April 16, 2009, 9:02 pm
Dude, You've Got Problems
Judith Warner

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/who-are-you-calling-gay/

Early this month, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, an 11-year-old boy from Springfield, Mass., hanged himself after months of incessantly being hounded by his classmates for being "gay." (He was not; but did, apparently, like to do well in school.)

In March, 2007, 17-year-old Eric Mohat shot himself in the head, after a long-term tormentor told him in class, "Why don't you go home and shoot yourself; no one will miss you." Eric liked theater, played the piano and wore bright clothing, a lawyer for his family told ABC news, and so had long been subject to taunts of "gay," "->-bleeped-<-," "queer" and "homo."

Teachers and school administrators, the Mohats' lawsuit now asserts, did nothing.

We should do something to get this insanity under control.