I hope Focus on the Family wears this as a badge of honor, since they’re so hellbent on the idea that anti-bullying programs which include protecting gay kids from harassment somehow violate their precioussssssssss religious freedom:
Asher Brown’s worn-out tennis shoes still sit in the living room of his Cypress-area home while his student progress report — filled with straight A’s — rests on the coffee table.
The eighth-grader killed himself last week. He shot himself in the head after enduring what his mother and stepfather say was constant harassment from four other students at Hamilton Middle School in the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District.
Brown, his family said, was “bullied to death” — picked on for his small size, his religion and because he did not wear designer clothes and shoes. Kids also accused him of being gay, some of them performing mock gay acts on him in his physical education class, his mother and stepfather said.
The 13-year-old’s parents said they had complained about the bullying to Hamilton Middle School officials during the past 18 months, but claimed their concerns fell on deaf ears.
[…]
Brown was found dead on the floor of his stepfather’s closet at the family’s home in the 11700 block of Cypresswood about 4:30 p.m. Thursday. He used his stepfather’s 9 mm Beretta, stored on one of the closet’s shelves, to kill himself. He left no note. David Truong found the teen’s body when he arrived home from work.
On the morning of his death, the teen told his stepfather he was gay, but Truong said he was fine with the disclosure. “We didn’t condemn,” he said.
Goddammit.
