[blindlgbtpride] One town's war on LGBT Teens

[gar at nyc.rr.com]

Horrifying.  Thank you Michele Bachman.  I wonder 
what Christ thinks of Christianity today.

g
At 09:54 PM 2/6/2012, you wrote:
>This is a long read and worth the time.
>
>Don
>
>One Town's War on Gay Teens
>
>By Sabrina Rubin Erdely, Rolling Stone
>
>04 February 12
>
>In Michele Bachmann's home district, evangelicals have created an extreme
>anti-gay climate. After a rash of suicides, the kids are fighting back.
>
>Every morning, Brittany Geldert stepped off the bus and bolted through the
>double doors of Fred Moore Middle School, her nerves already on high alert,
>bracing
>
>for the inevitable.
>
>"Dyke."
>
>Pretending not to hear, Brittany would walk briskly to her locker, past the
>sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders who loitered in menacing packs.
>
>"Whore."
>
>Like many 13-year-olds, Brittany knew seventh grade was a living hell. But
>what she didn't know was that she was caught in the crossfire of a culture
>war
>
>being waged by local evangelicals inspired by their high-profile
>congressional representative Michele Bachmann, who graduated from Anoka High
>School and,
>
>until recently, was a member of one of the most conservative churches in the
>area. When Christian activists who considered gays an abomination forced a
>
>measure through the school board forbidding the discussion of homosexuality
>in the district's public schools, kids like Brittany were unknowingly thrust
>
>into the heart of a clash that was about to become intertwined with tragedy.
>
>Brittany didn't look like most girls in blue-collar Anoka, Minnesota, a
>former logging town on the Rum River, a conventional place that takes pride
>in its
>
>annual Halloween parade - it bills itself the "Halloween Capital of the
>World." Brittany was a low-voiced, stocky girl who dressed in baggy jeans
>and her
>
>dad's Marine Corps sweatshirts. By age 13, she'd been taunted as a "cunt"
>and "cock muncher" long before such words had made much sense. When she told
>
>administrators about the abuse, they were strangely unresponsive, even
>though bullying was a subject often discussed in school-board meetings. The
>district
>
>maintained a comprehensive five-page anti-bullying policy, and held
>diversity trainings on racial and gender sensitivity. Yet when it came to
>Brittany's
>
>harassment, school officials usually told her to ignore it, always glossing
>over the sexually charged insults. Like the time Brittany had complained
>about
>
>being called a "fat dyke": The school's principal, looking pained, had
>suggested Brittany prepare herself for the next round of teasing with snappy
>comebacks
>
>- "I can lose the weight, but you're stuck with your ugly face" - never
>acknowledging she had been called a "dyke." As though that part was OK. As
>though
>
>the fact that Brittany was bisexual made her fair game.
>
>So maybe she was a fat dyke, Brittany thought morosely; maybe she deserved
>the teasing. She would have been shocked to know the truth behind the
>adults'
>
>inaction: No one would come to her aid for fear of violating the
>districtwide policy requiring school personnel to stay "neutral" on issues
>of homosexuality.
>
>All Brittany knew was that she was on her own, vulnerable and ashamed, and
>needed to find her best friend, Samantha, fast.
>
>Like Brittany, eighth-grader Samantha Johnson was a husky tomboy too,
>outgoing with a big smile and a silly streak to match Brittany's own. Sam
>was also
>
>bullied for her look - short hair, dark clothing, lack of girly affect - but
>she merrily shrugged off the abuse. When Sam's volleyball teammates'
>taunting
>
>got rough - barring her from the girls' locker room, yelling, "You're a
>guy!" - she simply stopped going to practice. After school, Sam would
>encourage
>
>Brittany to join her in privately mocking their tormentors, and the girls
>would parade around Brittany's house speaking in Valley Girl squeals,
>wearing
>
>bras over their shirts, collapsing in laughter. They'd become as close as
>sisters in the year since Sam had moved from North Dakota following her
>parents'
>
>divorce, and Sam had quickly become Brittany's beacon. Sam was even helping
>to start a Gay Straight Alliance club, as a safe haven for misfits like
>them,
>
>although the club's progress was stalled by the school district that, among
>other things, was queasy about the club's flagrant use of the word "gay."
>Religious
>
>conservatives have called GSAs "sex clubs," and sure enough, the local
>religious right loudly objected to them. "This is an assault on moral
>standards,"
>
>read one recent letter to the community paper. "Let's stop this dangerous
>nonsense before it's too late and more young boys and girls are encouraged
>to
>
>'come out' and practice their 'gayness' right in their own school's
>homosexual club."
>
>Brittany admired Sam's courage, and tried to mimic her insouciance and
>stoicism. So Brittany was bewildered when one day in November 2009, on the
>school
>
>bus home, a sixth-grade boy slid in next to her and asked quaveringly, "Did
>you hear Sam said she's going to kill herself?"
>
>Brittany considered the question. No way. How many times had she seen Sam
>roll her eyes and announce, "Ugh, I'm gonna kill myself" over some
>insignificant
>
>thing? "Don't worry, you'll see Sam tomorrow," Brittany reassured her friend
>as they got off the bus. But as she trudged toward her house, she couldn't
>
>stop turning it over in her mind. A boy in the district had already
>committed suicide just days into the school year - TJ Hayes, a 16-year-old
>at Blaine
>
>High School - so she knew such things were possible. But Sam Johnson?
>Brittany tried to keep the thought at bay. Finally, she confided in her
>mother.
