The debate over who’s to blame for Lawrence King’s death continues to rage two months after his murder.
For those of you living under a rock, 15-year old King died in February after a 14-year old classmate, Brandon McInerney, shot him in the head. King had reportedly asked McInerney to be his Valentine, which many say spurred the violent outburst. Thus, many claim that King only invited the explosive retaliation. Journalist Neil Broverman once mulled that theory, while a Mississippi State University student took it one step further: “King… may have gone too far by imposing his sexuality on others.” A pretty distasteful conclusion – and one that will no doubt be getting heavy play during McInerney’s murder trial…
Defense attorney William Quest doesn’t simply blame King’s queer ways -like dabbling in cross-dressing – for the shooting, but school administrators, who should have stepped in to stop King:
McInerney perceived King’s treatment as harassment, Quest said. Quest, however, declined to discuss any specific confrontations or issues between the boys. He also declined to say if McInerney ever sought help from an adult to deal with the issue.
Quest said he believes school administrators supported one student expressing himself and his sexuality – King – and ignored how it affected other kids, despite complaints. Cross-dressing isn’t a normal thing in adult environments, he said, yet 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds were expected to just accept it and go on.
Quest’s right. No, not about King being responsible. About how school administrators should have gotten involved. Surely they must have known other students wouldn’t understand King’s gay displays, so teachers, counselors and other staffers should have coordinated an effort to – gasp! – educate students on sexual difference. That could have made all the difference.
Meanwhile, lest you forget, this Thursday’s the annual Day of Silence, which commemorates victims of anti-gay violence. This year’s honors King.
emb
Just so we’re clear: According to the defense, then, an acceptable reaction to being asked to be the valentine of someone one finds unattractive is to go home, get a gun, come back, and shoot them in the head?
Seems to me that “No, I just want to be your friend” or “No, I don’t think that would work” would be more appropriate, but what do I know?
ajax
Clearly, EMB, you’re not a heterosexual man. If you were, you would know: When a straight man rebuffs a gay man’s sexual advances, the gay man either rapes the straight man or, goes home, gets a gun, rapes the straight man, and then shoots the straight man in the head. The only way to stop the violence is to kill the gays. At least, that’s the training I got when I was forced to become gay when my third grade teacher read “Heather Has Two Mommies” to us.
emb
You’re so right, Ajax– Like so many radical leftwing homos, I forgot how pushy we can be, and how scary we are to straight men! My apologies to all the straight men who’ve been beaten with bottles and baseball bats by drunken queers in alleys all over America.
Bob Zuley
Since this crime occurred, it appeared to me that the school and district authorities escaped much of the blame for this horrendous tragedy. Thats right – blame! While they didn’t condone the actual murder, they certainly tolerated the conditions that allowed this crime to occur by failing to intervene. Schools exist to educate, not only traditional subject matter, but in fostering acceptance and learning to with one another. This is sorely needed as these qualities are not taught at home and are not readily obvious in society at large. Homophobia (and heterosexism) are rampant in our nations schools, and it is incumbant upon our schools to step in when families fail to.
foofyjim
How does the perpetrator always get turned into the victim? Everything I read said that King only ‘flirted’ with other boys after they started calling him names. Probably something we’ve all done as a way to get back at the guy calling us a fagot.
Interesting how they won’t go into any of the actual conversations between the boys. Probably because they all started out with McInerney calling King names.
queerunity
“gay panic” needs to be outlawed, i dont know about law but someone who does needs to fix that shit
http://www.queersunited.blogspot.com
abelincoln
—King… may have gone too far by imposing his sexuality on others.—
Using that logic a lesbian has the right to defend herself by shooting a guy who’s putting the moves on her.
Straight panic.
Ryan
The Day of Silence is April 25th, which is Friday and not Thursday.
John K.
While my initial reaction as a gay man at this defense attorney’s statements was disgust, as a law student who worked for three summers at a public defender’s office, I have to cut him some slack here. He’s got to defend this kid, and he’s doing it that only way he can. He’s wrong, but it’s his job to put the argument out there.
John K.
Ryan: yeah, I thought it was. I remember specifically thinking that it was a Friday and wondering if it has always been a Friday or if it was scheduled this year to make the “Day of Truth” people wait until Monday and let all that gay indoctrination sink in over the weekend, haha.
Tulip
By Quests logic, it also follows that any straight male who communicates interest in a woman that doesn’t happen to like him should be fully prepared to have his head blown off. You know, for inviting “explosive retaliation.”
