"The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels..." --variously attributed to Tom Hanks, President Jed Bartlet or Sam Seaborn of The West Wing.
They're even more crowded this morning. It happened again. Earlier this week, thirteen-year-old Asher Brown's life ended at the end of a gun. He had endured day after day of relentless bullying, taunting and teasing at school and couldn't take it anymore. His parents say they warned the school repeatedly and begged them for help, to no avail.
I'm tired of having this conversation. We've had it before. Repeatedly. I know I sound like a broken record here, but I owe it to Billy Lucas, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, Jaheem Herrera and every scared little boy and girl who goes to school every day and endures this kind of torment. I owe it to every parent who watches their child crumble into a pile of tears on a daily basis. I owe it to every grieving mother destroyed by the loss of their child.
The last time I wrote one of these, some folks said I was concentrating too much on the LGBT angle, that I was operating under the assumption that these kids are gay and that this is a gay issue. It's not. It's a new and horrific symptom of a culture gone horribly wrong. Every time politicians stand up and throw insults at each other and it's okay, every time parents settle arguments on the soccer field with fists, and yes, every time a pastor stands in front of a congregation and calls gays an abomination, it gets worse.
Make it stop. Hold your schools accountable. Press Congress to pass HR 2262, the Safe Schools Improvement Act. Check and see whether your state has a Safe Schools law in place or if there's one on the docket that you can lobby for. Here in Michigan we have a Safe Schools Lobbying Day every year--show up. Volunteer at your kids' schools. TALK to your kids. Break the cycle.