault victims.

The victim, who is straight, told authorities he had never met his attacker before the assault. He was rushed to GW Hospital after the attack with significant head trauma, including bleeding in his brain.


“I'm extremely surprised that at such a progressive school such a hate crime would happen," the victim told the Hatchet. "I'm even more surprised that it would happen to a straight, white male."

The assault is being classified as a hate crime, according to the University Police Department. The victim told police he has only scattered memories of what happened in the hours before the assault, likely the result of his severe injury.

Two students witnessed the assault and sat with the victim until police arrived. The victim spent two nights in the hospital and was expected to return to classes Friday.

From the White House Blog---Bullying Prevention questions

Answering Your Questions on Bullying Prevention


Posted by Sarah Bernard on March 08, 2011 at 01:43 PM EST

Every day, thousands of kids, teens, and young adults around the country are bullied. Estimates are that nearly one-third of all school-aged children are bullied each school year - upwards of 13 million students. Students involved in bullying are more likely to have challenges in school, to abuse drugs and alcohol, and to have health and mental health issues. If we fail to address bullying we put ourselves at a disadvantage for increasing academic achievement and making sure all of our students are college and career ready.



On Thursday, the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention will bring together communities from across the nation who have been affected by bullying as well as those who are taking action to address it. As part of the agenda, Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett will host a policy panel with issue experts including Catherine Bradshaw of Johns Hopkins University, George Sugai from the University of Connecticut, Susan Swearer-Napolitano from the University of Nebraska, as well as the Cyberbullying Research Center's Justin Patchin.



Would you like Valerie to pose a question on your behalf?



Send us your question here, or at Facebook.com/WhiteHouse to ask your question as a comment on our wall. Valerie Jarrett will pose as many of them as she can during the Experts Panel on Thursday morning. Tune in to watch at 11:00am EST at whitehouse.gov/live.

Gay teen says 'Stop Bullying me or I'll SUE!!!!"

Gay teen activist Caleb Laieski has notified officials at every school in Arizona that they must put a stop to bullying, or else he plans to file a lawsuit. The Arizona Republic reports that the Phoenix-area teen e-mailed a letter to more than 5,000 school administrators and elected officials in early December.


“The letters warn school officials that they must institute policies specifically prohibiting gay harassment by students, teachers and administrators,” reports the Republic. “Schools that fail to stop bullying will encounter ‘legal ramifications.’”
Laieski, 15, founded Gays and Lesbians United Against Discrimination two years ago. Prior to making his demand of every school in Arizona, he successfully prompted the Dysart Unified School District, where he had endured antigay bullying, to revise its handbook to include language that prohibits bullying on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Now pursuing his high school equivalency diploma, Laieski runs his organization with a friend, Casey Cameron of Chicago.
Thus far, the Republic reports that the letter campaign has generated responses from only a handful of officials, most of whom have not expressed plans to take further steps. The Arizona School Boards Association, whose handbook recommends policies and language to many districts, plans to release new policy advisories this month, but a spokeswoman would not say whether antigay bullying was included among the revisions.


On a personal note, i have to say its about g-d  damn time somebody did something like this!!!!  They either comply or pay, good for you Caleb1

My Princess boy

"I look at myself in the mirror lately and I see this guy -- in earrings, pillbox hat, veil, maybe a little choker of pearls -- and I ask myself, 'Would a sane man dress like this?'---Cpl. Klinger, "MASH"

In the Army, dressing like a Disney princess might help you get a Section 8 discharge as a head case, but Cheryl Kilodavis is a lot less touchy about such things than the military. Her 5-year-old son dolls himself up in pretty pink dresses all the time.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.
In fact, Kilodavis has put together an entire picture book, "My Princess Boy," about how there's nothing wrong with that.

Some 12 years from now, will Dyson, her son, want that book trotted out and shown to his prom date or the guys on the football team? On the website for her book, Kilodavis says she hopes for a better world by then.
She writes that the book "is designed to start and continue a dialog about unconditional friendship and teaches children -- and adults -- how to accept and support children for who they are and how they wish to look."

At first, Dean and Cheryl Kilodavis were uncertain they should let their son sashay about looking like the Sugarplum Fairy. Cheryl Kilodavis tells the Today Show she told her son to knock it off -- in a kind, motherly way.

She explained that boys cannot be princesses.  Her older son, 8-year-old Dkobe, changed her mind.
"Dkobe said to me, 'Why can't you just let him be happy, Mom?' I realized at that moment that this was my issue, not his, and not Dyson's nor Dean's," she tells Today. "After taking a second to do some self-searching, I realized I had years of preconceived notions from my childhood, spiritually and culturally. After journaling, I printed a prototype of my book at a local copy center and used it as a tool to share my feelings. It explained how exclusion hurts and how even a basic level of acceptance can really change lives."
Of course, mothers have a reputation -- perhaps even a stereotype -- of indulging their children's eccentricities. What about Dean Kilodavis? How does he feel about all this?

He thinks it's pretty cool, actually. "It's not contagious," he tells Today. "He's just like any other kid. He plays checkers, he plays in the trees. He just likes to do it in a dress. Big deal."

It might be a big deal to a bully looking for faces to rearrange. But Cheryl Kilodavis tells the network you can't stop bullies by sacrificing who you are.

"I understand that we all want life to be easy for our children," she tells the network. "I want that, too. But I don't think bullying will stop if my son wears traditional boy clothes. We need a wake-up call. America needs one. The world needs one. We need to start asking ourselves why we are condemning people and things just because they are different and make us feel uncomfortable."

It is the bullies that need to be stopped, she says, not their victims. "Bullying is taking lives. It is unacceptable. Period," she tells Today. "We must stop standing by while others are being harmed for expressing themselves. Our children are teaching us how to accept them every day. We all want our children to live in a world where they can express themselves without harming anyone else or being harmed."
What does Dyson say about all this?

"I'm a princess boy and I love wearing dresses and I love the colors of pink and red," he tells Today.