Several months after the shooting, Brandon told a psychologist that he was driven to kill Lawrence because he was insulted by his advances and because he wore makeup and high heels at school. On the day of the shooting, Brandon claimed to have had second thoughts about it, until he overheard Lawrence claiming to have changed his name to Leticia. The psychologist testified that this caused Brandon to enter a “dissociative state” for the duration of the killing. A mistrial was recently declared after jurors couldn’t agree on whether to charge Brandon with first-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter.
In a column on the American Family Association’s news site, Brown tries to blame just about everyone except for the murderer. Instead, he blames the school because they didn’t stop Lawrence from wearing makeup, which would have been a violation of California’s anti-discrimination laws. He blames gay people for opposing “any form of counseling that does not affirm homosexuality”, as if that would have been even remotely helpful here. He blames gay-straight alliances for allowing students to identify as gay “without their parent’s knowledge”. I didn’t know anyone needed their parents’ permission to have a sexual orientation. I’m pretty sure that’s not how this works.
But most of all, he blames gay rights groups for supporting gay students and encouraging them to be themselves in an environment that’s potentially dangerous to them. According to Brown, they should be telling these students to live in secrecy for their own protection during the entire time they’re in school. You know, it takes some real effort to miss the point so badly. Is this how we address bullying and harassment in schools now? By making the victims responsible for concealing themselves, and letting fear and violence prevail unchallenged?
If this wasn’t about the harassment of minorities, no one would even entertain such an insulting idea. If schools were plagued by anti-Christian violence, would we see Michael L. Brown blaming Christians themselves for working to make schools safe for Christian students and encouraging them to stand up for their rights? Would Christians be at fault for allowing students to wear crosses at school and identify as openly Christian? Would he tell these students they should just keep it a secret for the duration of their youth?
And yet gay rights groups are now expected to be complicit in the silencing, erasure, and closeting of gay students, for no reason other than to placate those who despise them. They’re supposed to fall back and appease these threats instead of fighting for a learning environment that’s safe for every student. No one could possibly believe this is an effective, responsible, ethical or humane way to address any kind of bullying.
Unless, of course, you don’t think the harassment of gay students is something to fight against. Unless you think the goal of reducing bullying is somehow compatible with having counselors tell students that their gay classmates are sexually disordered deviants who are acting contrary to God himself. Unless you think that not committing violence against gay people is simply too much to ask of everyone else, and their victims should be expected to pay the price. Unless you lack any genuine concern for students who just want to go to school without being in danger every day. Unless you’re a miserable, hopeless wretch with a Bible for a heart!
Anyone who thinks this is a viable solution must not realize that this has been tried before. Gay people have had to stay closeted for centuries simply for their own safety, and this did absolutely nothing to eliminate the hatred that put them in danger. That wasn’t good for anyone. But when being gay didn’t have to be a secret anymore, that started changing. People who personally know someone who’s gay are much more likely to have positive attitudes, and schools that support their gay students and specifically prohibit anti-gay bullying are safer as a result.
We don’t need secrecy to be safe, and no child should have to live with the terrible bargain of fear that forces them into hiding. Yet that is what Brown demands of them when he asks that we do nothing. There is a better way, and it’s not hard to see that the problem lies with the bullies rather than their victims. So why not start acting like it? When students are being harassed, attacked and even killed for being gay, the last thing we need is more of the same. And if your first thought after the murder of a gay student is that they shouldn’t have been so gay, what the hell is wrong with you?