>
>"This isn't something you kid about, Brittany," her mom scolded, snatching
>the kitchen cordless and taking it down the hall to call the Johnsons. A
>minute
>
>later she returned, her face a mask of shock and terror. "Honey, I'm so
>sorry. We're too late," she said tonelessly as Brittany's knees buckled;
>13-year-old
>
>Sam had climbed into the bathtub after school and shot herself in the mouth
>with her own hunting rifle. No one at school had seen her suicide coming.
>
>No one saw the rest of them coming, either.
>
>Sam's death lit the fuse of a suicide epidemic that would take the lives of
>nine local students in under two years, a rate so high that child
>psychologist
>
>Dan Reidenberg, executive director of the Minnesota-based Suicide Awareness
>Voices of Education, declared the Anoka-Hennepin school district the site of
>
>a "suicide cluster," adding that the crisis might hold an element of
>contagion; suicidal thoughts had become catchy, like a lethal virus. "Here
>you had
>
>a large number of suicides that are really closely connected, all within one
>school district, in a small amount of time," explains Reidenberg. "Kids
>started
>
>to feel that the normal response to stress was to take your life."
>
>There was another common thread: Four of the nine dead were either gay or
>perceived as such by other kids, and were reportedly bullied. The tragedies
>come
>
>at a national moment when bullying is on everyone's lips, and a devastating
>number of gay teens across the country are in the news for killing
>themselves.
>
>Suicide rates among gay and lesbian kids are frighteningly high, with
>attempt rates four times that of their straight counterparts; studies show
>that one-third
>
>of all gay youth have attempted suicide at some point (versus 13 percent of
>hetero kids), and that internalized homophobia contributes to suicide risk.
>
>Against this supercharged backdrop, the Anoka-Hennepin school district finds
>itself in the spotlight not only for the sheer number of suicides but
>because
>
>it is accused of having contributed to the death toll by cultivating an
>extreme anti-gay climate. "LGBTQ students don't feel safe at school," says
>Anoka
>
>Middle School for the Arts teacher Jefferson Fietek, using the acronym for
>Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning. "They're made to feel
>ashamed
>
>of who they are. They're bullied. And there's no one to stand up for them,
>because teachers are afraid of being fired."
>
>The Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Center for Lesbian Rights
>have filed a lawsuit on behalf of five students, alleging the school
>district's
>
>policies on gays are not only discriminatory, but also foster an environment
>of unchecked anti-gay bullying. The Department of Justice has begun a civil
>
>rights investigation as well. The Anoka-Hennepin school district declined to
>comment on any specific incidences but denies any discrimination,
>maintaining
>
>that its broad anti-bullying policy is meant to protect all students. "We
>are not a homophobic district, and to be vilified for this is very
>frustrating,"
>
>says superintendent Dennis Carlson, who blames right-wingers and gay
>activists for choosing the area as a battleground, describing the district
>as the
>
>victim in this fracas. "People are using kids as pawns in this political
>debate," he says. "I find that abhorrent."
>
>Ironically, that's exactly the charge that students, teachers and grieving
>parents are hurling at the school district. "Samantha got caught up in a
>political
>
>battle that I didn't know about," says Sam Johnson's mother, Michele. "And
>you know whose fault it is? The people who make their living off of saying
>they're
>
>going to take care of our kids."
>
>Located a half-hour north of Minneapolis, the 13 sprawling towns that make
>up the Anoka-Hennepin school district - Minnesota's largest, with 39,000
>kids
>
>- seems an unlikely place for such a battle. It's a soothingly flat,
>172-square-mile expanse sliced by the Mississippi River, where woodlands
>abruptly
>
>give way to strip malls and then fall back to placid woodlands again, and
>the landscape is dotted with churches. The district, which spans two
>counties,
>
>is so geographically huge as to be a sort of cross section of America
>itself, with its small minority population clustered at its southern tip,
>white suburban
>
>sprawl in its center and sparsely populated farmland in the north. It also
>offers a snapshot of America in economic crisis: In an area where just 20
>percent
>
>of adults have college educations, the recession hit hard, and foreclosures
>and unemployment have become the norm.
>
>For years, the area has also bred a deep strain of religious conservatism.
>At churches like First Baptist Church of Anoka, parishioners believe that
>homosexuality
>
>is a form of mental illness caused by family dysfunction, childhood trauma
>and exposure to pornography - a perversion curable through intensive
>therapy.
>
>It's a point of view shared by their congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who has
>called homosexuality a form of "sexual dysfunction" that amounts to
>"personal
>
>enslavement." In 1993, Bachmann, a proponent of school prayer and
>creationism, co-founded the New Heights charter school in the town of
>Stillwater, only
>
>to flee the board amid an outcry that the school was promoting a religious
>curriculum. Bachmann also is affiliated with the ultraright Minnesota Family
>
>Council, headlining a fundraiser for them last spring alongside Newt
>Gingrich.
>
>Though Bachmann doesn't live within Anoka-Hennepin's boundaries anymore, she
>has a dowdier doppelgänger there in the form of anti-gay crusader Barb
>Anderson.
>
>A bespectacled grandmother with lemony-blond hair she curls in severely
>toward her face, Anderson is a former district Spanish teacher and a
>longtime researcher
>
>for the MFC who's been fighting gay influence in local schools for two
>decades, ever since she discovered that her nephew's health class was
>teaching homosexuality
>
>as normal. "That really got me on a journey," she said in a radio interview.
