We've seen what can happen to LGBT youth, or even those perceived to be, in a community where the culture is hard-right, fundamentalist Christian. Think: Anoka-Hennepin. If you're unfamiliar with that, google it. It's definitely not something that we would want to revisit. Yet, revisiting it may be exactly what we're doing right now.
Cody Strauss and Sarah Carman we boyfriend/girlfriend for 2 years. Sarah was a friend of "Anonymous". In 2008, a horrific automobile accident left Cody severely injured, comatose, and rendered to a rehabilitation home. Sarah stayed, stoically, by his side. "I love Cody with all my heart and soul", Sarah wrote in her blog. That was July 10th, 2009. August 22nd, they were both gone. Sarah's death was ruled a suicide, with a single gunshot to the head; Cody's, however, was ruled "undertermined". He suffered two gunshots to his chest. Was it a murder/suicide? Three years of "investigation" has done nothing to answer that question. However, it is the belief of "Anonymous" that Cody and Sarah both committed suicide on that day. According to "Anonymous", they had both been bullied. The rub is that the Hays County Sheriffs didn't investigate the bullying aspect. It's as if it was swept under the rug. Meanwhile, we're just short of three years since the tragic event, and neither family has any answers. Says Debra Carman, Sarah's mother:
I do believe that Sarah did not kill herself, I know she didn't. I know in my heart as a mother, I just know.Twenty months later, another friend of hers from Dripping Springs High School, Jesse Hunt, went home from school and committed suicide. He, too, had been bullied. This time, rather than drag out an ineffective "investigation", Jesse's suicide was completely swept under the rug: no news about it either in the local papers or on television. And, suddenly, we have what appears to have the potential of another Anoka-Hennepin on our hands. The making of another suicide cluster.
The common threads here are that all three of the victims have all been from the same school. All three had been bullied. All three committed suicide. Neither case is being treated as a component of being bullied. None of the three were LGBT teens. Then again, not all of the teens from Anoka-Hennepin were, either. And, that doesn't matter one iota. LGBT teens aren't the only ones who are bullied. They are not the only ones who commit suicide nor are their suicides the only ones we're working tirelessly to prevent. What matters here is the fact that, as was the case in Minnesota not to very long ago, there's a rash of teen suicides that are being swept under the rug. Seemingly overlooked. In Anoka-Hennepin, we know that the fact that the majority of the teens who ended their lives were LGBT and that that region was (and, still is) far right-wing, very "Christian". As such, LGBT teens, even those who were perceived to be!, committing suicide just wasn't very high on their list of misguided priorities.
We cannot afford to see a repeat of what happened in Minnesota just a few short years ago.
