What can clearly be referred to as an epidemic, within only the past few weeks, a number of gay young men have taken their lives by all indications as a result of the unrelenting homophobic taunts, harassment, and attacks they had to endure by their peers: Seth Walsh, 13, hung himself from a tree outside his California home; Billy Lucas, 15, hung himself in Indiana; Asher Brown, 13, from Texas shot himself in the head; Tyler Clementi, 18, first-year student from Rutgers University took his life by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. And though we are not yet certain of the precipitating factors, now we hear of the tragic suicide of gay student, Raymond Chase, 19, from Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island.

All this comes on the heels of the news from Michigan, where Assistant District Attorney, Andrew Shirvell, has been targeting University of Michigan's gay student-assembly president, Chris Armstrong, for the past six months with abusive and highly inflammatory epithets and images on his internet blog site. For example, Shirvell displayed a photo of a swastika placed over a gay-pride rainbow flag with an arrow pointing to Armstrong's face.

Also on the blog, Shirvell accused Armstrong of seducing "a previously conservative" student until he "morphed into a proponent of the radical homosexual agenda." He also has protested outside Armstrong's house, loudly shouting that Armstrong is "Satan's representative on the student assembly."

Read the rest of Shane Windmeyer's post at Bilerico.com...

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