This is pretty difficult to watch. There are so many mixed messages in society but the one here is pretty clear. Nobody misses another kid who "experiments with sexuality". I think of the hatchet job Ramin Setoodeh Newsweek piece and the defense attorney's "gay panic" defense and am blown away by how often we tolerate it when kids who are or seem gay get stabbed or shot to death in our country because they made some straight person who can't control themselves uncomfortable.
The twinkie defense is alive and well. Its exasperating how ideologically speaking our culture can clamor for "personal responsibility" ...unless someone you encounter deviates from prescribed gender roles (or dresses too provocatively). Then its "Look what you made me do!" The number of slap on the wrist convictions and mistrials indicate that much of society seems comfortable looking the other way, because regardless of how a 14 year old who "experiments with sexuality" makes us feel, there ought to be a million more tolerable ways to deal with this than justifying his being shot twice execution style and then blaming him for being too provocative.
