Kids can be so cruel in high school, and Facebook has given them an easy way to enable their juvenile tactics.
In the case of 14-year-old gay teen Kenneth James Weishuhn, Reuters reporters that it might have been a Facebook group dedicated to spewing hate about gays that influenced him to take his life.
It had been just two months since the Iowa high-school freshman came out of the closet, and all of Kenneth’s friends were invited. How vicious is that, to try to influence a delicate young boy’s friends to betray him, just because he liked other boys?
Kenneth wasn’t shy about sharing his love for cute male pop stars, and heartbreakingly wanted to one day throw a fancy gay wedding of his own. Now, because of some idiotic bullies, that will never happen.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Writes Reuters:
The online investigation may include a Facebook “fan page” that allegedly encouraged hate against gays. Whoever started the page sent invites to all of Weishuhn’s friends, his sister told the Journal.
Teachers and school administrators were aware that Kenneth Weishuhn Jr. was a victim of anti-gay bullying at school. Staff stepped up hallway patrols and held an anti-bullying assembly, but the harassment didn’t stop, Weishuhn’s sister said.
Weishuhn’s mother said she’ll defer to sheriff’s investigators about possible criminal charges in connection with her son’s death.
Relatives may also be considering a civil lawsuit against Weishuhn’s alleged bullies, or even his school. Similar lawsuits in other bullying cases have alleged negligence by a school, for failing to adequately address bullying.
In this case, however, “I feel the school did address the issue … when it came to their attention,” the school’s superintendent told the Journal.
Kenneth Weishuhn’s mother said at the very least, she hopes her son’s suicide “touches [the bullies’] heart[s] for them to never, ever want to bully somebody again.” Meantime, someone has started another Facebook page, in Weishuhn’s memory.
We hope it more than just touches their hearts, and that it touches more than just these bullies. This happens all the time across the country, and it’s not okay. Let’s hope Bully, which opened this weekend, reaches people, or else the blood of impressionable gay teens will be on the hands of some invisible cultural force called homophobia.
If anyone has the link or screenshots of this Facebook hate page, please send it to us. We’re interested in seeing just how vile the anti-gay sentiment is among high schools in this rural Iowa town.
Nick
Asking for the screenshot is ghoulish, imo
BlackRockRitual
Freaking internet trolling. There’s nothing cute or funny about it. It’s just sick. And unsurprisingly, internet trolls are sick creep in real life, too.
It’s sad how the media that is rapidly replacing television and other more traditional forms of media, is such a hotbed of hate. If you put all internet trolls on the same island, they would immediately fight to the death, and the planet would probably be better off without them.
Desdemona
What the vile homophobic bully pricks wrote on the facebook page IS ghoulish NICK.
jordie
I think Nick is trying to say ask for the memorial site,rather than giving attention to the hate site.how sad that this kids death may gain them hundreds of facebook “likes” from the publicity.
William
Send the parents of the bullies to fu#@*ng prison when these impish freaks send another innocent child to the grave.
Then when everyone bitches and moans about “Oh we addressed it” “Oh we tried to parent them” they will REALLY mean it.
This is just getting pathetic.
Joe
God almighty what is wrong with this world!
Charles
Name the bullies for god’s sake! Why do the media, the family and friends of these gay victims actively conceal the names of the bullies. Queerty, if you get screen shots, don’t you f*cking dare blur out the names. The identities of these people is an important component of an important news story.
Anielin
Its their morbid curiosity at work. I’ll admit, I’m kinda curious too… But not enough to go searching for it myself.
Jen
I agree with Charles. If you’re big and bad enough to post hate online, you deserve to have your name shown. Why are we protecting these monsters?
Anielin
Unfortunately, child protection laws prevent names of minors from being made public. The only time you hear a childs name is when they are the victim, and that’s usually ONLY after they die. I know some kids’ names will be published from time to time, but hardly ever when it involves a crime.
RayJacksonMS
Give us the little bastards names. Stop protecting them. Let them live in fear and see what it’s like.
Codswallop
I think the real issue here is that the Facebook hate page has been taken down so both the gay media (like Queerty) and authorities are looking for screenshots to prove it existed. It’s been mentioned in media coverage but they’re looking for confirmation.
Riker
@Anielin: @RayJacksonMS: Names of children accused of crimes are withheld for a very good reason. Everybody is innocent until proven guilty. Even if the child is later proven innocent, or charges are never filed because there is no evidence, just having their name out there on the Internet can be extremely damaging to their future. What if they publish the name of a kid who didn’t actually do it? There are going to be a thousand blog posts about who the kid is, and even if they didn’t actually commit a crime, that kid is going to have one hell of a rough time getting into college, getting a job, etc.
In times like this we need to remember that the presumption of innocence is the single most important part of modern jurisprudence.
Gil
There’s a great answer to this whole bullying shit that can be found in the new movie God Bless America.
