Suicide and Bullying Among Gay Teens: It Has to Stop Now

In recent weeks, America as a whole has failed multiple teens who have committed suicide as a result of endless tormenting and bullying within their schools. Raymond Chase, Tyler Clementi, Billy Lucas, Seth Walsh and Asher Brown all took their own lives within recent weeks. Only now, as those lives have been lost are people finally bringing awareness to such an outright form of brutality.

Sadly, there are all too many cases of gay teens who resort to suicide because of the torment that they are enduring in school and from their peers. And it's all occurring right here in America. A country that is supposed to represent freedom is instead portraying a message that to stray from conforming to the standards and expectations of the rest of society is to imply that your life is, in a sense, meaningless.

A country whose citizens should be uniting together and offering equality are instead offering up prejudice and hatred on a silver platter to anyone who dares to lead a lifestyle or hold a sexual preference that varies from what the rest of society deems as acceptable.

In all too many cases of teens who commit suicide after constant and consistent harassment within school, there appears to be an overwhelming amount of parents who allege that school officials had been notified of such bullying yet had failed to put a stop to it. Although the schools involved in each of these cases deny being notified of such activities, there is irony to be observed here that implies that perhaps school officials are simply not performing their jobs and making adequate efforts to ensure that students are receiving their educations within a safe and stable environment.

In the days following the suicides of these teens, the truth within America has again reared its ugly head in response. Various articles over the internet that have covered these suicides are plagued with comments by readers that are going as far as to commend the actions of these young teens:

"I am sorry to hear about his mental illness. Hopefully he asked God for forgiveness before he jumped.

"People that are gay have a mental illness and behavior problems. Our government lies to us about the gay people and call them normal. They are not normal, they are perverted. Our federal government has indeed done great harm to our society by saying these people are normal. I pray that all gay people get help."

"Just another progressive agenda item pushing the idea that society is to blame and not the individual."

These comments that are being posted around the web are remarkably disgusting in content and for purposes of media profit, many websites are failing to screen such comments out of respect for the dead or the family of these lost teens. Essentially, the simple fact is that is has turned into a sad day in America upon the realization that society is fueling such acts of bullying and harassment.

After 15 year old Joshua Melo committed suicide by hanging himself as a result of torment and bullying, the students within his school shockingly continued to display hatred and prejudice towards him, even going so far as to state that he 'deserved to die' and by blatant refusal to stand in times when the school held a silent memorial for the memory of Melo.

This country is not supposed to be this way, it isn't what America is intended to be about and yet these heinous events are occurring more often with obvious failure in prevention from those who should be coming together to bring awareness to such hatred. Although there is certainly no shortage of those who deem it necessary to place blame upon these teens for their actions, the sad truth remains that the media, the government and society in general is only fueling the fire. Unfair laws such as Don't Ask, Don't Tell, bans and regulations against such relationships and entertainment that depicts such harassment are to blame. Each and every day, children are being taught by this country that "being gay is wrong, it is an illness and we will treat you differently if you have homosexual preferences."

Ultimately, it appears as though the world deems it necessary and acceptable to pass such prejudices along to the younger generation, and only after these prejudices have shown their true horrors are Americans willing to acknowledge them. Only after a life has been lost is America willing to display concern. Yet who was there to stand as an advocate for these teens before these acts of blatant hatred took place? Where was the essence of this country when these teens were struggling to figure out their own paths rather than having their path determined for them by the ugly side of America?

Today, it is not merely the families and friends of these lost teens who are grieving for lives lost, but rather an entire country that is, in one way or another, grieving for lost promises, lost opportunities and the loss of a freedom and equality that stood as the basic foundation for the entire country.