Ky. Girl Acquitted in Alleged Attack on Lesbian Classmate

The youngest of three defendants in an alleged hate crime in Jackson County, Kentucky, has been acquitted, reported local newspaper the Lexington Herald-Leader in an Aug. 18 story.

The judge in the case dismissed the charges without hearing any defense witnesses, the article said. District Judge Henria Bailey-Lewis declared the defendant innocent after seeing evidence from the prosecution. The 17-year-old girl--who was not identified due to her youth--faced the same charges as the other two young women in the case, leading to speculation that the charges against all three would be dropped.

The article noted that the alleged attack had been partially recorded by the plaintiff, Cheyenne Williams, on Williams' cell phone. Lawyers for the three girls whom Williams accused of planning to throw her over a cliff and bash in the head with a rock had contended that the incident was actually an attempt to create an amateur video, and there was no intention to do Williams any harm. Authorities noted that Williams appeared to be laughing in the cell phone video recording.

The story gained national attention because of the claim that the incident was a hate crime against Williams, who is an open lesbian. Moreover, the incident took place on April 16--the same day as the girls' school observed the National Day of Silence, when GLTB youth and their supporters in schools across the country vow not to speak outside of class as a means of illustrating the powerlessness and lack of voice they feel.

The four girls involved in the incident were friends at the time, reported the Lexington Herald-Leader on April 22. On the day of the alleged attack, students at the girls' school, Jackson County High School, had worn stickers proclaiming their participation in the Day of Silence; other students, the paper said, countered by wearing anti-gay stickers. The school's principal ordered that all the stickers be removed, to head off possible confrontations.

The four girls were all seniors at Jackson County High School. They reportedly drove to an area known as Flat Lick Falls, where the incident transpired. Williams said that she had thought her friends were joking, but then had grew frightened; she claims that she was kidnapped and struck with sticks, but that she managed to escape. The girls later found her and forced her back into their vehicle, Williams claimed, going on to say that the girls warned her to keep quiet before allowing her to go free.

Sams and Schwab turned themselves in to authorities when they learned that Williams was pressing charges, the Herald-Leader reported. They were scheduled to be tried on Aug. 19.

The lawyer for the acquitted minor, Sharon K. Allen Gay, said in a statement, "For the past four months the juvenile has not only faced the false accusations made by Cheyenne Williams, but also the judgment of all those individuals who heard the allegations and presumed the juvenile to be guilty." Added the attorney, "We are thankful that the criminal justice system still works, and that the truth has come out."

Williams faced the prospect of legal counterattack when Schwab sought to bring perjury charges against Williams by swearing out a private party complaint of perjury. Sams also indicated a wish to swear out a complaint against Williams for perjury.

Anti-gay groups have criticized have criticized the Day of Silence as mere politics by gays and LGBT advocates, but have further politicized the day by encouraging parents to pull their children out of schools where the event is allowed to take place. Students are allowed to refuse to speak when not called on in class; students participating in the Day of Silence do respond when called on in class, but refuse to speak outside of class, handing out pre-printed cards explaining that their silence symbolizes the lack of voice that GLBT youth experience.

Anti-gay groups tell parents that the Day of Silence is a form of inculcation designed to promote a "gay agenda." Talking points posted by anti-gay groups claim that homosexuality is a "choice" of "lifestyle," and deny that homosexuality is an ineradicable part of a person's identity. Anti-gay groups also claim that the expression of anti-gay views should not be identified as a form of bullying. Prejudice against gays, the groups claim, is not equivalent to racism, since gays can "choose" to be heterosexual.

By encouraging parents to pull their children from school for the day, anti-gay groups hope to hurt schools' bottom line, since schools are funded based on attendance. However, advocates for safe schools note that anti-gay harassment causes many GLBT students to cut classes and eventually to drop out completely.

Suicides-and Safe Schools

However, a string of suicides by young students harassed by their classmates for being gay--even when they were not--has brought the issue of safe schools into sharper focus in recent years. In the first half of 2009 alone there were five such instances of harassed young students taking their own life.

