There was an opinion piece printed in the April 1 edition of The Reflector, the newspaper at Mississippi State University, written by Lazarus Austin, that really made my blood boil.

You guys remember Lawrence King? That 15-year-old gay boy from California who was shot to death by a classmate upset because Larry “flirted” with him? Well, Mr. Austin from Mississippi State suggested this week that Larry was the one at fault.

Mr. Austin says he has “two problems with the controversy” (the controversy being all those radicals calling on schools to do more to teach tolerance and crack down on bullying). His first problem is that “people are blowing the situation out of proportion and automatically assuming King’s murderer killed him simply because King was gay. This remind me of how people love to cry racism when someone kills a person of a different race.”

Mr. Austin’s second problem is, apparently, that poor little Brandon McInerney, the 14-year-old charged with a hate crime and murder for shooting Larry King, has had a rough life, and even though he was a good student, he was really just “a fuse ready to explode.” So it was really Larry King’s fault because his “fraternization” and his “imposing his homosexuality on McInerney” just set Brandon off!

He writes: “Although King by no means deserved his fate” (good of Mr. Austin to think so!) “he may have unfortunately invited it.”

There’s more. Read it for yourself here.

There is a link on the page where you can e-mail Mr. Austin, and a place for leaving comments. So check it out. And let Lazarus Austin know what you think. This kind of dangerous idiocy can’t go unchallenged.

I just saw a video clip that apparently is from the Ellen DeGeneres Show that will air today (Friday, Feb. 29). In it Ellen talks about Lawrence “Larry” King, the 15-year-old in Oxnard, Calif., who was allegedly shot and killed, at school, by a classmate. Apparently, Larry — an out gay kid — had asked the other boy to “be his Valentine,” and that’s what prompted the boy to shoot him.I cried when I first heard about this tragedy. I cried again when I watched this clip from Ellen.I cried for Larry King, and for every other LGBT person who has ever been teased, taunted, intimidated, threatened, injured or killed just for being themselves. And I cried for the children who have to live in this hateful world we have created.My partner and I have two children. Is either of them gay? I don’t know, and it certainly wouldn’t make any difference in how we feel about them if they were. But I admit to being afraid for them. Even if neither of them turns out to be a L, G, B or T person, they are still being raised by two moms, and that’s more than enough for some little homophobe-in-training to decide my kids are a good target.My partner and I do everything we can to encourage our children to be themselves and to be proud of who they are. We also do everything we can to make sure they are safe. I can only pray that “everything we can” will be enough.

Like Ellen said, something has got to change. And the change has to start now.

— Tammye Nash