>When the Anoka-Hennepin district's sex-ed curriculum came up for
>re-evaluation
>
>in 1994, Anderson and four like-minded parents managed to get on the review
>committee. They argued that any form of gay tolerance in school is actually
>
>an insidious means of promoting homosexuality - that openly discussing the
>matter would encourage kids to try it, turning straight kids gay.
>
>"Open your eyes, people," Anderson recently wrote to the local newspaper.
>"What if a 15-year-old is seduced into homosexual behavior and then
>contracts
>
>AIDS?" Her agenda mimics that of Focus on the Family, the national
>evangelical Christian organization founded by James Dobson; Family Councils,
>though
>
>technically independent of Focus on the Family, work on the state level to
>accomplish Focus' core goals, including promoting prayer in public spaces,
>"defending
>
>marriage" by lobbying for anti-gay legislation, and fighting gay tolerance
>in public schools under the guise of preserving parental authority -
>reasoning
>
>that government-mandated acceptance of gays undermines the traditional
>values taught in Christian homes.
>
>At the close of the seven-month-long sex-ed review, Anderson and her
>colleagues wrote a memo to the Anoka-Hennepin school board, concluding, "The
>majority
>
>of parents do not wish to have there [sic] children taught that the gay
>lifestyle is a normal acceptable alternative." Surprisingly, the six-member
>board
>
>voted to adopt the measure by a four-to-two majority, even borrowing the
>memo's language to fashion the resulting districtwide policy, which
>pronounced
>
>that within the health curriculum, "homosexuality not be taught/addressed as
>a normal, valid lifestyle."
>
>The policy became unofficially known as "No Homo Promo" and passed
>unannounced to parents and unpublished in the policy handbooks; most
>teachers were told
>
>about it by their principals. Teachers say it had a chilling effect and they
>became concerned about mentioning gays in any context. Discussion of
>homosexuality
>
>gradually disappeared from classes. "If you can't talk about it in any
>context, which is how teachers interpret district policies, kids internalize
>that
>
>to mean that being gay must be so shameful and wrong," says Anoka High
>School teacher Mary Jo Merrick-Lockett. "And that has created a climate of
>fear
>
>and repression and harassment."
>
>Suicide is a complex phenomenon; there's never any one pat reason to explain
>why anyone kills themselves. Michele Johnson acknowledges that her daughter,
>
>Sam, likely had many issues that combined to push her over the edge, but
>feels strongly that bullying was one of those factors. "I'm sure that
>Samantha's
>
>decision to take her life had a lot to do with what was going on in school,"
>Johnson says tearfully. "I'm sure things weren't perfect in other areas, but
>
>nothing was as bad as what was going on in that school."
>
>The summer before Justin Aaberg started at Anoka High School, his mother
>asked, "So, are you sure you're gay?"
>
>Justin, a slim, shy 14-year-old who carefully swept his blond bangs to the
>side like his namesake, Bieber, studied his mom's face. "I'm pretty sure I'm
>
>gay," he answered softly, then abruptly changed his mind. "Whoa, whoa, whoa,
>wait!" he shouted - out of character for the quiet boy - "I'm positive. I
>
>am gay," Justin proclaimed.
>
>"OK." Tammy Aaberg nodded. "So. Just because you can't get him pregnant
>doesn't mean you don't use protection." She proceeded to lecture her son
>about safe
>
>sex while Justin turned bright red and beamed. Embarrassing as it was to get
>a sex talk from his mom, her easy affirmation of Justin's orientation seemed
>
>like a promising sign as he stood on the brink of high school. Justin was
>more than ready to turn the corner on the horrors of middle school -
>especially
>
>on his just-finished eighth-grade year, when Justin had come out as gay to a
>few friends, yet word had instantly spread, making him a pariah. In the hall
>
>one day, a popular jock had grabbed Justin by the balls and squeezed,
>sneering, "You like that, don't you?" That assault had so humiliated and
>frightened
>
>Justin that he'd burst out crying, but he never reported any of his
>harassment. The last thing he wanted to do was draw more attention to his
>sexuality.
>
>Plus, he didn't want his parents worrying. Justin's folks were already
>overwhelmed with stresses of their own: Swamped with debt, they'd declared
>bankruptcy
>
>and lost their home to foreclosure. So Justin had kept his problems to
>himself; he felt hopeful things would get better in high school, where kids
>were
>
>bound to be more mature.
>
>"There'll always be bullies," he reasoned to a friend. "But we'll be older,
>so maybe they'll be better about it."
>
>But Justin's start of ninth grade in 2009 began as a disappointment. In the
>halls of Anoka High School, he was bullied, called a "faggot" and shoved
>into
>
>lockers. Then, a couple of months into the school year, he was stunned to
>hear about Sam Johnson's suicide. Though Justin hadn't known her personally,
>
>he'd known of her, and of the way she'd been taunted for being butch. Justin
>tried to keep smiling. In his room at home, Justin made a brightly colored
>
>paper banner and taped it to his wall: "Love the life you live, live the
>life you love."
>
>Brittany couldn't stop thinking about Sam, a reel that looped endlessly in
>her head. Sam dancing to one of their favorite metal bands, Drowning Pool.
>Sam
>
>dead in the tub with the back of her head blown off. Sam's ashes in an urn,
>her coffin empty at her wake.
>
>She couldn't sleep. Her grades fell. Her daily harassment at school
>continued, but now without her best friend to help her cope. At home,
>Brittany played
>
>the good daughter, cleaning the house and performing her brother's chores
>unasked, all in a valiant attempt to maintain some family peace after the
>bank
>
>took their house, and both parents lost their jobs in quick succession. Then
>Brittany started cutting herself.
