Unbelievable: City Pages is reporting that Justin’s Gift, an LGBTQ youth group founded to honor the memory of deceased teen bullying victim Justin Aaberg (left), is being shut out of the annual Anoka Halloween parade:
Justin’s Gift, an LGBTQ youth group founded in the memory of Justin Aaberg, a 15-year-old gay Anoka High School who killed himself after he was bullied in school, has been informed youth from the group won’t be allowed to walk in Anoka’s annual Halloween parade, ostensibly because “there were too many people already walking in the parade.”
The Anoka, Minnesota area has gained notoriety in recent years for being the epicenter of a rash of LGBT youth suicides. As reporter Aaron Rupar writes, this colossally tone-deaf gesture is a horrible public relations mistake at best; at worst, it suggests that “the more things change in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, the more they stay the same.”
Local parent Rebecca Krone, who works with special needs children in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, started a petition on Change.org asking Anoka Halloween to reconsider their awful decision. Please consider signing and sharing Krone’s petition. Let’s make sure Anoka Halloween knows that the whole country is watching and counting on them to do the right thing.
