Suicide linked to webcast of sexual encounter

Originally Posted By wahooskipper

First off, I have to give Ellen props for the way she handled that plea for compassion. I was a big fan of hers until she came out on her sitcom. I didn't dislike her after that because she came out but because the entire show became about her being gay and, well, frankly became unfunny.

But, she resurrected her career and I do love her talk show. Maybe has something to do with it not being all about her being gay and instead about her being talented, funny and interesting.

As for hate crime legislation, particularly in regards to bullying, I'm not an advocate of gay people having additional protections. Bullying should be treated as a single issue that we don't tolerate.

I got bullied not because I was gay but because I had friends who were. Some of the bullying was aggressive and, if not for my size, I'm certain I would have had many physical altercations. If those bullies had been both my friends and I up should their punishment have been harsher because he beat up the gay guys? Or, should it be less because they beat up me...a heterosexual?

Instead of finding reasons for us to be divided on the issue of bullying I think we need to come together and say it shouldn't be tolerated...no matter the victim.

 

Originally Posted By Mr X

You miss the entire point (as does, I daresay, Churromonster).

It's not as though they are getting *special* treatment by being on an "included but not limited to" list, no more than blacks or catholics or any other "group" that ends up on the receiving end of persecution.

It's so that, when it inevitably DOES happen, you've removed any possible excuse the assailant has for any potential motivation arguments.

You, as a bystander or defender, would be more than covered by "not limited to"...a gay person under attack might not be IF the authority figures in question decide they don't like them.

Ask yourself why lynchings were so much more common back before the era of civil rights. Do you see my point?

 

Originally Posted By Mr X

***I'm not an advocate of gay people having additional protections***

Would you say the same if the victims in question were black kids in a predominantly white area where hate crimes against black kids were common?

 

Originally Posted By wahooskipper

Yes. I'd say the same thing. I'd say any time one person beats up/attacks or otherwise harms someone else there is hate involved.

 

Originally Posted By Mr X

It seems then that you and I can't see eye to eye on this issue at all.

There ARE times when entire GROUPS are intimidated and threatened by the actions of some intent on scaring, harming, and otherwise intimidating the group they hate (oftentimes killing is involved as well).

It's called bigotry.

And when it grows violent, that's when hate crimes laws are needed. Or else it swells and gains ground and leads to all sorts of horrible ends.

I can't believe you are blind to that fact.

 

Originally Posted By Mr X

***I'd say any time one person beats up/attacks or otherwise harms someone else there is hate involved***

To quote Zephram Cochrane (yes, I'm a geek), that's rhetorical nonsense.

"hate crime" refers to racist or bigoted actions intended to intimidate and terrorize.

And I'm reasonably sure you know that.

 

Originally Posted By wahooskipper

I do know the reason behind hate crime legislation but I'm just not convinced it is the way to approach it.

If I beat the crap out of you because you are gay is that any worse than me beating the crap out of you because I don't like that you wear an earring?

I don't know how you legislate what is in someone's mind and, as a result, make that an effective deterrent.

 

Originally Posted By Mr X

So then, you would eliminate motive as a factor for *any* crimes?

 

Originally Posted By wahooskipper

I have to admit X, I'm not well versed in the law.

I am a while, heterosexual guy so I fully admit I'm not likely to be the vitim of a hate-based crime. If I was beat to near death becuase I am bald I'm not sure I'd feel any better about that then if I was beat to near death because I was gay.

What I do think is that the discussion of who is or is not included in this discussion is a distraction from the main point...which is that bullying is still a largely unaddressed problem in society.

I was in the band, chorus, drama club and was an office assistant. While not gay I took my share of bullying in school and any effort to reduce that is fine by me.

 

Originally Posted By disneydad109

I don't think they set out to hurt this young man.It looks like a joke gone bad.I haven heard that they disliked each other and they were roomies.the worse is that one sweet kid dead and some others ruined their lives and it was just over something so dumb.
maybe some other folks will learn to think before they act and give so time to think as to how thier victims are going to feel.

 

Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder

In the law, many things have a "but for" test. Here, but for the fact a person is gay, he or she wouldn't be beaten up. However, the person's gay, so they're attacked. If the sole motivation for the crime is because the object of the attack is gay, represents gays (or substitute a religion or gender based reason for being gay), then it's generally going to have a "hate crime" enhancement.

 

Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder

Post 51 referred to a hypothetical of someone getting beaten up for being gay. The topic of thread, the analysis would be that but for the fact the student was thought to be gay by having sex with a man, no one would have taped him doing it and then shown it to everyone.

 

Originally Posted By disneydad109

I am not sure that one can infer that the fact the victim was having sex with one sex or another was the reason this was shown.The motive may have nothing to do with the object of the sex act.
It will have be proven in court that the reason,and only reason, this was shown was due to the sex of the people in the broadcast.
One can always assume that someone may look just a little funny while having sex and this alone maybe cause someone to ythink it funny show it.
college age thinking.

 

Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder

This all reminds me of something else. A 2007 California Supreme Court decision made it permissible to publish exact names and salaries of all government employees. Recently, the L.A. Times saw fit to publish L.A. Unified School District teachers' performance evaluations along with the names that go with them. The manner by which teachers are evaluated is under considerable debate, as a portion of the evaluation is tied to test scores. A teacher can be great in the classroom, but if parents don't hold up their end, then test scores suffer.

Anyway, a young hispanic male teacher in his 30's, teaching in a rough area, had his less than favorable score published. He was outed as being in the lower end. People wrote in to the discussion boards papers have like this one, demanding he be fired along with others like him. He wasn't necessarily singled out by the public, but anyone who knew him now could see this information.

He killed himself, and his family says it was because of the publishing of the evaulation.

 

Originally Posted By Anatole69

I can't read the original link from here in Thailand. Does anyone have another link to the story?

- Anatole

 

Originally Posted By Anatole69

I can't read the original link from here in Thailand. Does anyone have another link to the story?

- Anatole

 

Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder

You can't see it because you're likely seeing double.

 

Originally Posted By disneydad109

The news agencies will tell you that the public has a right to know some facts . A teacher who is not doing their job may be someone who the public needs to know about.If he was the person who was teaching my child I would like this info.
If the fault lies with my child then I need to know that also.

 

Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder

"The news agencies will tell you that the public has a right to know some facts . A teacher who is not doing their job may be someone who the public needs to know about.If he was the person who was teaching my child I would like this info.
If the fault lies with my child then I need to know that also."

Not to hijack this thread, but if you have a child in school, there are many ways to find out this type of information without having it globally published, especially when the methodology used to form the evaluation very likely is flawed. Therein lies the heart of this particular debate.

 

Originally Posted By gurgitoy2

"I don't think they set out to hurt this young man.It looks like a joke gone bad.I haven heard that they disliked each other and they were roomies.the worse is that one sweet kid dead and some others ruined their lives and it was just over something so dumb.
maybe some other folks will learn to think before they act and give so time to think as to how thier victims are going to feel."

I'm not sure it's even cool if it was a "joke". When is it ever ok to videotape somebody's very private lives just "as a joke"? I mean, careers are ruined when "sex tapes" leak, or at least reputations are. It could be that maybe it wasn't the fact that this kid was "outed" as gay, but maybe it was out of embarrassment of having a very private moment exposed to all. I don't think in ANY circumstance, gay, straight, whatever, you should film something like that without permission. And certainly not be able to post it publicly. I think that goes way beyond a simple prank.