What Happens in Vegas: Las Vegas Sign Goes Purple for Spirit Day

Spirit Day is something I wasn't familiar with until last year, but it is a day to stand up and show your support against bullying by wearing or displaying the color purple. It has a heavy focus on gay people who have been or are victims of bullies, but is not exclusively about "the gay." Regardless, there is a bit of bewilderment on my part, knowing that the sign company that owns and is putting up the purple on the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign is--or at least was founded by--Mormons. Color me pleasantly surprised!

Image from The Gay & Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada

Romney Apparently a Forgetful, Homophobic Bully

No doubt, he was a good looking kid. Image from
source, New York Times

Politicians often have conveniently selective memories. In the case of Mitt Romney's anti-gay bullying of another student in the 1960s, it makes you wonder if he only forgets because of their frequency? Because if this was an anomaly, something very out of character , how could he possibly forget it?

Some might be tempted to dismiss this as an old story, fifty years, irrelevant. But is it? This is the case of an alpha male in an all-boys school leading the charge to bully a kid. It was scarring enough to bother the others involved, and the victim (now deceased). But Romney doesn't remember. Though he does remember--somehow--that it wasn't over the other kid's sexuality. Riiiiight.

Here's a little nugget that I haven't seen discussed though. This gay kid (presumed to be gay at the time) had bleached blond hair, and it was arranged "differently," apparently hanging in his face. But this was the 1960s, a time of change in America's youth. The target of Romney's ire, John Lauber, may have been an early adopter of the longer hair that very quickly became popular. And Romney looks every inch the square who would fight that, doesn't he? Romney is like the enemy in any movie like Revenge of the Nerds, except that those jerks are supposed to get their comeuppance. Not become gazillionaire presidential candidates.


[Excerpt]


50 Years Later, a Bullying Case Snares Romney

The day after President Obama endorsed gay marriage, Mitt Romney found himself responding to allegations that as a teenager he harassed a prep school classmate who later came out as gay. . .

Read more at: The New York Times

Anti-Gay Bully Found Guilty of Major Counts

Tyler Clemeni, the student driven to suicide
by bullying. Source: Towleroad

The topic of suicide among gay youths is a troublesome and sad one. On one hand, publicizing a rash of such suicides makes people aware of the problem. On the other hand, suicides among young people can sometimes catch like wildfire. For whatever reason, the act seems to be contagious. So, making it too big an issue can make the problem worse.

The guilty verdicts in a case of a bully whose actions resulted in a suicide are nonetheless welcome, and a bit surprising. Critics will say that the verdicts punish thought, and that we can't know what the accused's motivations were. Guaranteed, there are people saying he was convicted of "thought crime," right now over at FreeRepublic.com. But these kinds of criminal activities often result in reduced charges, and in light punishment. The "Twinkie defense" in the case of Harvey Milk's assassin is but one of many examples of light treatment afforded to anti-gay criminals. So it is heartening to see when the system works.  Then again, we haven't seen the sentence yet, so I could be getting ahead of myself.

[Excerpt]

Dharun Ravi Found Guilty of Major Counts in Tyler Clementi Case


After 12 hours of deliberation, the jury in the Dharun Ravi case today returned a verdict, and Ravi has been found guilty on a number of major counts including bias intimidation and invasion of privacy that could land him in prison for 10 years. . . 


Read more at: Towleroad