Mo
We need to think about more radical ideas on how to stop this kind of rabid bullying. Cutting PE would be a start, or making it less about separating the weak from the strong. Schools could invest in a group, a counselor, or at least an across the board policy on how to handle bullies and the bullied. It’s easy for kids to pick out the “different” kids so it should be just as easy for adults at schools to find those poor kids and let them know that the system has their back and they are not alone. Finally, if you are the parent of a kid and you suspect they are being bullied don’t just let them tell you everything is OK. Everything is not OK, no matter how much the child wants it to be. Be proactive. I’m not saying this would work 100% of the time, but we need to start doing something else about this besides sobbing uncontrollably after the fact. When will enough be enough?
Danny
Not surprising bullies target gay kids when politicians/businesspeople-turned-faux-religious-leaders run around basing their careers on violating the human rights of gay people. When the politicians/faux religious leaders are held accountable for what they are doing, then kids will see that things really do get better.
Steven
I agree Nick.
Asking for the screenshot is ghoulish, imo
Alex Sarmiento
If this had happened to me in high school, I would not have stood for it and beaten their asses. If someone had thrown a slushee at me, I would have thrown their bitch asses out the fucking window. I would have also attacked some of the teachers and staff for not doing their fucking jobs. Can you tell that I still have anger and resentment over what being bullied in school? I don’t even trust people in authority positions anymore.
Belize
@Alex Sarmiento: Given the fact that the LGBT community also wants to people to know that it is diverse, would it be shocking for me to tell you that not everyone is capable of doing the things you CLAIM you would’ve done? #rhetorical
Charles
To the idiots Anielin and Riker who referenced child protection laws: those laws concern the release of names by courts, court personnel and attorneys working on these cases. There is absolutely no prohibition on any individual or news outlet naming minors in the context of a news story, whether that news story concerns potentially criminal acts or not. The media report the identities of juveniles accused of all manner of crimes every day. In fact, we know from the press the names of a number of bullies, including the high school kids who drove a young Irish girl to commit suicide in Boston several years ago and the name of the bully who beat up a gay kid in Ohio (which was captured on video and then later reported on the local news and here on Queerty). If Kenneth’s friends or family want to name these animals who turned on their friend and hounded him to an early death, there is no legal impediment to their doing so. Nor is their any impediment to Queerty’s doing so.
So Anielin and Riker, you are talking out of your asses. That would simply be embarrassing ordinarily. But here, where you spew nonsense to justify concealing the identities of the bullies who drove a gay kid to his death, well, that’s not an embarrassment. That’s a disgrace.
Queerty: there is absolutely no bar on identifying these bullies. If you get screen shots, publish them unaltered. The killers of Asher Brown and Billy Lucas and many others have slipped away into anonymity. Don’t let that happen here.
Bob
this is funny.
Alex Sarmiento
I stand by my statements. I may be 30, but I have not gotten over being bullied in school. I may never get over it. I still live with the memories today.
Geoff B
I swear, sometimes I think part of the reason I’m a Christian is because I just have to believe there is a special place in hell for cretins like these little bastards. And the Phelps clan.
AnieLin
@Charles: For you to call me an idiot, you must be one. Maybe not in your state, but when I was in high school, some kids in my town were killed in a car accident. The names of none of them were released, except for the two that died. The thing is, all the kids in the car were the only ones involved in the accident, because of the drug and alcohol consumption. Because of this, their names were not published. Before you say someone is talking out of their ass, think about the fact that not all states keep the same laws.
Jim
The only reason we haven’t solved this problem is that “we” don’t care enough about it to do so. The fix is simple — make the punishment for school bullying so unbearably harsh that no kid with any degree of self-control would dare do it.
I’ve seen this time and again. Dick parents think bullying is at best no big deal and, at worst, amusing. Hurt them. Give bullied kids the right to seek civil damages so great it would bankrupt their tormentors’ families. Impose a fire-on-the-spot rule for any school employee who witnesses an act of bullying and fails to report it. I can guarantee you that the relevant adults would take charge of the situation.
JoeyO'H
Since the bullying does not seem to stop and schools aren’t really doing anything. I say stone the parents for raising hateful, intolerant children. It all stems from back at home.
Jeff
@Bob: Just WHAT is so FUCKING FUNNY about this? Please enlighten us.
B
No. 12 · Codswallop wrote, “I think the real issue here is that the Facebook hate page has been taken down so both the gay media (like Queerty) and authorities are looking for screenshots to prove it existed.”
The meida may want screenshots. The “authorities” don’t need any – a subpoena for backup tapes showing the pages would suffice.
David Myers
@Jen: Unfortunately, most internet trolls and bigots use handles and not their real names – chicksh*ts! We need a fast acting system to be alerted when a vulnerable newly out teen starts being subjected to internet bullying so a large group of positive message people can flock to that teen’s sight, defending them and giving them support and calling out the bigoted troll creeps. Sort of like an amber alert – except for out teens at risk!
JANET
@David Myers: LOVE THE IDEA OF AN ONLINE AMBER ALERT…..