Eleven-year-old Jeheem Herrera, a fifth grader, reportedly endured harassment and bullying at his DeKalb, Georgia school, despite a state law meant to prohibit it. Moreover, schools in DeKalb specifically forbid bullying (including "cyber-bullying" via the Internet), with strict penalties in place for infractions.

But that wasn't enough to prevent Herrera's suffering and suicide, reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an April 21, 2009, article which cited the boy's family as saying that Herrera had endured "relentless" bullying at Dunaire Elementary School.

Jennifer Errion, speaking for the school, was quoted as saying that anti-bullying laws and policies did not constitute "a vaccine" against such harassment. Errion added that such laws exist in the context of "a society that is often misguided. We've created the idea that bullying is a rite of passage, and I don't think it is."

Herrera reportedly hung himself with a belt after returning home from school on April 16. His younger sister discovered the body. According to Herrera's stepfather, kids at school "called him gay and a snitch. All the time they'd call him this."

Herrera's mother told the media that when she asked her son's friend about the bullying Herrera reportedly endured, "He said, 'Yes ma'am. He told me that he's tired of everybody always messing with him in school.' " The friend added, " 'He is tired of telling the teachers and the staff, and they never do anything about the problems. So, the only way out is by killing himself.' "

Herrera's death took place the day before the 2009 Day of Silence, which, as reported at EDGE in an April 17, 2009, article was, in some places, dedicated to the memory of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, another 11-year-old suicide victim.

Walker-Hoover apparently hung himself on April 6, 2009, in Springfield, Massachusetts. The fifth-grader reportedly suffered anti-gay taunts at school despite his mother's reportedly "weekly" attempts to get the school's administration to intervene.

"Some students are holding the day this year in memory of Carl Walker-Hoover, an 11-year-old from Springfield, Mass., who took his life April 6 after enduring constant bullying at school, including anti-LGBT attacks," a news release from the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) read. "Carl, who did not identify as gay, would have turned 12 on the Day of Silence," noted the release from GLSEN, which is a national advocate of safe schools and GLBT youth.

The April 17, 2009, edition of the New York Times took note of the rash of suicides among middle and elementary schoolers, in a column by Judith Warner titled, "Dude, You've Got Problems." Warner started her op-ed piece by citing Walker-Hoover's suicide, as well as that of Eric Mohat, 17-year-old student who shot himself after being invited to do so by a classmate who told him, "Why don't you go home and shoot yourself; no one will miss you." Mohat, Warner reported, had been subjected to long-term bullying over his perceived sexual orientation--but school personnel did nothing to intervene.

But sexual orientation, real or perceived, is only part of the picture. Wrote Warner, "Being called a 'fag,' you see, actually has almost nothing to do with being gay." Warner went on to write, "Words like 'fag' and 'gay' are now among the most potent and feared weapons in the school bully's arsenal."

Added Warner, "It's really about showing any perceived weakness or femininity--by being emotional, seeming incompetent, caring too much about clothing, liking to dance or even having an interest in literature."

The EDGE article noted, "[A]s study after study has shown, a good deal of gay bashing comes from personal gay panic," or a fear by the individual attacking those perceived to be gay that he might be gay himself, and referenced a YouTube video in which a 12-year-old claims to be an "ex-gay," or a person who has experienced same-sex attraction but "overcome" such attraction and "converted" to heterosexuality. That young boy, the story said, had himself been harassed, with tormentors inviting him to kill himself.

The article also noted that a normal part of human sexual development includes a period of same-sex attraction--even for those who eventually find that they are heterosexual.

Such "gay panic" makes it hard to put relevant legislation and school policies into place in a timely manner. Even with such laws and policies in place, the question of enforcement is never a certainty. To add to the confusion, there are some religious and conservative groups that appear to implicitly condone, if not approve of, anti-gay bullying in schools. In some states where anti-bullying legislation has been deliberated, anti-gay groups have objected on the grounds that law against attacking GLBT students might "promote" a homosexual "lifestyle."