Utahn fights back against gay bullying

SPRINGVILLE — As 75-year-old Leonard Ridley leaned over to switch out one of the signs hanging outside his house last week, a young girl yelled out over the fence: "Don't put it up."

Ridley's messages supporting gays are visible from the playground of Art City Elementary School, which has caused controversy among children and adults in his neighborhood and the Nebo School District.

"Stop Gay Suicide," the signs say. "Tell the Truth. Gays are Born Gay."

Ridley says he's trying to start a conversation with the community on the national problem of bullying gay students. After news stations and papers reported on the string of gay suicides outside Utah this fall, some allegedly due to bullying, Ridley put up his signs.

"There are hundreds of children that go to school there, and the children can carry the message back to the adults in their lives and get a conversation going," said Ridley, who was a social worker for 33 years before retiring. "This type of teasing starts in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades."

Teachers in Utah and around the nation should do a better job of policing gay bullying, say gays and some educators. Some school districts, including the Salt Lake School District, have passed, or are considering, specific policies against discrimination against gay students.

Ridley was disturbed when his step-great-granddaughter, a fifth-grader at the school, told him about a game the students play at recess called "smear the queer," where everyone tackles the person with the ball.

Parents of students there, including Jason Averett, the father of a first-grader, said kids have been playing the game all over the country for ages — Averett played it himself when he was a student — and said children make no associations between the word "queer" and homosexuals. "It was just the name of the game," Averett said.

Yet, Eliza Byard, executive director of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network) said some students use terms like "queer" and other words deemed slurs by homosexuals as "weapons of choice for ways to demean their peers.

"I think there are many messages given to young people about what kinds of language are acceptable and there's an extent that anti-LGBT language is not recognized for the force and power and impact it has on LGBT people's lives," Byard said.