>
>Just 11 days after Sam's death, on November 22nd, 2009, came yet another
>suicide: a Blaine High School student, 15-year-old Aaron Jurek - the
>district's
>
>third suicide in just three months. After Christmas break, an Andover High
>School senior, Nick Lockwood, became the district's fourth casualty: a boy
>who
>
>had never publicly identified as gay, but had nonetheless been teased as
>such. Suicide number five followed, that of recent Blaine High School grad
>Kevin
>
>Buchman, who had no apparent LGBT connection. Before the end of the school
>year there would be a sixth suicide, 15-year-old July Barrick of Champlin
>Park
>
>High School, who was also bullied for being perceived as gay, and who'd
>complained to her mother that classmates had started an "I Hate July
>Barrick" Facebook
>
>page. As mental-health counselors were hurriedly dispatched to each affected
>school, the district was blanketed by a sense of mourning and frightened
>shock.
>
>"It has taken a collective toll," says Northdale Middle School psychologist
>Colleen Cashen. "Everyone has just been reeling - students, teachers.
>There's
>
>been just a profound sadness."
>
>In the wake of Sam's suicide, Brittany couldn't seem to stop crying. She'd
>disappear for hours with her cellphone turned off, taking long walks by Elk
>Creek
>
>or hiding in a nearby cemetery. "Promise me you won't take your life," her
>father begged. "Promise you'll come to me before anything." Brittany
>couldn't
>
>promise. In March 2010, she was hospitalized for a week.
>
>In April, Justin came home from school and found his mother at the top of
>the stairs, tending to the saltwater fish tank. "Mom," he said tentatively,
>"a
>
>kid told me at school today I'm gonna go to hell because I'm gay."
>
>"That's not true. God loves everybody," his mom replied. "That kid needs to
>go home and read his Bible."
>
>Justin shrugged and smiled, then retreated to his room. It had been a hard
>day: the annual "Day of Truth" had been held at school, an evangelical event
>
>then-sponsored by the anti-gay ministry Exodus International, whose mission
>is to usher gays back to wholeness and "victory in Christ" by converting
>them
>
>to heterosexuality. Day of Truth has been a font of controversy that has
>bounced in and out of the courts; its legality was affirmed last March, when
>a
>
>federal appeals court ruled that two Naperville, Illinois, high school
>students' Day of Truth T-shirts reading BE HAPPY, NOT GAY were protected by
>their
>
>First Amendment rights. (However, the event, now sponsored by Focus on the
>Family, has been renamed "Day of Dialogue.") Local churches had been touting
>
>the program, and students had obediently shown up at Anoka High School
>wearing day of truth T-shirts, preaching in the halls about the sin of
>homosexuality.
>
>Justin wanted to brush them off, but was troubled by their proselytizing.
>Secretly, he had begun to worry that maybe he was an abomination, like the
>Bible
>
>said.
>
>Justin was trying not to care what anyone else thought and be true to
>himself. He surrounded himself with a bevy of girlfriends who cherished him
>for his
>
>sweet, sunny disposition. He played cello in the orchestra, practicing for
>hours up in his room, where he'd covered one wall with mementos of good
>times:
>
>taped-up movie-ticket stubs, gum wrappers, Christmas cards. Justin had even
>briefly dated a boy, a 17-year-old he'd met online who attended a nearby
>high
>
>school. The relationship didn't end well: The boyfriend had cheated on him,
>and compounding Justin's hurt, his coming out had earned Justin hateful
>Facebook
>
>messages from other teens - some from those he didn't even know - telling
>him he was a fag who didn't deserve to live. At least his freshman year of
>high
>
>school was nearly done. Only three more years to go. He wondered how he
>would ever make it.
>
>Though some members of the Anoka-Hennepin school board had been appalled by
>"No Homo Promo" since its passage 14 years earlier, it wasn't until 2009
>that
>
>the board brought the policy up for review, after a student named Alex
>Merritt filed a complaint with the state Department of Human Rights claiming
>he'd
>
>been gay-bashed by two of his teachers during high school; according to the
>complaint, the teachers had announced in front of students that Merritt, who
>
>is straight, "swings both ways," speculated that he wore women's clothing,
>and compared him to a Wisconsin man who had sex with a dead deer. The
>teachers
>
>denied the charges, but the school district paid $25,000 to settle the
>complaint. Soon representatives from the gay-rights group Outfront Minnesota
>began
>
>making inquiries at board meetings. "No Homo Promo" was starting to look
>like a risky policy.
>
>"The lawyers said, 'You'd have a hard time defending it,'" remembers Scott
>Wenzel, a board member who for years had pushed colleagues to abolish the
>policy.
>
>"It was clear that it might risk a lawsuit." But while board members agreed
>that such an overtly anti-gay policy needed to be scrapped, they also agreed
>
>that some guideline was needed to not only help teachers navigate a topic as
>inflammatory as homosexuality but to appease the area's evangelical
>activists.
>
>So the legal department wrote a broad new course of action with language
>intended to give a respectful nod to the topic - but also an equal measure
>of
>
>respect to the anti-gay contingent. The new policy was circulated to staff
>without a word of introduction. (Parents were not alerted at all, unless
>they
>
>happened to be diligent online readers of board-meeting minutes.) And while
>"No Homo Promo" had at least been clear, the new Sexual Orientation
>Curriculum
>
>Policy mostly just puzzled the teachers who'd be responsible for enforcing
>it. It read:
>
>Anoka-Hennepin staff, in the course of their professional duties, shall
>remain neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation including but not
>limited
>
>to student-led discussions.
