The cost of hate and ignorance: (left to right) - T.J., Samantha and Aaron
T.J. Samantha. Aaron. Nick. Kevin. These are five of the nine teenagers who have committed suicide in the Anoka, Minnesota school district over the past two years. They were either gay or thought to be gay, and because of that, were bullied, harassed and eventually, felt they had no other option than to end their own lives.
Samantha and her mother, Michelle, moved to Anoka from rural North Dakota in 2008, hoping for a fresh start. Samantha joined a group of students at Fred Moore Middle School who wanted to start a gay-straight alliance club. In most other middle schools, this would not have been a big deal. But this was not your normal middle school: this school was in Michele Bachmann’s congressional district.
During this time, Samantha began to change. Her grades fell, her personality darkened, she dropped out of volleyball. Her mom was frantic to help her only child, and tried whatever she could think of, including asking the school to keep an eye on her daughter. Nothing seemed to help. In November, Samantha seemed better. Michelle took her shopping for new clothes, and believed the problem, whatever it was, had been solved. On Veteran’s Day, Michelle and her boyfriend, John, went to the store to pick up food and rent a movie. When they returned home about half an hour later, John heard a gunshot. Samantha Johnson, not yet able to even get a learner’s permit, had removed all the new clothes her mom bought her that weekend, climbed into the tub, and shot herself in the head with a hunting rifle.
Samantha was a little overweight, and a bit of a tomboy. Her mom maintains that Samantha was not gay, she just hung out with kids who may have been. Samantha was bullied relentlessly at school, and, according to a friend, one such instance was witnessed by a teacher, who stood by and did nothing. Why would a teacher, a person we as parents trust to protect and teach our kids right from wrong, stand by as a teenage girl was tormented? The term used in Anoka is “no homo promo”. In the mid 1990’s, the district effectively wiped gay people from the health curriculum. There was to be no mention of the LGBT community or AIDS, no homosexuality references of any kind. Later, that policy was made even more draconian by forcing teachers to stay neutral if the topic of homosexuality came up in a classroom. Essentially, teachers were muzzled.
The groups responsible for pushing this anti-LGBT agenda in Anoka are the Minnesota Family Council and the Parents Action League. The PAL wants reparative therapy materials in public schools, available to students and parents, the same type of fake science and bigotry Marcus Bachmann practices at his “clinic” in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. Both these groups support Michele Bachmann and her stand on homosexuality. Michele Bachmann has remained dead silent on the suicides of nine young people in her district. She does have an opinion on bullying, however. In 2006, she made this statement to Minnesota lawmakers, in opposition to anti bullying legislature:
“I think for all of us our experience in public schools is there have always been bullies, always have been, always will be. I just don’t know how we’re ever going to get to a point of zero tolerance, and what does it mean?…What will be our definition of bullying? Will it get to the point where we are completely stifling free speech and expression? Will it mean that what form of behavior will there be-will we be expecting boys to be girls?”
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) Gage Skidmore/Flickr
If a teenager struggling with all the normal oddities, hormones and emotional swings of puberty is also trying to come to terms with their own sexuality, they need a place they can feel safe. They need to know that if someone hits them, or calls them a “fag” or a “dyke” or verbally accosts them day in and day out, that there will be someone in a position of power to help them, to stick up for them, to be on their side. Thanks to Michele Bachmann’s hate, bigotry and lack of empathy, sympathy, or, in my opinion, a soul, teens in Anoka will never have that. More and more young people are dying by their own hand because people exactly like Michelle Bachmann repeat, over and over, that they are evil, they are sick, they need to be cured. There is not one thing wrong with any of those teens, but there is a lot wrong with Michele Bachmann. This writer puts the deaths of those nine children (that’s what they were) squarely in her lap, and asks her “How can you live with yourself, knowing you did this?”
I’m guessing Ms. Bachmann lives with herself just fine.
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Editor’s Note: Veracity Stew’s weekly webcast “True Blue Talk” recently addressed the dangerous situation posed by Marcus Bachmann’s “therapy” and Michele’s homophobic and hurtful position on homosexuality:
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