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Bullied gay teen who hanged himself dies
Jadin Bell, a 15-year-old from Oregon, hanged himself on an elementary school playground after homophobic bullying
A 15-year-old bullied gay teen who hanged himself two weeks ago died yesterday (3 February).
Jadin Bell was taken to Portland hospital in Oregon on 19 January after he hanged himself on a playground at an elementary school.
Bud Hill, a close family friend, said the teen had complained of homophobic bullying a week before and had talked to a counselor at his local high school.
‘He was different, and they tend to pick on the different ones,’ he said.
Bell was a sophomore, and a member of the cheerleading squad.
‘If someone was down and out he would walk into a room and say a couple quick words and everybody would just forget about their problems and smile,’ Hill said. ‘He just had a gift.’
More than 200 people attended a vigil two weeks ago in honor of the teen.
After the event, friend Jody Bullock said: ‘He is amazingly sensitive. If he saw a wounded butterfly he wanted to heal it… He is an amazing young man who is smart and very social; he has a personal and a presence that you want to be a part of.’
In September 2010, the It Gets Better project launched in response to the number of gay teens taking their own life. Since then, it has inspired more than 50,000 videos which have been viewed over 50 million times.
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Comments
How unfortunate. My heart goes out to the family.
Now, Dan Savage and his celebrity friends can all gather around this young man's grave and tell him about how "It Gets Better".
When are we going to realize that the only way any of this "gets better" is when real change happens as opposed to vague promises of "West Hollywood"?
In my province (and - I assure you - Canada and its provinces are a million miles ahead of all of the U.S. in differently gendered rights and protections) we still do not have a single mention in the provincial curriculum regarding anything differently gendered. That means that all the provincial grade 12 graduates may never hear the word homosexual from a teachers mouth. Most never do. It may be discussed if a child brings the matter up, but that is up to the teacher's discretion. And most individuals are woefully unprepared to teach ANYTHING on this subject.
Most differently gendered individuals are unwilling to acknowledge this reality. Instead, if you make enough fuss, they will slip differently gendered matters into your child's classroom, but yours would be one of a very few and the teacher more than likely would get the information wrong.
And those differently gendered individuals who are in positions of power are too tokened or sold out out to actually do anything for fear of threat to their paychecks. This is true of most media as well. In fact, at gay pride in Manitoba last year, one of the gay "celebrities" declared all the work done and finished.
Well, there is a lot more work to do. But, just to show you how much we are not about getting to the work because of our fears, watch your brothers and sisters busy themselves with attacking this truth I've printed so that they don't have to deal with their fear and reality. Or, rather, they'll start singing to our poor victims that "It Gets Better". Well, I would never do that. I find it repugnant and disgusting. Sometimes it doesn't get better. We had a young man in Ottawa last year who came out at school BECAUSE he thought the "It Gets Better" campaign meant it was safe to do so. He is now dead in a grave at his own hand. Well, Dan Savage, if there was no better proof of the uselessness, malfeasance and danger of your campaign, it lies there with that young man's hopes and dreams. SHAME.