>
>It quickly became known as the "neutrality" policy. No one could figure out
>what it meant. "What is 'neutral'?" asks instructor Merrick-Lockett.
>"Teachers
>
>are constantly asking, 'Do you think I could get in trouble for this? Could
>I get fired for that?' So a lot of teachers sidestep it. They don't want to
>
>deal with district backlash."
>
>English teachers worried they'd get in trouble for teaching books by gay
>authors, or books with gay characters. Social-studies teachers wondered what
>to
>
>do if a student wrote a term paper on gay rights, or how to address current
>events like "don't ask, don't tell." Health teachers were faced with the
>impossible
>
>task of teaching about AIDS awareness and safe sex without mentioning
>homosexuality. Many teachers decided once again to keep gay issues from the
>curriculum
>
>altogether, rather than chance saying something that could be interpreted as
>anything other than neutral.
>
>"There has been widespread confusion," says Anoka-Hennepin teachers' union
>president Julie Blaha. "You ask five people how to interpret the policy and
>you
>
>get five different answers." Silenced by fear, gay teachers became more
>vigilant than ever to avoid mention of their personal lives, and in
>closeting themselves,
>
>they inadvertently ensured that many students had no real-life gay role
>models. "I was told by teachers, 'You have to be careful, it's really not
>safe
>
>for you to come out,'" says the psychologist Cashen, who is a lesbian. "I
>felt like I couldn't have a picture of my family on my desk." When teacher
>Jefferson
>
>Fietek was outed in the community paper, which referred to him as an "open
>homosexual," he didn't feel he could address the situation with his students
>
>even as they passed the newspaper around, tittering. When one finally asked,
>"Are you gay?" he panicked. "I was terrified to answer that question,"
>Fietek
>
>says. "I thought, 'If I violate the policy, what's going to happen to me?'"
>
>The silence of adults was deafening. At Blaine High School, says alum Justin
>Anderson, "I would hear people calling people 'fags' all the time without it
>
>being addressed. Teachers just didn't respond." In Andover High School, when
>10th-grader Sam Pinilla was pushed to the ground by three kids calling him
>
>a "faggot," he saw a teacher nearby who did nothing to stop the assault. At
>Anoka High School, a 10th-grade girl became so upset at being mocked as a
>"lesbo"
>
>and a "sinner" - in earshot of teachers - that she complained to an
>associate principal, who counseled her to "lay low"; the girl would later
>attempt suicide.
>
>At Anoka Middle School for the Arts, after Kyle Rooker was urinated upon
>from above in a boys' bathroom stall, an associate principal told him, "It
>was
>
>probably water." Jackson Middle School seventh-grader Dylon Frei was passed
>notes saying, "Get out of this town, fag"; when a teacher intercepted one
>such
>
>note, she simply threw it away.
>
>"You feel horrible about yourself," remembers Dylon. "Like, why do these
>kids hate me so much? And why won't anybody help me?" The following year,
>after
>
>Dylon was hit in the head with a binder and called "fag," the associate
>principal told Dylon that since there was no proof of the incident she could
>take
>
>no action. By contrast, Dylon and others saw how the same teachers who
>ignored anti-gay insults were quick to reprimand kids who uttered racial
>slurs.
>
>It further reinforced the message resonating throughout the district: Gay
>kids simply didn't deserve protection.
>
>"Justin?" Tammy Aaberg rapped on her son's locked bedroom door again. It was
>past noon, and not a peep from inside, unusual for Justin.
>
>"Justin?" She could hear her own voice rising as she pounded harder,
>suddenly overtaken by a wild terror she couldn't name. "Justin!" she yelled.
>Tammy
>
>grabbed a screwdriver and loosened the doorknob. She pushed open the door.
>He was wearing his Anoka High School sweatpants and an old soccer shirt. His
>
>feet were dangling off the ground. Justin was hanging from the frame of his
>futon, which he'd taken out from under his mattress and stood upright in the
>
>corner of his room. Screaming, Tammy ran to hold him and recoiled at his
>cold skin. His limp body was grotesquely bloated - her baby - eyes closed,
>head
>
>lolling to the right, a dried smear of saliva trailing from the corner of
>his mouth. His cheeks were strafed with scratch marks, as though in his
>final
>
>moments he'd tried to claw his noose loose. He'd cinched the woven belt so
>tight that the mortician would have a hard time masking the imprint it left
>
>in the flesh above Justin's collar.
>
>Still screaming, Tammy ran to call 911. She didn't notice the cellphone on
>the floor below Justin's feet, containing his last words, a text in the wee
>hours:
>
>:-( he had typed to a girlfriend.
>
>What's wrong
>
>Nothing
>
>I can come over
>
>No I'm fine
>
>Are you sure you'll be ok
>
>No it's ok I'll be fine, I promise
>
>Seeking relief from bullying, Brittany transferred to Jackson Middle School.
>Her very first day of eighth grade, eight boys crowded around her on the bus
>
>home. "Hey, Brittany, I heard your friend Sam shot herself," one began.
>
>"Did you see her blow her brains out?"
>
>"Did you pull the trigger for her?"
>
>"What did it look like?"
>
>"Was there brain all over the wall?"
>
>"You should do it too. You should go blow your head off."
