Fifteen-year old Lawrence King’s murder last February at school shocked the nation. It also pointed to timely, troubling questions: Newsweek‘s current cover story highlights some lingering, troubling questions:
What you might call “the shrinking closet” is arguably a major factor in Larry’s death. Even as homosexuality has become more accepted, the prospect of being openly gay in middle school raises a troubling set of issues. Kids may want to express who they are, but they are playing grown-up without fully knowing what that means. At the same time, teachers and parents are often uncomfortable dealing with sexual issues in children so young. Schools are caught in between. How do you protect legitimate, personal expression while preventing inappropriate, sometimes harmful, behavior?
Very carefully?!
ggreen
I could only read part of the Newsweek story before getting sick. Newsweek listed as legitimate reasons for the murderer to be fragmented of this tiny kid, he wore make up, he wore high heels to school, and he chased “other boys around†Kings adoptive parents sounded like winners too. Bitching and moaning every time he acted like, you know, a kid or even worse gay.
Jai
I agree with ggreen. The whole “blame the victim” bullshit made me ill too.
hells kitchen guy
Completely disagree with ^^^. The article was balanced and presented all sides of a complex issue. I say props to Newsweek for its in-depth coverage of a complex, emotional issue.
Paul Raposo
“Kids may want to express who they are, but they are playing grown-up without fully knowing what that means. At the same time, teachers and parents are often uncomfortable dealing with sexual issues in children so young.”
HKG, how is that balanced? Why is it only LGBTQ kids are playing “grown-ups” when they identify as gay, yet staight kids are not labled as such when they identify as straight? Even when straight kids are kissing and holding hands–and doing much more–it’s called puppy love; yet when a gay kid merely states that they are gay, suddenly it’s a “sexual issue” that must be dealt with by adults?
Newsweek became a rightwing rag years ago and it’s continues to slide to the right. So no surpirse that they would publish this tripe. I find it amusing that a media critic–Ramin Setoodeh reviews movies, albums and interviews celebs–would be given the opportunity to write about something clearly out of his depth. Yet another Iranian Muslim practising the Religion Of Peace.
This is not the first time he has lambasted LGBT youth to further his career:
http://tinyurl.com/6d7hp6
Here he solicited young gays for an article which eventually ran in Newsweek in 2005 and was just as biased and anti-gay:
Hey guys. My name is Ramin and I’m a reporter at Newsweek. I’m working on a story about gay teens — and what it’s like to be a gay teenager in the year 2005. I was wondering if any of you would be willing to talk to me about your experiences in middle school and high school. Feel free to send me an email with some thoughts ([email protected]) — and maybe include your phone number in case I have any questions.
Thanks,
Ramin Setoodeh
Associate Editor
Newsweek
251 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
(212) 445-4148
He’s also the “journalist” who harrased Clay Aiken about his sexuality for a Newsweek article, causing Aiken to storm out of the interview.
Even when he was the editor of Stanford’s, The Standard Daily, all he did were media reviews. Yet he thinks he has the weight, or integrity, to debate gay youth?
He provided future ex-gay Mike Glatze the opportunity to claim that gay kids have more in common with ex-gays, than with gays
ggreen
Paul Raposo thanks for expressing the unknown bias of the hacky reporter Ramin Setoodeh. I find it disgusting when reporters feel free to interject their own opinions as facts or slant their writing with passive voice arguments. Some people, including readers of this blog, are under the impression if they read something in print it must be true and that people they see on TV are their friends.
Paul Raposo
No problem, ggreen. It only took 10 minutes of Googling to find this info on this hack journalist. Here is a comment left on the Newsweek article page which sums up this situation perfectly:
“It is inappropriate to place all of the blame on Larry’s sexuality and the way he presented it. Yes, there were obvious problems that the school neglected to deal with. Larry may have been harassing Brandon. Other students, including Brandon, were harassing Larry. It is clear that the school didn’t handle either of those things in an appropriate way. However, I guarantee that if you take sexuality out of the mix, there would be none of this “well, it was a horrible thing, but it wouldn’t have happened if he weren’t openly gay and flaunting it” attitude. If a heterosexual boy was sexually harrassing a heterosexual girl and the child who was being harrassed killed her tormenter, NO ONE would be blaming the victim.”
