A deadly clash of emotions before Oxnard shooting

March 09, 2008



For teens living in a shelter for abused and neglected children, school can provide a daily dose of normalcy, a place to fit in, a chance to be just another kid.

It didn't turn out that way for Lawrence King.



According to the few students who befriended him, Larry, 15 years old and openly gay, found no refuge from his tormentors at E.O. Green Junior High School.

Not in the classroom, the quad, the cafeteria. Not from the day he enrolled at the Oxnard school until the moment he was shot to death in a computer lab, just after Larry's usual morning van ride from the shelter a town away.

The 14-year-old accused of killing him, Brandon McInerney, had his own troubled home life when he was younger, with his parents accusing each other of drug addiction and physical assaults, court records show. The year before Brandon was born, his father allegedly shot the boy's mother in the arm, shattering her elbow, the records say.

Now, as the Feb. 12 killing continues to draw attention from around the world, students, parents and others wonder if red flags in the boys' circumstances and backgrounds had been missed and whether more could have been done to avert the tragedy.

"The question needs to be answered," said Ventura County Supervisor John Flynn, whose district includes E.O. Green. "It really bothers me a lot."

The anti-gay taunts and slurs that Larry endured from his male peers apparently had been constant, as routine for him as math lessons and recess bells. The stinging words were isolating. As grieving friend Melissa Reza, 15, put it, Larry lived much of his life "toward the side. . . . He was always toward the side."

She and others recall that the name-calling began long before he told his small circle of confidants that he was gay, before problems at home made him a ward of the court, and before he summoned the courage to further assert his sexual orientation by wearing makeup and girl's boots with his school uniform.

His friends say the verbal cruelty persisted for months, and grew worse after the slightly built Larry pushed back by "flirting" with some of his mockers. One of them was Brandon, who seethed over it, the friends say

A deadly clash of emotions before Oxnard shooting Los Angeles Times

FACES of HOMOPHOBIA

FACES of HOMOPHOBIA
A lot of good things are happening in Canada, and many people have become more open-minded and accepting of other people. Homophobia, though, is not yet dead.

What is HOMOPHOBIA?
An unrealistic or irrational fear of homosexuality. Homophobia is perpetuated by the negative stereotypes and misconceptions that surround the subject of homosexuality. Homophobia can lead to hatred, discrimination, and violence against homosexuals.

What is HETEROSEXISM?
The assumption that everyone is heterosexual, and that heterosexuality is somehow superior to homosexuality.

Gay youth suffer from homophobia and heterosexism every day, at home, with friends, at work and at school. Here several gay youth describe things that have happened to them.

“My parents think being gay is an illness, a sickness, a pathology.”

“I was bashed at summer school, and my mum told me not to hold hands or anything like that. Basically she was telling me ‘It’s your fault’”.

“People tell me it’s okay to be gay, but that they just don’t want me to ACT gay. They don’t want me to be myself.”

“When I was sick my grandmother implied I must have AIDS since I’m gay.”

“One day I was on the bus and this girl who really didn’t like me and the fact that I’d come out as gay was on the bus too. She started calling me a faggot and a cocksucker really loud on the bus. She went up to this one guy and said ‘This guy sucks cock’, and then this guy started saying to me ‘That’s bad, you shouldn’t do that.’”

“Once in grade 9 I was cleaning the costume storage room with two guys. One of these guys used to be my friend. But he encouraged the other guy to whip a spoon of wet slushee at me. I was wearing a white t-shirt and it got all over me.”

“My friend says she doesn’t like gay people, but that I’m different from other gay people.”

I was at the park one day and I was making out with someone. Then a guy walked by and said “Are you 2 girls? That’s bad, bad, bad.”

Internalized Homophobia or Can a gay person be homophobic?

Yes, a gay person can indeed be homophobic! Just like a person of colour can be racist, and a girl can be sexist against girls. In this case it's called "internalized homophobia".

What it means is that you've absorbed and that you even to some extent believe the negative messages about yourself that society has given you.

When everyone around you is saying something bad about the group you belong to, it's hard not to absorb some of their attitudes. A part of you may know that they are wrong, but at the same time, a part of you may be terrified that they are right.

Here the Out and Proud group describes the internalized homophobia they've felt and seen.

I was getting angry with myself all the time. I’d already come out but I still didn’t like the fact that I was gay. One day in the winter I sat outside for 3 hours without a coat. When my friends came my lips were blue and they had to help me. I was trying to force myself to stop thinking, and I was also trying to change myself, to make myself straight.

We were making a mosaic of queer people in the gay village. This guy came by and said to us, “It’s bad enough to be gay; you don’t have to advertise it.” And he was going into the bathouse!

I was having a war with myself, because I knew I was gay and I knew my family wouldn’t accept me. I was afraid they would reject me.

A lot of gay people I know say that we shouldn’t “advertise it”. But I think the only way to fight homophobia is to bring it in their face.

I know gay people who make homophobic judgements and comments.

I was always battling being gay, and I thought all my problems were because I was gay.

I think a lot of internalized homophobia comes from religion. Like the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

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Life, Interrupted

For The Bible Tells Me So

Petition for Ellen Degeneres to Come to Madison WI

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Added: February 18, 2008
Video petition for Ellen Degeneres to come to Madison, WI to speak at the Breaking the Silence Rally on the National Day of Silence, April 25, 2008. Because frankly, it would be amazing.