>
>Sobbing, Brittany ran from the bus stop and into her mother's arms. Her mom
>called Jackson's guidance office to report the incident, but as before,
>nothing
>
>ever seemed to come of their complaints. Not after the Gelderts' Halloween
>lawn decorations were destroyed, and the boys on the bus asked, "How was the
>
>mess last night?" Not after Brittany told the associate principal about the
>mob of kids who pushed her down the hall and nearly into a trash can. Her
>name
>
>became Dyke, Queer, Faggot, Guy, Freak, Transvestite, Bitch, Cunt, Slut,
>Whore, Skank, Prostitute, Hooker. Brittany felt worn to a nub, exhausted
>from
>
>scanning for threat, stripped of emotional armor. In her journal, she wrote,
>"Brittany is dead."
>
>As Brittany vainly cried out for help, the school board was busy trying to
>figure out how to continue tactfully ignoring the existence of LGBT kids
>like
>
>her. Justin Aaberg's suicide, Anoka-Hennepin's seventh, had sent the
>district into damage-control mode. "Everything changed after Justin,"
>remembers teacher
>
>Fietek. "The rage at his funeral, students were storming up to me saying,
>'Why the hell did the school let this happen? They let it happen to Sam and
>they
>
>let it happen to Justin!'" Individual teachers quietly began taking small
>risks, overstepping the bounds of neutrality to offer solace to gay students
>
>in crisis. "My job is just a job; these children are losing their lives,"
>says Fietek. "The story I hear repeatedly is 'Nobody else is like me, nobody
>
>else is going through what I'm going through.' That's the lie they've been
>fed, but they're buying into it based on the fear we have about open and
>honest
>
>conversations about sexual orientation."
>
>LGBT students were stunned to be told for the first time about the existence
>of the neutrality policy that had been responsible for their teachers'
>behavior.
>
>But no one was more outraged to hear of it than Tammy Aaberg. Six weeks
>after her son's death, Aaberg became the first to publicly confront the
>Anoka-Hennepin
>
>school board about the link between the policy, anti-gay bullying and
>suicide. She demanded the policy be revoked. "What about my parental rights
>to have
>
>my gay son go to school and learn without being bullied?" Aaberg asked,
>weeping, as the board stared back impassively from behind a raised dais.
>
>Anti-gay backlash was instant. Minnesota Family Council president Tom
>Prichard blogged that Justin's suicide could only be blamed upon one thing:
>his gayness.
>
>"Youth who embrace homosexuality are at greater risk [of suicide], because
>they've embraced an unhealthy sexual identity and lifestyle," Prichard
>wrote.
>
>Anoka-Hennepin conservatives formally organized into the Parents Action
>League, declaring opposition to the "radical homosexual" agenda in schools.
>Its
>
>stated goals, advertised on its website, included promoting Day of Truth,
>providing resources for students "seeking to leave the homosexual
>lifestyle,"
>
>supporting the neutrality policy and targeting "pro-gay activist teachers
>who fail to abide by district policies."
>
>Asked on a radio program whether the anti-gay agenda of her ilk bore any
>responsibility for the bullying and suicides, Barb Anderson, co-author of
>the original
>
>"No Homo Promo," held fast to her principles, blaming pro-gay groups for the
>tragedies. She explained that such "child corruption" agencies allow
>"quote-unquote
>
>gay kids" to wrongly feel legitimized. "And then these kids are locked into
>a lifestyle with their choices limited, and many times this can be
>disastrous
>
>to them as they get into the behavior which leads to disease and death,"
>Anderson said. She added that if LGBT kids weren't encouraged to come out of
>the
>
>closet in the first place, they wouldn't be in a position to be bullied.
>
>Yet while everyone in the district was buzzing about the neutrality policy,
>the board simply refused to discuss it, not even when students began
>appearing
>
>before them to detail their experiences with LGBT harassment. "The board
>stated quite clearly that they were standing behind that policy and were not
>willing
>
>to take another look," recalls board member Wenzel. Further insulating
>itself from reality, the district launched an investigation into the
>suicides and
>
>unsurprisingly, absolved itself of any responsibility. "Based on all the
>information we've been able to gather," read a statement from the
>superintendent's
>
>office, "none of the suicides were connected to incidents of bullying or
>harassment."
>
>Just to be on the safe side, however, the district held PowerPoint
>presentations in a handful of schools to train teachers how to defend gay
>students from
>
>harassment while also remaining neutral on homosexuality. One slide
>instructed teachers that if they hear gay slurs - say, the word "fag" - the
>best response
>
>is a tepid "That language is unacceptable in this school." ("If a more
>authoritative response is needed," the slide added, the teacher could
>continue with
>
>the stilted, almost apologetic explanation, "In this school we are required
>to welcome all people and to make them feel safe.") But teachers were, of
>course,
>
>reminded to never show "personal support for GLBT people" in the classroom.
>
>Teachers left the training sessions more confused than ever about how to
>interpret the rules. And the board, it turned out, was equally confused.
>When a
>
>local advocacy group, Gay Equity Team, met with the school board, the
>vice-chair thought the policy applied only to health classes, while the
>chair asserted
>
>it applied to all curricula; and when the district legal counsel commented
>that some discussions about homosexuality were allowed, yet another board
>member
>
>expressed surprise, saying he thought any discussion on the topic was
>forbidden. "How can the district ever train on a policy they do not
>understand themselves?"
>
>GET officials asked in a follow-up letter. "Is there any doubt that teachers
>and staff are confused? The board is confused!"
