Tonight: Moment of Silence

The Trevor Project, the only nationwide, 24-hour crisis/suicide hotline for LGBT people, is asking for a moment of silence tonight for the five kids who have killed themselves in the past three weeks after being bullied. Three were middle schoolers, and two were college kids, including the boy from Rutgers.

We encourage all people who feel connected to these tragic events, whether friends, family, peers, community members, and sympathetic human beings to pause today at 8:00 PM Eastern, 5:00 PM Pacific for a moment of silence and reflection in remembrance of Raymond Chase, Tyler Clementi, Seth Walsh, Asher Brown and Billy Lucas.

I should point out that, according to the things I've read, not all of these boys - particularly Seth, Asher, and Billy, the youngest of whom was 11 - were necessarily gay. But when they were bullied, that's what people called them, and being called gay, whether it was true or not, was such a terrible thing that they killed themselves.

All of these stories are discussed over at The Bilerico Project. And a UU blog I read has a discussion of it here.