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<p>I’m sure the truthful part could be argued, considering she talks about how drunk she is in many of the instances.</p>
<p>What if the guys in the powerpoint committed suicide as a result? Would that make what she did worse?</p>
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<p>I was referring to Wei and Ravi in terms of picking a friend. Regarding college, I was thinking hypothetically of Princeton vs Rutgers, if one got accepted at both but one offered a full-ride. Here on CC we often hear that if you are a good student you can get a good education anywhere, is that true?</p>
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<p>Good point, oldfort.</p>
<p>lake42…I must be dense but I still don’t get your point about picking the college wisely as it relates to this type of incident??</p>
<p>It could happen at Princeton too.</p>
<p>PS, by the way, I read that Ravi had near perfect SATs and was a very strong student.</p>
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<p>Maybe he’s been a strong troublemaker too, or maybe Rutgers couldn’t keep him busy with school work. What he did reflects badly on his parents and he needs to be ‘educated’/punished.</p>
<p>Intparent, NSM,DonnaL…read responses to my post that I find it “difficult to imagine how a kid in 2010 ends up homophobic.”</p>
<p>I really do. I think some have extrapolated that I think homophobia does not exist? No – didn’t say that. I just find it amazing that young people would be homophobic today. I don’t see high school or college aged kids automatically buying into their parents’ viewpoints. There is ample proper thinking on the subject to be absorbed through the media and public/private schools. It just surprises me to read about stories like Tyler’s. What rock did these kids crawl out from under?</p>
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<p>I understand that religious fundamentalists can be on the wrong side of this issue, but not real conservatives, NSM. I am thinking of two fine gentlemen I know who have been in a long-term monogamous relationship. They are both self-described conservatives, and they are surely not anti-gay. I am conservative, and I am for equal marriage rights for all. True conservatives are for conserving personal and economic freedoms (what this nation was founded upon). No, not the screwed up misapplication that went on for two hundred years, but the ideals themselves.</p>
<p>spidey…while this generation has come a long way in terms of tolerance with regard to the gay community compared to previous generations, it just has a long way still to go. And it is hard to sometimes notice it depending on one’s local community or other social structure. Sure, people are more tolerant of gay people in certain segments of society. For example, I have a daughter in the field of theater and she went to college and now works professionally with so many gay people that it is the norm and none of her friends seem homophobic in the least. I live in Vermont, the first state to introduce civil unions in July 2000, and the first state to approve same-sex marriage legislatively (as opposed to judicially). But go to some other school or part of the country or with people of a certain political or religious persuasion and homophobia is alive and well. </p>
<p>Just tonight, I was reading one of my student’s college essays that actually is on this topic so to speak. She goes to a very liberal high school (not my state) that is extremely diverse. Being “different” is the norm there. She was stunned to find someone at school who is very homophobic given the setting of this school, where the norm is diversity and liberal thought. My student has a gay sibling. So, even in a setting where one would have expected tolerance, there are still exceptions.</p>
<p>Good article in NY Times today about recent suicides by gay teens and the extraordinary pressure they are under. I hope these tragic deaths --Tyler Clementi’s, Seth Walsh’s, Billy Lucas’, Asher Brown’s, among nameless others-- will in the very least wake us up to the fact that we, as a society, must make some important, radical changes in how we teach tolerance and equality, sexual, gender, racial, religious, economic, etc. And that intolerance and bullying are, or ought to be, intolerable.</p>
<p><a href=“Suicides Put Light on Pressures of Gay Teenagers - The New York Times”>Suicides Put Light on Pressures of Gay Teenagers - The New York Times;
<p>I agree that high school graduates leave school poorly informed about issues of sexuality, ethnicity, race, religion, etc. Then we take these 18 year olds and put them in the mixing pot of a university and expect them to perform with perfect grace, empathy and tolerance while they adjust to being away from home maybe for the first time in their lives. </p>
<p>And then we are shocked, just shocked when that doesn’t happen.</p>
<p>With regards to kids in 2010 being homophobic, I don’t think it’s irrelevant that the young man most responsible for this is from India. I would not be shocked if he’d been from Iran. I also would not be shocked if he were from an Arab nation. Homosexuality is VERY taboo in these countries as it is in many parts of the world including the United States.</p>
<p>While Iran is a country where homosexuals can be executed, in many other countries they can be shamed publicly. Often times in the public square and often times that public shaming means they lose everything including their families. It’s probably not coincidental that Ravi himself or his family is from India and he was attempting to publicly shame Tyler.</p>
<p>Not making excuses for him but it does speak to how he could do this without respect to Tyler or his privacy. He was basically practicing vigilante behavior in punishing Tyler in a ‘virtual’ public square for what he viewed as taboo and shameful. </p>
<p>We can get all righteous about how wrong this is, and it is, but it’s not been that long ago that Matthew Shepherd hung from a fence. In addition, if 2010 meant no homophobia then gay kids would not be killing themselves due to harassment and teasing. </p>
<p>And idiots like Fred Phelps would not be given the time of day. We have a LONG way to go before we can stop scratching our heads at how kids can be homophobic at this time in our country.</p>
<p>York, depends on the high school and district. When one of the students in our area was picketed by Fred Phelps HUNDREDS of kids from schools all around our city showed up in addition to the school to counter protest. It made national news. And while I’m sure there are plenty of homophobes in our area they are not welcome to express that out load nor is it tolerated by school officials. Thus, kids feel comfortable ‘coming out’ and by 9-11th grade we see openly gay kids living their lives like any other kid their age.</p>
