Heather Mallick talks about Jamie Hubley and the nasty impulses most of us manage to overcome:
The Ottawa schoolboy died Saturday of human cruelty, profoundly depressed after years of being bullied for being gay. He killed himself. I’m astonished to read that he was being hounded even in Grade 7 — students tried to stuff batteries down his throat on the school bus after he chose figure skating over ice hockey — but then I remember Grade 7 and what little animals we were.
As if adolescence isn’t enough of a challenge.
You’d think, in light of this, that the value of anti-bullying programs and GSAs would be self-evident, but think again:
A new civic party has been started in Burnaby, British Columbia in direct opposition to some new anti-homophobic bullying initiatives introduced by the Burnaby School Board trustees last June.
Calling themselves Parents’ Voice, the party is in opposition to the board’s existing anti-bullying policy on gender identity and sexual orientation, which they call “homosexual propoganda.” Actually, opposition might be a bit of an understatement. The issue is the party’s entire platform, and if elected, the party is vowing to make revoking the policy their only priority.
The post identifies five of them: Homara Ahmad, Charter Lau, Helen Ward, Gordon World, and Long Xue.
I wonder: would it be legal to make them look Jamie Hubley’s family in the eye before they ever open their pieholes again?
(And it’s not just in B.C., by the way. It’s going on here in Ontario as well, and we’re paying for it.)
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