Where Does It All Lead?

Jim Burroway

November 30th, 2006

Non-stop profanity-laced taunts and a torched car. This is what Zack, who has two fathers, experienced at Harper Junior High School in Davis, California:

Harper Junior High School student, Zack, hasn’t been to school in almost a month. He says after years of being teased because his father is gay, one day, it went too far.

Several students were disciplined, from detention to suspension. But Zack’s father says it’s not enough, especially when his son went back to school and was teased again…

To complicate matters, the family’s car was torched in front of their South Davis home in October. While police say there’s no evidence of a hate crime, Zack and his father say they fear what could happen next.

Appropriately enough, Tam K. Dao and colleagues addressed the consequences of adolescent bullying on the psychological well-being of young people in the August 2006 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health. They examined 186 middle-school students — students who are approximately Zack’s age — and they were able to confirm the link between persistent experience of aggression (either verbal or physical) and non-specific psychological distress. These researchers note in their discussion that this sort of stress can have serious long-term consequences:

One component of PEV (Past Experience of Victimization) among adolescents is the negative experiences often associated with chronic exposure to victimization. These negative experiences include feelings of greater unhappiness, greater social isolation, and decreased levels of self-esteem. As a result, these negative feelings over time might cause intense physiological reactions, such as posttraumatic stress. It might be that the perception of possibly re-experiencing the event of being victimized by another student leads to feelings of vulnerability and in turn, to depression or other psychosomatic problems.

I imagine that seeing the family car burned in front of your home might have just such an effect.

The problem of bullying is one that many anti-gay activists have dismissed or downplayed. Many have opposed anti-bullying measures which specifically address LGBT-directed taunts, bullying or violence. They complain that efforts to protect LGBT students and others like Zack (and as far as I know, Zach is probably straight — he’s being taunted because of his gay parents), that these efforts somehow infringe on their free-speech or religious-liberty rights. But what about basic Zack’s right to an education? And what about his right to simple safety?

As we learn more about what students like Zack go through, it leaves open the very real question: What would these opponents to anti-bullying measures propose instead? That Zack and his family simply disappear? For some, that may be precisely the answer.

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