Verbal inequality

Three days after the release of our last issue on Sunday, Sept. 18, Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14-year-old high school freshman in Buffalo, NY, killed himself outside his family's home.

For well over a year leading up to his final day, Jamey had endured verbal and online abuse from his classmates over his sexuality. One post left by a classmate on his formspring (yet another social networking site) egged him on, saying, "I wouldn't care if you died. No one would. So just do it :) It would make everyone WAY more happier!"

Jamey's suicide is, sadly, nothing new. Last year an alarming string of suicides by gay or questioning teens brought the issue to the forefront of the national consciousness and spawned the "It Gets Better" project, where people post video messages online in support of LGBT youth. Jamey posted his own It Gets Better video on YouTube in early May.

Four months later, he lay dead on his front lawn. In the wake of his death, the Amherst Police Department's Special Victims Unit is looking into whether they should charge some of Jamey's classmates with aggravated harassment, a class-A misdemeanor. New York does not have anti-bullying laws on the books.

Criminal charges won't mend the situation. Anti-bullying laws won't either. They help, and they provide school administrators and law enforcement with powerful tools to combat these occurrences after they happen. But it doesn't address the source of the problem, that certain forms of hate are still socially acceptable, even in the classroom.

I dare anybody to walk into a public school classroom and spew the N-word a couple times with a venomous tone, perhaps even in direct reference to a member of the class. Go ahead, see what happens. If you're lucky enough to make it out alive, I'll meet you at Bayfront Medical Center.

Then, when your wounds have healed, go back to that school, find a class that won't recognize you, and target the class queen. Call him a faggot. Go ahead, see what happens. You'll make it out alive, I promise. We can meet for drinks on South Beach.