Jenny
Really, if Larry didn’t want to get shot, all he had to do was move his head out of the way of the bullet. Er, bullets.
Sheesh.
Buffy
King was “imposing his sexuality” on McInerney so that makes it OK for McInerney to shoot him? So every time a man asks a woman who isn’t interested out, she can shoot him? And every time an evangelical imposes their religion on another, uninterested person it’s OK to shoot them?
Is that what this has come to?
The open minded one
By the cooments i read left by some people, i see that there are many pathetic closed minded people. You may not have known but the LGBT community is very civilized, and there are many stereotypes directed towards us. I think that a “straight man” murdering a gay man is completely wrong an inappropriate. I believe that any straight person would find it hard and offensive to live in a world of cruelty to the straight pathetic close minded folks like we have here leaving such comments. This is America, ans were suppose to have a strong positive society. That does not discriminate on anyone else according to race, sexual orientation/identity, and gender etc… This child or any other person from the lgbt community does not deserve to die for being themselves, as do the heterosexual community. And the problem is that everyone is running there beliefs on their parents and or a book written by man called the bible, which only contradicts its self from cover to back. This is a free country, and people have to look at the point of view that we have and really consider how would it feel to be in our shoes. i end this by saying its really fucking lame to make such comments that gay people need to die, its pathetic, immature, and completely closed minded. And people who make such comments im not gonna say deserve to die cause then that puts me with those people, but they need to be put in some institution for making such ludacris statements, FUCK YOU….
Sheila
This entire situation only goes to prove how really messed up our world is. You have a CHILD killing another CHILD and the only thing we can do is st ack and talk baout how gay or straight we are. Don’t get me wrong I am heated that a member of OUR family was killed, but I am even more pset that we have failed to teach the most important thing of all..love. This is our future. These children will one day run our world. Do we really care if they know who the first president if none of them live to be adults. No matter what your sexuality is you should always teach and spread love, because we all live under the same blue roof, and last time I check my blood was just as red as any other straight or gay person. If that isn’t enough to unite us, then we will ultimately be defeated as a human race.
repsak14
I am a 37 year old hetero-sexual father of 2 boys. And I’ve been happily married to my wife for 13+ years. Over the past 25 years I’ve been hit on by quite a few gay men. And I’ve never met it with hostility or Anger… When I was 16 I was in Virginia beach on vacation and a rather feminine young african- american gentleman came up to me and asked me if I would like to hang out, because he said that I was just his type. I smiled and said “Wow, I’m flattered but I’m not gay.” We ended up hanging out a little bit. He was a very cool guy. I was only 2 years older than Lawrence’s Killer. And that was 21+ years ago, way before Ellen, Perez Hilton, and TR Knight. I’m sorry but his killer was the one with the issues. Poor Lawrence was just being himself. And the killer’s “only option” was to get a gun, shoot, and kill? Didn’t he have parents he could talk to? A Counselor in school? Anybody? It’s hard to say who’s to blame first… but Lawrence shouldn’t be blamed for his own murder for just being himself.
Personally I feel that the blame should go to our Violent society with it’s F’d up video games, cartoons, Music and Movies… Second is the killer’s parents, shame on them for not being a better influence on him. Third is the school for not educating the students on diversity and not having counselors available for the students.
I just look at the pictures of Lawrence and it breaks my heart.
Lawrence King RIP
Mark
Italy respect us:
http://mrjefferson.splinder.com/post/16892738
I love italian people!
Get Real!
Why was this cross dressing pervert allowed anywhere near the campus? Why was he allowed to interfere with the right of all other kids to an education??? And what happens one day when another weirdo decides to wear a fig leaf to school… is that going to be ok too?
plcinlv
I wish I had seen these comments and the original post when they were first written. I have a particularly personal twist on blaming the school. I was a student at this very Jr. High, E.O. Green, in 1963/1964. Like many other guys that year I dressed as a girl for Halloween. My home room teacher had on other occassions “had a problem” with my lack of masculinity. He sent me to the boys Vice Principal who sent me home to change after making clear his disgust at my choice of costume. Even though my mother had helped me with the costume that did not help me with my father when my Home Room teacher called him at our home that evening.
My thoughts about the school being responsible run more along these lines… It has been stated that this boy was teased and made fun of because of the way he acted and dressed. Did any adult come to his defense? They didn’t in my case, which only led me to believe that I “deserved” the verbal and sometimes physical abuse. If that was the case for Larry King, I wonder if the accused took the “looking the other way” of the teachers and administraters as encouragement to, or at least permission to, take things 1 step further in his harrassment of Lawrence?