Comments on: With a mother like this, who needs bullies?

By: Debbie

Debbie — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 17:10:49 +0000

My name is Debbie and Annie Lucas is my ex-stepmother. Her daughter Abby is my half-sister. Annie and my father put Abby in private school she now attends collage. Billy is Abby’s half-brother and this has been awful for this family. No mother should have to go through losing a child. Annie is trying to understand and live with the fact of her son taking his life. My son told me when he was 16 that he was gay and that took lots of adjustment on my mind. My sons help with answering my questions and helping me deal. I am just fine now. My son is 30 and he and his partner raise my 8 year old granddaughter. Annie does not have that option. Some people are fast to judge others. This is far from easy for her. My father has taken this very hard not because Billy may or may not have been gay but because a young man committed suicide and ended his young life. No more fishing trips, horseback riding, ice skating so you in judgment did you know Billy? This is devastating to our family. The issue here should be about bullying in our schools and our young kids dealing with it. Good coping skills for our kids are much needed so please stop judging others and put your comments to better use.

By: H Soluna

H Soluna — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 07:07:23 +0000

Seems the school district has a history of hiding issues.

February 12, 2009
Schools Investigating Sexual ‘Hazing’ At Junior High
Adam Huening

The saying goes “boys will be boys” but some student athletes at the Greensburg Junior High School may have taken their pranks too far.

The Greensburg Daily News learned that at some point early in the junior high basketball season, members of the boys’ team engaged in some locker room hijinks that escalated into inappropriate behavior

http://greensburgdailynews.com/local/x212455070/Schools-Investigating-Sexual-Hazing-At-Junior-High

By: pax58

pax58 — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 23:49:53 +0000

First of all, the kid is dead, Theories about where the percentage of blame should go are not at this point, the point. Put anyone in this mother’s place and what they say at this moment should not be held against them. Whether she contributed to some inner hate or not.
I came out to my mother when I was fifty, I said, I am gay. She said, no you’re not. When I stated that she was wrong, she then stated, people that have those tendancies don’t have to act on them. She then let me know I was not welcome in her home.
Here’s the follow up: I talk to her every week and I always mention my partner. Someday when she dies, I will know I too the high ground,while not allowing myself to be pulled into self hate, that she was a part of creating.
I have my own children, tried to be the best parent in the world, according to at least one of them, I wasn’t. That’s the breaks when it comes to parenting.
Anti-gay issues in conservative communites makes everyone the victim, because it fills them all with hate and fear. I can tell you from personal experience that after years of pushing at this issue inside me that had been creaated outside of me, I don’t have time for hate of any kind anymore. I don’t hate my mother, I am just sad that she will never know the wonderful person that give my life meaning. But that is her decision, mine is to live a full life.
Give this mother a break, she may or may not come to terms with her son’s precieved sexual orientation (if it is a place like I grew up in, never) she will never come to terms with his dealth

By: The Lauderdale

The Lauderdale — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 15:13:22 +0000

Chalk me down as another reader who agrees with Joe Brummer.

By: werdna

werdna — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 11:03:49 +0000

Upon further thought I have to amplify my criticism. This post isn’t merely callous, it’s absolutely vile. It’s awful to imagine the shock a member of Billy Lucas’s family would feel encountering even the headline of this post.

Your whole attack is based two thin pieces of evidence. One (you’ve revealed in an update) is a single, un-sourced sentence in a news item. Without elaboration or further support we can’t know what their “history of fighting” consisted of or what they might have been fighting about.

The second is a partial, second-hand quote from an interview with the grieving mother at a funeral home–an interview in which she’s discussing how overwhelmed the family feels with the attention they’ve received since this story broke. The original story can be found here.

The Lucas family may not be embracing the plight of bullied LGBT youth in the way you’d like, but to jump so readily to the conclusion that Billy Lucas’s mom made his life “unbearable,” that she is as responsible for her son’s suicide as the bullies at school, is unfounded and frankly despicable.

To begin to wonder about the part family dynamics played in Billy Lucas’s suicide isn’t unreasonable. To draw any firm conclusion on so little evidence at this point is presumptuous. To declare those conclusions so boldly in a blog ostensibly dedicated to “fact checking” is unseemly and simply cruel.

By: Other Fred in the UK

Other Fred in the UK — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 06:47:04 +0000

Priya Lynn,

I’m sure the reporters did seek her out rather than vice-versa, but somehow I doubt they pressed her solely with the question of whether or not her son was gay.

I totally agree, I am sure they were asking many questions.

However you and others seem to be presuming this woman’s are a fair representation of her thoughts, beliefs, priorities, etc. She has just lost her son, I an sure her mind at the moment is a constant rollercoaster of thoughts and feelings many of which are irrational. I really would draw no conclusion whatsoever from what she does (or does not) say in this immediate period following her son’s death.

By: pepa

pepa — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 04:51:14 +0000

I agree with Tim.

Giving somebody space while they are grieving is understandable. But this woman, so called mother is not, or at least is not showing it. Then she makes a public POLITICAL statement, totally weird for somebody that is SUPPOSED TO BE GRIEVING. But she is such a damn puss that she *needs* to make a political point while still having this suicide fresh on our minds.

Her erratic behavior seems to say many things and maybe why her son took his own life. This might sound harsh but I think she deserves what happened to her son. I would have done the same things have I had his situation and facetious mother.

By: Regan DuCasse

Regan DuCasse — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 03:21:41 +0000

Hmmm…wonder what would have happened if this kid had brought a gun to school and blown away the little punks who hurt him?

Same root, different outcome…
The root here people has a gay angle, whether the mother likes it or not. Whether the school likes it or not.

There are people out there, whose ability to prevent this very thing, are being thwarted.
I don’t want to condemn the mother. But we can’t ignore the big, pink elephant dancing in the room.
We can leave the mother alone, for now. She can’t help anything.

But those kids had it in them to use anti gay torment. They personally attacked this boy, impressionable enough to believe everyone hated him.
And for some kids, being called gay is the worst thing that you could be called.
Certainly we have seen for ourselves that gay people are indicted as the worst kind of people to walk the earth.
Indeed, even children don’t think we have the right to walk the earth or share anything with us.
This kid believed too that his life wasn’t worth spit. And his school thought the same.

This IS a gay issue. So this family needs to be left alone.
I get that.

But this SCHOOL, the educators and those young savages, certainly NOT.

By: gordo

gordo — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 01:43:03 +0000

I feel so badly for this poor kid and the many many kids whose lives are a living hell due to bulling and hate. I don’t give a damn about the mother. Let’s not lose focus, people. Focus on the Family, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, FRC, Concerned Women, ectc. have blood on their hands. They are the enemy. Let’s never forget that.

By: Eastsidejim

Eastsidejim — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 00:54:11 +0000

Having read most of the posts condemning Tim or the few supporting him… I can only give what my response would have been, had I been put in that situation…

The news story would have read, about the real and creditable threats that I would have made against the teachers and management of the school system that allowed such bullying to continue (and I can’t believe that they didn’t know about it).

I certainly wouldn’t be saying anything personal about my son or my family to the media. To me the reason for the bullying wouldn’t matter, what would matter is that the school failed in it’s responsibility and my son was dead because of it!

Sorry, I just can’t cut the mother here any slack… and I did grow up in a rural and conservative area in southern Ohio.