Posted on February 25 at 4:54 p.m.

Fortunately kids like McInerney are rare. But they're tough to identify because psychoses come in infinite varieties. If schools are lucky, they might uncover a child capable of murder before that child actually commits murder and shunt them away from others. But that's about all schools can hope to do. And sometimes – maybe even most of the time – they may not even be able or allowed to do that.

Apparently in this case McInerney's awful mind and demon impulses were triggered by King's sexuality. Would the crime have been less horrifying if McInerney had killed him for some other reason? No.

Are gay kids more "vulnerable" than others to violence? It seems so. But all kids are vulnerable to some degree. And virtually all kids are capable of violence to some degree.

The problem here was one kid capable of and ready to commit an act of extreme violence – a murderer ready to happen. Such kids are rare but they have always been and will always be among us. We should try and do everything to dissuade them from indulging their demons. But we’ll never be perfect at it. Never.

The E.O. Green School isn’t complicit in the death of Lawrence King. There’s nothing about the crime that indicates the school did anything to encourage McInerney’s intents or ratify his prejudices. And it can’t forecast every horrible thing that might possibly happen on its campus.

There isn’t a “proactive approach” that comes with any sort of guarantee. The schools could spend every day inoculating their students against homophobia and every other sort of phobia imaginable and horrors like this would still happen. There isn’t a kid in junior high school who isn’t part of an “at-risk” population and marginalized group.

Of course gay and lesbian groups should be on campuses if for no other reason than to demystify homosexuality for kids working through their own emerging sexuality. Here’s hoping groups from across the social spectrum would take the time and make the effort to help kids understand the infinite variety of people in the society within which they live.

Lawrence King is the real victim here. And the students and staff of E.O. Green are victims. Of course they aren’t victims to the extent that King is, but some of them saw him executed before their eyes. They’ll carry that forever.

It’s cruel to accuse them of complicity.

On Homophobia in Our Schools

Posted on February 25 at 4:53 p.m.

As horrific as the death of Lawrence King is, it's not fair to lay this off as somehow the responsibility of the school. This, after all, wasn't discrimination, harassment or teasing but pre-meditated murder.

Childhood is a rough thing to get through. If kids aren't teased for their sexual orientation and gender identity, they'll be harassed for something else – weight, size, intellect, odor, attractiveness, clothes... something. It may be there's some sort of training program out there that will suck the inherent cruelty out of children faced with the daunting task of growing up, but that’s not likely.

Schools may be able to tamp down some of the childhood viciousness. And they should do all they can to insure the environment they maintain is conductive to learning by all their students. The schools, however, will not change human nature.

Murder is something well beyond the common brutality children inflict upon one another. And if a child can't discern (or doesn't know) that murder is wrong, that's not something the schools can fix.

Apparently Lawrence King wasn't a seriously screwed up kid. It seems his short life was a tough and uneasy one filled with too many foster homes and temporary support structures. But being gay and experimenting with one's identity... that's normal.

Brandon McInerney, who killed him, was (and is) the atrociously twisted child here. It wasn't a bunch of kids that killed King, but this one kid. One kid who believed he had the right or obligation to take another's life. One kid so coldhearted as to kill in front of his classmates. One kid screwed up in his own unique and unfathomable way.

[Continued]

On Homophobia in Our Schools