>
>With the adults thus distracted by endless policy discussions, the entire
>district became a place of dread for students. Every time a loudspeaker
>crackled
>
>in class, kids braced themselves for the feared preamble, "We've had a
>tragic loss." Students spoke in hushed tones; some wept openly in the halls.
>"It
>
>had that feeling of a horror movie - everyone was talking about death," says
>one 16-year-old student who broke down at Anoka High School one day and was
>
>carted off to a psychiatric hospital for suicidal ideation. Over the course
>of the 2010-2011 school year, 700 students were evaluated for serious
>mental-health
>
>issues, including hospitalizations for depression and suicide attempts. Kids
>flooded school counselors' offices, which reported an explosion of children
>
>engaging in dangerous behaviors like cutting or asphyxiating each other in
>the "choking game."
>
>Amid the pandemonium, the district's eighth suicide landed like a bomb: Cole
>Wilson, an Anoka High School senior with no apparent LGBT connection. The
>news
>
>was frightening, but also horrifyingly familiar. "People were dying one
>after another," remembers former district student Katie MacDonald, 16, who
>struggled
>
>with suicidal thoughts. "Every time you said goodbye to a friend, you felt
>like, 'Is this the last time I'm going to see you?'"
>
>As a late-afternoon storm beats against the windows, 15-year-old Brittany
>Geldert sits in her living room. Her layered auburn hair falls into her
>face.
>
>Her ears are lined with piercings; her nail polish is black. "They said I
>had anger, depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety, an eating disorder," she
>recites,
>
>speaking of the month she spent at a psychiatric hospital last year, at the
>end of eighth grade. "Mentally being degraded like that, I translated that
>
>to 'I don't deserve to be happy,'" she says, barely holding back tears, as
>both parents look on with wet eyes. "Like I deserved the punishment - I've
>been
>
>earning the punishment I've been getting."
>
>She's fighting hard to rebuild her decimated sense of self. It's a far
>darker self than before, a guarded, distant teenager who bears little
>resemblance
>
>to the openhearted young girl she was not long ago. But Brittany is also
>finding a reserve of strength she never realized she had, having stepped up
>as
>
>one of five plaintiffs in the civil rights lawsuit against her school
>district. The road to the federal lawsuit was paved shortly after Justin
>Aaberg's
>
>suicide, when a district teacher contacted the Southern Poverty Law Center
>to report the anti-gay climate, and the startling proportion of LGBT-related
>
>suicide victims. After months of fact-finding, lawyers built a case based on
>the harrowing stories of anti-gay harassment in order to legally dispute
>Anoka-Hennepin's
>
>neutrality policy. The lawsuit accuses the district of violating the kids'
>constitutional rights to equal access to education. In addition to making
>financial
>
>demands, the lawsuit seeks to repeal the neutrality policy, implement
>LGBT-sensitivity training for students and staff, and provide guidance for
>teachers
>
>on how to respond to anti-gay bullying.
>
>The school district hasn't been anxious for a legal brawl, and the two
>parties have been in settlement talks practically since the papers were
>filed. Yet
>
>the district still stubbornly clung to the neutrality policy until, at a
>mid-December school-board meeting, it proposed finally eliminating the
>policy
>
>- claiming the move has nothing to do with the discrimination lawsuit - and,
>bizarrely, replacing it with the Controversial Topics Curriculum Policy,
>which
>
>requires teachers to not reveal their personal opinions when discussing
>"controversial topics." The proposal was loudly rejected both by
>conservatives,
>
>who blasted the board for retreating ("The gay activists now have it all,"
>proclaimed one Parents Action League member) and by LGBT advocates, who
>understood
>
>"controversial topics" to mean gays. Faced with such overwhelming
>disapproval, the board withdrew its proposed policy in January - and
>suggested a new
>
>policy in its place: the Respectful Learning Environment Curriculum Policy,
>which the board is expected to swiftly approve.
>
>The school district insists it has been portrayed unfairly. Superintendent
>Carlson points out it has been working hard to address the mental-health
>needs
>
>of its students by hiring more counselors and staff - everything, it seems,
>but admit that its policy has created problems for its LGBT community. "We
>
>understand that gay kids are bullied and harassed on a daily basis," and
>that that can lead to suicide, Carlson says. "But that was not the case
>here.
>
>If you're looking for a cause, look in the area of mental health." In that
>sense, the district is in step with PAL. "How could not discussing
>homosexuality
>
>in the public-school classrooms cause a teen to take his or her own life?"
>PAL asked Rolling Stone in an e-mail, calling the idea "absurd," going on to
>
>say, "Because homosexual activists have hijacked and exploited teen suicides
>for their moral and political utility, much of society seems not to be
>looking
>
>closely and openly at all the possible causes of the tragedies," including
>mental illness. Arguably, however, it is members of PAL who have hijacked
>this
>
>entire discussion from the very start: Though they've claimed to represent
>the "majority" opinion on gay issues, and say they have 1,200 supporters,
>one
>
>PAL parent reported that they have less than two dozen members.
>
>Teachers' union president Blaha, who calls the district's behavior
>throughout this ordeal "irrational," speculates that the district's
>stupefying denial
>
>is a reaction to the terrible notion that they might have played a part in
>children's suffering, or even their deaths: "I think your mind just reels in
>
>the face of that stress and that horror. They just lost their way."
