Ignorance is bliss in certain circumstances, yes, but in this world where the most widely believed philosophies and doctrines remain tightly locked and unshaken, a 13-year-old boy took his own life. But in the land of the free and the brave, how was the middle-school student, Seth Walsh supposed to react when even his classmates were urging his sexual orientation as cause to hang himself?
On Sept. 19 Seth was followed and harassed by five teenagers not far from his own home. He had gone to the park in hopes to see some friendly faces, but instead he was met with verbal abuse and excessive — very personal — forms of taunting. Hours later, after he had pleaded with his mother to pick him up, Seth wrote a final note to his family and hanged himself from a tree behind his house. After being discovered by his mother, Seth was rushed to a hospital where doctors declared 8 days later that Walsh was brain dead. This was after years of relentless harassment.
There is a lot happening in the world of politics, corrupt and otherwise. The economies around the world are benefiting and suffering at other countries expenses. Wars rage on as other nations carry on in peace. The world would seem right in this way. A trait unchanged is not always an indication of a steady world, though. As continuous intolerance for homosexuality carries on beside other century-long traditions, it seems the greater community has started to recognize that this intolerance is a lapse in judgment.
And Seth isn’t the only victim of this lapse. Tyler Clementi, 18, along with Billy Lucas, 15, and another 13-year-old, Asher Brown, also took their lives as a tragic consequence of being young and gay. This peak in deaths as a result of homosexual-related hate crime has sparked a much-needed nationwide wakeup call regarding the United States’ beautifully disguised intolerance of homosexuality.
A no vote on California’s Proposition 8 could have meant that children in the California classrooms would receive instruction on gay marriage. Constitutionalists also argued that if the proposition did not pass, the integrity of the United States and its core values would be jeopardized. Those voting no on Prop 8, however, insisted that the claim of instruction on homosexuality in schools was baseless. I say that sex is already an awkward topic and a step in this direction would have done little harm to the foundation of our country. The slight variation in curriculum would only serve to actively inform the students, rather than pressure them to alter their own opinions.
Suicide is a horribly upsetting topic, but I find it especially depressing when the dead is barely a teenager. I want to find those ‘children,’ and I use this word lightly, who ultimately drove Seth to suicide and make it my personal duty to make them feel the weight of what they have done. I am so angry with these children.
But, then, I begin to think about what these children did to Seth and how they behaved when they knew how much it hurt; I thought to myself, “Whom did they really learn it from?”
I am not saying that their parents are to blame for this tragedy. No parent (I hope) would ever approve or teach of such blatant intolerance. If I’m bold enough to point fingers, I point them right back at us, not just the parents or the teachers, the children or the elderly, nor the Democrats or the Republicans. I blame every single one of us who is an active member of society and yet refuses to acknowledge the gay and lesbian community as an equally deserving component of our world.
How do we affectively preach tolerance of homosexuality, if we ourselves have not truly agreed to accept it?
In 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States. Almost 100 years later, racial segregation was declared unconstitutional. And it was not until years later that racial prejudice was responded to as a criminal offense — rather than simply “bad taste.” I fear our tolerance of the gay community currently stands as “bad taste.” However arbitrary it may seem looking back now, this journey to reason was no quick process.
Moreover, where are we in terms of homosexual acceptance? I know they have stood up and yelled to even the deafest of ears, but where are we in terms of actually listening? How many of us are still — even silently — telling them to sit back down? It is not a class that will change each student’s perspective, but active and frequent instances of acceptance and celebration that will truthfully move us in the right direction. If the mind is indeed a sponge, let us place as much value in teaching acts of kindness as educating children about how many different variations of people deserve them.
In Uganda, state officials are pushing for an “Anti-Gay” bill that will deem homosexuality a criminal offense, punishable by death or extended imprisonment. The media in these parts have begun to provide an update of local gays on a target list printed in newspapers throughout the country. Aside from the rape performed by wardens in the prisons, homosexual behavior has been taught to be an unforgivable sin.
America has served as a sanctuary for religious freedom; a shelter for those who were tired of dying over something they wanted to live for. And we take pride as Americans in that.
However, was Seth not searching for that same sexual freedom in his small town of Tehachapi, Calif.? Did we not promise that same liberty to his ancestors?
In a full-page column in the Los Angeles Times, Seth’s grieving family discussed how they would deal with the approaching holiday season in the 13-year-old’s absence. “Perhaps they’ll set the table for Seth,” said one. A tragedy has not hit me as hard as this one — and those deaths related to it — in quite some time and that is perhaps because I wish I could have acted to help Seth break the intolerance that ignorance affords.
I hope our country at least will finally start destroying the prejudice that broke the Walsh family apart.
Haley Pearson is a freshman industrial design major and a columnist for the Daily 49er.
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