Paul Raposo
One thing I also noticed in this article; he states that many of Brandon’s school friends and teachers have started a petition to get Brandon tried as a juvenile. Mr. Setoodeh fails to mention that it was Cali gay groups who first intiated a petion to request Brandon’s transfer to juvenile court. I gues that would have thrown cold water on Mr. Setoodeh attempt to paint LGBTQ’s as monsters.
CHURCHILL-Y
I have to agree with all but Hells so far.
Like Paul wrote: “Why is it only LGBTQ kids are playing “grown-ups†when they identify as gay, yet straight kids are not labeled as such when they identify as straight? Even when straight kids are kissing and holding hands–and doing much more–it’s called puppy love; yet when a gay kid merely states that they are gay, suddenly it’s a “sexual issue†that must be dealt with by adults?”
Case in point: “Larry was playing with a group of his girlfriends in the outdoor quad. The idea was, you had to go up to your crush and ask them to be your Valentine. Several girls named boys they liked, then marched off to complete the mission.” What standed out was that Larry was there playing also but with a same gender attraction. The school was and from the quotes of the report seems to still be a pretty hostile place to GLBT kids; ” he was a troubled child who flaunted his sexuality and wielded it like a weapon—it was often his first line of defense.” when even some teachers there seem to be siding with Larry’s abusive father in blaming Joy Epstein one of the school’s three assistant principals who’s openly gay to her colleagues for Larry’s murder: ” Some teachers believe that she was encouraging Larry’s flamboyance, to help further an “agenda,” as some put it.” And again “One teacher complains that by being openly gay and discussing her girlfriend (presumably, no one would have complained if she had talked about a husband), Epstein brought the subject of sex into school.” Undoubtedly the same argument the killers public defender will try to make ” he has accused the school of failing to intercede as the tension rose between Larry and Brandon. Quest calls Epstein “a lesbian vice principal with a political agenda”
Sadly this type of hostility to GLBT kids is far to common in schools across this Nation;
“My name became a punch line very fast,” says Grady Keefe, 19, of Branford, Conn., who came out in the eighth grade. “The guidance counselors told me I should not have come out because I was being hurt.” And it stems from the fact, like I said in another thread that people refuse to believe that there are GLBT kids. And so long as being GLBT is seen as some behavior induced by your surroundings or as this article seems to hint at, “encouraged” by someone with an “agenda” then will keep on seeing more of the ilk of those teachers and fathers like Larry’s:
Greg King doesn’t feel sympathy for Brandon, but he does believe his son sexually harassed him. He’s resentful that the gay community has appropriated his son’s murder as part of a larger cause. “I think the gay-rights people want it to be a gay-rights issue, because it makes a poster child out of my son,” King says. “That bothered me. I’m not anti-gay. I have a lot of co-workers and friends who are gay.” And ends like Larry’s:
Feb. 14, doctors harvested his pancreas, liver, lungs and the most important organ of all, which now beats inside the chest of a 10-year-old girl. On Valentine’s Day, Larry King gave away his heart, but not in the way he thought he would.”
Because in the end that’s all were good for, GIVING while never receiving any respect, dignity, equality.
Michael
The school certainly failed him – all of these kids. It’s the same problem we see in countless schools, regardless of whether it has to do with GLBT children or some goth kid. It’s this defiant soccer-mom ignorance that these schools schlepp out as “policy” that leads to tragedies like this and countless school shootings.
Mike
Firstly, I want to just say how very proud I am to be a part of a community that is expressing such intelligent debate about this issue and unbalanced portrayal of Lawrence King’s murder. I just want to thank each of you for caring and taking some time to address your feelings.
As for the article itself: “Kids may want to express who they are, but they are playing grown-up without fully knowing what that means.” This comment is such a reflection of the misplaced morality in our society. Kids who address sexuality are playing grown up, while kids concealing guns and using them in class still are considered to be playing Cowboys and Indians. Religious Right groups scream and protest media images of sexuality, while remaining silent on the vast number of violent depictions our youth are exposed to every single day, as if one wasn’t a trait and the other a condition.
