Ellen on Murder of Gay 15 Year Old By Fellow Student

For those of us who are hearing impaired:

"...I need to talk to you about something that's really serious and really sad and if you know me, it's hard to talk about sad stuff without getting emotional but this is really important to talk about. On February 12th an openly gay 15-year-old boy named Larry who was an 8th grader in Oxnard, California, was murdered by a fellow 8th grader named Brandon. Larry was killed because he was gay. Days before he was murdered, Larry asked his killer to be his Valentine.

I don't wanna be political, this is not political, I'm not a political person but this is personal to me. A boy has been killed and a number of lives have been ruined and somewhere along the line, the killer Brandon got the message that it's so threatening and so awful and so horrific that Larry would want to be his Valentine that killing Larry seemed to be the right thing to do. And when the message out there is so horrible, that to be gay you can get killed for it, we need to change the message (audience enthusiastically claps; Ellen is very choked up and overwhelmed by the the audience clapping. She's fighting back the tears, takes a deep breath - the audience is still clapping).

Larry was not a second-class citizen, I am not a second-class citizen. It is okay if you're gay (audience erupts in cheers and clapping to show their love and support). I don't care what people say, I don't care what people think, and I know there are entire groups of people who face discrimination every single day and we're a long way from treating each other equally - all of it is unacceptable, all of it!

This is what hate speech does. It creates the environment where those who are easily confused or led think it is OK to act out their hatred. Ellen is right, this boy Brandon will now have to live with the shame he killed this boy for the rest of his life. That's not to mention all the other people who will be effected by what has happened. Where are the good Christians who should come forward and denounce such violence? I'll tell you where they are, they're sitting quietly waiting for responsible leadership from their spiritual leaders. They are waiting to stand up and say this is wrong, but they don't want to stand alone knowing how volatile the subject of homosexuality is in the Church. Good people, it is time to ask yourselves, where are our heroes? Where are those people who impassioned us to be better Christians and be the living example of Christ others can find hope in?

There is a saying that we get the government we deserve. Is that also true about the Church? It's time we started raising our standards and started acting like Christians again. Talk about this boy who was killed and let people hear you say how wrong it is for people to act like this. We don't have to see eye to eye with our neighbors to live in peace, and we definitely don't have to promote an atmosphere where children are killing children.