https://www.rawstory.com/anti-lgbt-bullying/
Grieving parents in Tennessee are urging everyone to get educated about bullying after their 12-year-old son, Eli Fritchley, took his own life.
His mother, Debbey, told WKRN-TV last week that her son wore his beloved SpongeBob sweatshirt nearly every day.
“I think probably because he was in the same clothes every single day that they used that as a weapon,” she said. “He was told because he didn’t necessarily have a religion and that he said he was gay that he was going to go to hell. They told him that quite often.”
His father, Steve, said the bullying was “really abusive.”
“I don’t think it was ever physical. I think it was just words, but words hurt. They really hurt,” he explained.
The Fritchleys now hope to launch a foundation to fight bullying and promote suicide awareness. Their GoFundMe page has received more than $12,000 donations so far.
Scottie's Playtime 
😞😢
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Hello Nan. I agree. Horribly sad. Hugs
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This has happened everywhere; not long ago a friend of ours’s son did this. The family is Catholic, and mom made sure the kids attended, were confirmed, etc. This beautiful, intelligent kid died by his own hand because he believed he would go to hell, and that his parents could, too.
We were making progress on full personhood for all born humans. I’m worried, though, that the side who bullies is going to change it all back. It’s gone beyond backlash, it seems to me.
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Hello Ali. I am sorry for your friends loss and the loss of their child’s life. You have to wonder at parents who put a religion over their own child? If their god was just he would give a special spot in the best heavens for the abused and hurting children. I have always felt that pushing the idea of hell on kids too young to really understand it is child abuse. Look at it this way, remove the religion. If I have a child living with me, or I gave kids lectures where I promised them I was going to take them from their parents / their lives to place them in a dungeon I created just to torture them for not loving me as much as I demand and described in detail how I would burn them and hurt them … I would be arrested. No if, ands, or buts. Put you add a religion and it is suddenly thought of as a good thing. Hugs
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EXCELLENT points, Scottie! And yet the “believers” are TOTALLY blind to this reasoning.
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Tennessee. Yeah, it’s one of those theocracy states. Ban (burn) books and suppress knowledge.
“Dual legislation aimed at enacting a “parental library review board” was introduced in Tennessee. The suggested board would be an elected group of adult volunteers who would decide to move or remove books they deemed to contain “age-inappropriate sexual material.” Senate Bill 2896 along with its mirror, House Bill 2721 are very similar to recent legislation proposed by Rep. Ben Baker in Missouri. As with the Missouri bill, libraries would lose funding for noncompliance and librarians would be criminally charged for offering minors materials the board felt weren’t age-appropriate. Baker has claimed his bill isn’t to ban books, but to prevent events like Drag Queen Storytime.”
We have to consider this as part of the reason we have seen the rise in young people committing suicide. The very books intended to help children find themselves and where they belong in this world they have been born into are the very books targeted by the church that is so fearful of intellectual growth that it would burn every book that opposes their lies.
Why? Because they cannot stand up to any scrutiny. They own fear and hatred and it is reflected in their offspring, represented here by their children expressing it toward an innocent child. I wonder how many of them hide what/who they really are behind an overzealous assault on those who have the innocence and courage to say who they are.
I was once a Christian but I have long since repented of that way. This much hatred can only come through religion.
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Hello Cagjr. I agree with you, but it is even worse than you described. One reason they are trying to remove all books about LGBTQ+ is the same reason Russia passed the laws banning any positive display or information about LGBTQ+. How did gay people become accepted by society? Because we came out in every community, we came out to our parents. We were their brothers / sisters, we were their doctors, lawyers, grocery store workers. We were their neighbors. They realized we were the people they liked before they knew we were gay so they realized we were decent people after they knew. Movies showed gay people in positive ways instead of the tropes or villains of the past helped people see gay people as good people. So if you want kids to hate gay people, to hate themselves for being gay your remove any positive mention of gay people, you take them off TV and movies, only show them in the most horrible ways. When Russia implemented their anti-gay laws gay rights were on the rise and supported by the majority of people. Now it has been totally reversed. Gay people are pariahs in society, because there is no other view of them in the media for people to see.
The religious right wants to make LGBTQ+ disappear. I often say Republicans want to take the country back to a time when white Christian men were in charge of everything and women were their subservient sexual playthings who couldn’t say no, people of color knew their place and did not challenge that, and LGBTQ+ were not heard but in hiding never daring to be out or open about themselves. It was not only okay but expected that white men would attack anyone that challenged that social order. That is the world the right wants. Hugs
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