When a gay teenager was gunned down earlier this year at an Oxnard school, the violence resulted in the unexpected: Young people, gay and straight, rallied across the nation for civil rights.
And even at an age when they're grappling with their own fragile sexuality, teens weren't afraid to stand up for the classmate who had been different.
"In middle school, you don't think about your own sexuality so much as you think of what society thinks is normal for kids, and you try to blend in," said 18-year-old Luis Roman, a gay community college student and youth leader for the Gay-Straight Alliance, an advocacy group active on high school and middle school campuses.
"So for these kids to come out and say that just because he was gay, that isn't a reason to get shot, that was mind-blowing to see that courage, for kids to stand up.
"Unfortunately, it took something of this level to make people realize there are gay people, there are lesbians, there are bisexuals, and they're part of our society."
The slaying of 15-year-old Lawrence King on Feb. 12 and the reaction to it illustrated a social shift characterized by gay youths "coming out" younger and their straight counterparts learning the art of tolerance.
Kids openly gay earlier than ever
Los Angeles Daily News,
