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A young pupil was forced to move school after bullies set up a website accusing him of being gay.

The 13 year old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was deliberately targeted for almost a year with bogus and abusive claims including false lists of likes and dislikes which labelled him as gay.

He told the Mirror, "It was horrible. All the kids at my school knew about it, I don't know why they did it. I had never done anything to them.”
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The hate filled site, which received over 500 visitors, was set up by two pupils, they uploaded images of him in school uniform along with hurtful accusations. Other students also posted messages, one called it “a cool hate website.”
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[The boy's mother says:] "The police came round and said they had spoken to the boys involved and forced them to remove the site.

"It's so easy for kids to set up websites like this these days without parents or teachers knowing anything about it.

"This website made my son's life a living hell. They made the bullies take it down but by then the damage had already been done.

"I had to take my son out of school so he could have a fresh start."

The site creators were suspended and ordered to take down the website.

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It's pretty hard to have a gay-positive outlook when you spend your youth being bullied because people think that you're gay, thus reinforcing the view in your mind that being gay is somehow inferior or wrong (Among genuine homosexuals, this sort of ridicule and the inferiority complex that comes up with it plays a major role in the high rate of suicide). As long as this sort of bullying persists (and among my generation, just about everybody who has been a social outcast at one time or another has had to deal with a litany of insults in which the punchline involves being "a fag", "a homo", or whatever), whether or not it be sanctioned (and in many parts of the world, including societies that are genereally regarded as modern and enlightened, it tends to be sanctioned by the very authorities who should be leading the charge to snuff this sort of bullying), the brunt of homophobic attitudes will likely never be overcome.

[ 30 March 2006: Message edited by: Heavy Sharper ]

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the brunt of homophobic attitudes will likely never be overcome.

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