<p>I don’t think the fact that Ravi happens to have connections with India and Wei happens to have connections with China is any more significant than the fact that this tragedy happens to have occurred at a university in New Jersey.</p>
<p>My point was we can’t even adequately deal with the homophobia we have in this country with kids born and raised here. The chances that we can influence kids who are from cultures which are even more repressive regarding this issue are slim.</p>
<p>Connections? I think that is a rather ineffective way of describing who he is and where he came from. It’s not like I’m talking about him having an Indian neighbor.</p>
<p>My hypothesis isn’t about race rather culture.</p>
<p>I was listening to Stephanie Miller on Friday and her guest made an excellent point. Our society actually is sending discrimination messages to our youth without understanding. By not allowing Homosexuals to marry or serve in the military we are saying it is okay to treat homosexuals differently.</p>
<p>I know this off the topic, but I do wonder if the guest was right. We tell our children to accept everyone’s sexuality, but yet, we still make the homosexual fight to be treated as an equal.</p>
<p>My DD’s best friend is gay. He is the smartest, nicest child in the world. He is open about his sexuality to his friends, but his parents have no idea he is gay. Our DD was his gf according to them. I know he is gay, and we would all laugh when he was at my home because they would say when she was there and he closed the bedroom door, his mom would chastise him for that because they wanted to make sure no hanky panky was going on. They also had the sex talk with him, telling him not to get my DD pregnant. </p>
<p>He lives this life and lie because although his parents tell him to accept and treat homosexuals the same as heterosexuals, he also knows they are against homosexual marriage and the repeal of DADT. They say one thing, but the words are hollow.</p>
<p>soccerguy, </p>
<p>I suggest that you start a separate thread about the Karen Owens/Duke story. As far as I know, no state bars you from commentig about your sexual encounters. Much of what she posts is opinion and it’s rare that opinion can constitute defamation. If she says that she had sex once with someone and it was lousy…that’s just her opinion. Of course, if she claimed to have sex with a born again Christian who insists that he did not have sex with her, that would be different. </p>
<p>Moreover, the young woman has demanded that the names of the young men be redacted from published reports and at least two sites have redacted the names and one has blurred the photos. </p>
<p>Finally, she didn’t post the “sex thesis” herself. She sent it to three friends. One passed it on and that person passed it on and it went viral.</p>
<p>Denise1515, my point is that kids who have grown up in the US are for the most part just like any other Americans, no matter where their parents came from.</p>
<p>Some South Asian parents who have immigrated to the US actually send their kids back to live in the country of origin for a while as children. Otherwise, the kids unavoidably become extremely americanized.</p>
<p>I have not read anything that indicates that Ravi ever actually lived in India for very long.</p>
<p>I think Denise is just pointing out that Ravi may have been brought up in a family with a certain cultural heritage and that it could have been an influence. This is no different than saying if he was brought up by fundamentalists and that that had influenced him even though he lives in a broader culture full of influences. </p>
<p>In any case, she is right about the views and consequences of homosexuality in some Arab or Asian countries. In fact, as I wrote upthread, my D’s show last night was in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Now, I have seen previous versions of this show that were written for the students living in Manhattan. I am curious how the show handled the topics of sexuality and gender issues that they typically include in this show for students. Her cast was flown to Abu Dhabi last May so that they could understand the culture for which they were writing this musical. My D opted out of this offer as she had another important project and didn’t feel she could take the time and was content that she was already getting one free trip to Abu Dhabi in the fall. But I’m explaining that they even wanted the writers of this show to understand the culture they were writing this show for. Then, their show was to have been put on a month ago when college began in Abu Dhabi. The show was postponed a full month. At one point, it was questionable that it might have been canceled even though the cast had worked on it all summer and had been paid. The reasons were never fully explained and so I don’t truly know but there had to be approval of the script by people in Abu Dhabi and so on. The rules in that culture are so different than here. For example, my D’s boyfriend is also in the cast and she knew she couldn’t even act as if they were dating when they were there. Some in her cast are gay as well.</p>
<p>You can pretty much believe whatever you want in this country but you cannot harm others. I have not read anything that substantiates the speculation that Ravi was a homophobe or that this was a hate crime. Doesn’t really matter one way or another beause what he did was wrong…it would have been wrong if he had done this to a woman, a straight man or really any permutation you can think of. I’m not sure “cultural” heritage has anything to do with turning a webcam on someone unbeknownst to the person being taped. I don’t know enough about India to know what their culture is regarding privacy rights.</p>
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<p>This is a little off-topic, but outside of his fruit-loop family Fred Phelps isn’t given the time of day. Because I love to demonize religious fundamentalists in my mind, for quite a while I thought Phelps enjoyed support in the conservative Christian world. He doesn’t. The dude pickets military funerals. He offends everybody.</p>
<p>Cultural heritage has nothing to do with picking the means to attack the victim (webcams and Twitter), but it might have contributed to picking the victim in the first place and organizing the attack (there is a saying that a lot can be absorbed from one’s mother’s milk). And I’m not saying that this excuses the two by any means.</p>