When I came out, my mother screamed, “I’d rather you be a thief or a murderer, anything but a faggot.” This is how society regards their children, particularly little boys, and it is a reminder to those of us who may be, as I have been, basking in the (temporary) right to marry in the State of California, that much work remains to be done.
It is our world to change, should we wish to invest the time and energy. And again, thank you all for expressing your opinions, so that a a guy like me-who often feels alone-can read the intelligent responses of others and feel a sense of community here in conservative Orange County, CA.
greybat
Thank you, Mike!
You lend a touch of grace to the forum.
hell's kitchen guy
Paul, you make good points except for badgering Clay Aiken. That strikes me as a journalist just doing his job.
RPCV
Any 15 years old boy walking around with make-up, heels, etc., needs serious help. I blame the adopted parents AND the school for what happened to Larry. He should have been taken out of school, and provided psychiatric therapy. It’s not normal for a 15 year old boy to be prancing around in the manner Larry was. I say a pox on both Larry’s parents and the school.
Mike
Really, RPCV? So, my 15 year old neice needs serious help for appearing in public in make-up and heels? Interesting that your focus is not on suggesting help for a Junior High School Student who marches into school with a concealed weapon and using it to murder his classmate. Interesting that you make no such suggestion for the children at King’s former school who passed around a “Larry Burn Book,” in which students wrote things such as, “I hate Larry, I think he should die.”
This notion that if one conforms to societal notions of what gender should look like will somehow solve every adolescent’s issue and protect them is folly. What about all the students who are hopelessly ambiguous in their orientation or gender, yet dress gender appropriately? Are you suggesting that they too won’t be bullied, beaten or possibly even shot?
Lawrence King did not kill himself, society is responsible–a society that sits in silent approval as hateful speeches drip from the foul mouths of their political and religious leaders has blood on its hands. Each one of us is responsible among those who sit among family members at the dinner table, among co-workers in the lunch room, and in the pews of our community churges as we listen to people who we care about make jokes and one off remarks at the expense of gays, and neglect to come to our own defense.
Intollerance, disrespect, and hate are at the root of the issue, RPCV, not what Lawrence King was wearing at school (and by the way, he was wearing baggy jeans, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes the day he was shot).
RPCV
Mike: You made a few commendable observations. Still, the parents and the school should have acted out of interest of the boy, who was clearly troubled.
daVid Hofeditz
Is there anywhere to report the serious and on-gong ramblings of RPCV, who’s clear intentions are to disrupt this board and make homophobic comments, for his own shits and giggles.
Anyone agree? How do we flag? One bad apple is spoiling the whole bunch.
RPCV
daVid Hofeditz: Hummm. Another loony liberal democrat not supportive of the 1st amendment. Funny how the loony left always cries foul whenever their ‘views’ are challenged or someone doesn’t play by ‘their’ rules, but they run to the ACLU and scream discrimination when the cards are turned. Shut up, David. Don’t like the commenters, take your business elsewhere!!
reversion
Wow. I’m tired of reading some of these shitty troll comments, and extremely disappointed that the ban hammer has yet to be dropped on certain commentators. “Why don’t you just skip the comment and ignore it?” is the expected reply. Why don’t I? Well, certain comments manage to trap the skimming reader in a black hole of stupidity.
Oh, and RPCV, try a bit of well deserved introspection. A course in philosophy would do good for most Americans in formulating and analyzing arguments. Maybe then you would realize that there is no such thing as “normal” and that your two comments contradict each other. Which two?
“It’s not normal for a 15 year old boy to be prancing around in the manner Larry was.”
and
“Hummm. Another loony liberal democrat not supportive of the 1st amendment….Shut up, David.”
So you’re supportive of the 1st Amendment, and YET are telling others how to dress and act, AND telling someone who doesn’t agree with you to SHUT UP. What disgusting, and obvious, hypocrisy.
Mr C
She (RPCV) is a conservative and Bitter individual