>
>That denial reaches right up to the pinnacle of the local political food
>chain: Michele Bachmann, who stayed silent on the suicide cluster in her
>congressional
>
>district for months - until Justin's mom, Tammy Aaberg, forced her to
>comment. In September, while Bachmann was running for the GOP presidential
>nomination,
>
>Aaberg delivered a petition of 141,000 signatures to Bachmann's office,
>asking her to address the Anoka-Hennepin suicides and publicly denounce
>anti-gay
>
>bullying. Bachmann has publicly stated her opposition to anti-bullying
>legislation, asking in a 2006 state Senate committee hearing, "What will be
>our
>
>definition of bullying? Will it get to the point where we are completely
>stifling free speech and expression?... Will we be expecting boys to be
>girls?"
>
>Bachmann responded to the petition with a generic letter to constituents
>telling them that "bullying is wrong," and "all human lives have undeniable
>value."
>
>Tammy Aaberg found out about the letter secondhand. "I never got a letter,"
>says Tammy, seated in the finished basement of the Aabergs' new home in
>Champlin;
>
>the family couldn't bear to remain in the old house where Justin hanged
>himself. "My kid died in her district. And I'm the one that presented the
>dang
>
>petition!" In a closed room a few feet away are Justin's remaining
>possessions: his cello, in a closet; his soccer equipment, still packed in
>his Adidas
>
>bag. Tammy's suffering hasn't ended. In mid-December, her nine-year-old son
>was hospitalized for suicidal tendencies; he'd tried to drown himself in the
>
>bathtub, wanting to see his big brother again.
>
>Justin's suicide has left Tammy on a mission, transforming her into an LGBT
>activist and a den mother for gay teens, intent upon turning her own tragedy
>
>into others' salvation. She knows too well the price of indifference, or
>hostility, or denial. Because there's one group of kids who can't afford to
>live
>
>in denial, a group for whom the usual raw teenage struggles over identity,
>peer acceptance and controlling one's own impulsivity are matters of extreme
>
>urgency - quite possibly matters of life or death.
>
>Which brings us to Anoka Middle School for the Arts' first Gay Straight
>Alliance meeting of the school year, where 19 kids seated on the linoleum
>floor
>
>try to explain to me what the GSA has meant to them. "It's a place of
>freedom, where I can just be myself," a preppy boy in basketball shorts
>says. This
>
>GSA, Sam Johnson's legacy, held its first meeting shortly after her death
>under the tutelage of teacher Fietek, and has been a crucial place for LGBT
>kids
>
>and their friends to find support and learn coping skills. Though still a
>source of local controversy, there is now a student-initiated GSA in every
>Anoka-Hennepin
>
>middle and high school. As three advisers look on, the kids gush about how
>affirming the club is - and how necessary, in light of how unsafe they
>continue
>
>to feel at school. "I'll still get bullied to the point where-" begins a
>skinny eighth-grade girl, then takes a breath. "I actually had to go to the
>hospital
>
>for suicide," she continues, looking at the floor. "I just recently stopped
>cutting because of bullying."
>
>I ask for a show of hands: How many of you feel safe at school? Of the 19
>kids assembled, two raise their hands. The feeling of insecurity continues
>to
>
>reverberate particularly through the Anoka-Hennepin middle schools these
>days, in the wake of the district's ninth suicide. In May, Northdale Middle
>School's
>
>Jordan Yenor, a 14-year-old with no evident LGBT connection, took his life.
>Psychologist Cashen says that at Northdale Middle alone this school year,
>several
>
>students have been hospitalized for mental-health issues, and at least 14
>more assessed for suicidal ideation; for a quarter of them, she says,
>"Sexual
>
>orientation was in the mix."
>
>A slight boy with an asymmetrical haircut speaks in a soft voice. "What this
>GSA means to me, is: In sixth grade my, my only friend here, committed
>suicide."
>
>The room goes still. He's talking about Samantha. The boy starts to cry.
>"She was the one who reached out to me." He doubles over in tears, and
>everyone
>
>collapses on top of him in a group hug. From somewhere in the pile, he
>continues to speak in a trembling voice: "I joined the GSA 'cause I wanted
>to be
>
>just like her. I wanted to be nice and - loved."
>
>
>
>Not merely galactically stupid ignoramuses, Bachmann -- along with her
>fellow travelers -- are malevolent hate-filled bigots, sociopaths,
>misanthropes and
>
>sadists; there is blood on their hands, a fact of which they take great
>pride.
>
>That she -- and her ilk -- have the obscene temerity to call themselves
>"Christians" is out-and-out BLASPHEMY, for the word literally means
>"Christ-like,"
>
>a quality NONE of them even remotely posses. THEY are the abominations.
>
>Moreover, unable to distinguish personal subjective experience from the
>reality of the external world, these cretins satisfy the medical criteria
>for a
>
>diagnosis of psychosis; that is, they are literally mentally ill.
>
>Homosexuality is as much a part of nature and the natural world as are,
>alas, the cretins who claim otherwise.
>
>The cruel irony is that many of these bible-beating bunko artists are
>perfectly described by a line from one of Shakespeare's better-known plays:
>"The
>
>lady doth protest too much, methinks" (Hamlet: Act III, Scene II).
>
>Finally, as a Lutheran pastor once said in a sermon, "How can those of you
>who have not the slightest notion of what goes on in the minds of your dogs
>
>and cats presume to know what God is thinking?" In fact, they can't.
>
>
>
><http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/one-towns-war-on-gay-teens-20120202>http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/one-towns-war-on-gay-teens-20120202
>
>
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>blindlgbtpride at acb.org
>http://www.acb.org/mailman/listinfo/blindlgbtpride
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