Down
in El Paso, Texas, Brandon Elizares, a sixteen-year-old Andres
High School student killed himself last Saturday after being bullied for over
two years.
He was openly gay.
"He
got bullied simply for being gay," his mother, Zachalyn Elizares said. "He's been threatened to be
stabbed. He's been threatened to be set on fire."
For
being gay.
But,
what makes this story different, is that Zachalyn Elizares
reported the bullying to the school district, and she says they did all they
could to stop it.
"They've
reprimanded several kids and they did everything that they could,"
Elizares said.
But,
Brandon friends say that last Friday, after more episodes of
bullying, someone insulted her son and planned to fight him the next week.
On
Saturday, after running errands, Zachalyn Elizares came home to
find her son's body: "My son had every right to live his life the way
that he wanted to, without having to fear that people would call him names or
threaten to beat him up," she said.
And
he did, as do all LGBTQ youth. But how can they, when we live in a world that
sees politicians consistently tell them they have no value, that they have no
rights that they are less then.
How
can any young LGBT person feel safe in this country when you have pastors and
preachers and so-called men of god saying we need to be locked up, or that the government
needs to kill us?
How
can we expect children to treat LGBTQ youth with compassion and tolerance and
acceptance when they are being taught every day by religious leaders and
political leaders to do otherwise?
