Hello, to the AMAZING community that is !
I know this story has been complete for awhile now, but I'm actually writing to post a public response to a review I just received. It remains on my comments because I'm not going to mark it as abuse, since it isn't. However, I feel that if I don't respond, my silence will send a message I tend not to convey. Here's the review:
"it
was a good story and I loved it but the dedication made me
unhappy since Larry wasn't killed because he was gay but because he
kept placing mental stress on his killer and kept provoking him often
saying that he'd make Brandon his valentine and touching him
inappropriatly, despite Brandon constantly saying that he wasn't
interested and eventually Brandon snapped and brought the gun to get
rid of Larry not because of homophobia but because of the harrasment
so really it isn't the issue you stated and I'm sorry if it offends
anyone but Brandon wasn't the villian and Larry wasn't a martyr and
this isn't homophobic ranting since I am the least homophobic person
in the world and am partially bi anyway"
First of all, I want to thank this person for the kind things he or she said about my story. However, if the majority of the review was a critique of my story, I wouldn't post any sort of response, but since it concerns an issue that carries so much weight, I feel obligated to respond.
I'll begin by admitting that I have absolutely no way of confirming as fact the motive for Lawrence King's murder; this is because I am not Brandon or Larry, and since the reviewer isn't either, he or she also has no way of confirming.
I have heard both sides of the story, including what the reviewer brings up, often referred to as "the gay panic defense." It comes up in just about any case where a GLBT person has been attacked or murdered. Again, I'm not arrogant enough to say that I know the way things went down, but I can tell you what's wrong with the gay panic defense and why I tend not to go for it:
Probably the biggest problem is that whether intended or not, saying that the person who committed the violent offense acted out of "gay panic" is justifying that violent offense. It's like saying that since a heterosexual person disliked the actual or implied advances of a gay person, it was okay for that heterosexual to "stop" the gay person by hurting or killing them. As a lesbian, this attempt at logic terrifies me. Is that saying that if I mistakenly take a straight girl for gay and ask her on a date, she has the right to kill me because she's uncomfortable? Or because I have a flirtatious personality and my flirting makes someone uncomfortable, they can just shoot me to shut me up?
What if Larry had been a girl who flirted with or announced Brandon as her valentine, despite Brandon not liking her? Would anyone even TRY to justify Brandon killing her as a supposed resolution?
Once again… NONE OF US, except for the two directly involved, will ever know the full, whole, and true story regarding what happened and why. The rest is speculation, and in my opinion, it's easier to believe a motive of homophobia rather than panic for a murder.
But, let's imagine that the scenario that the reviewer set is in fact what happened. It still doesn't change my feelings about Larry, because his death is not what makes me admire him. I very much agree that Larry is not a martyr – in order to be a martyr, he would have stood in front of the gun and accepted his death in the name of gay rights or something of that nature. I admire him for having the courage to be himself, regardless of the challenges and prejudices that, especially in middle school society, are very real and as we have learned, dangerous.
Sure, I wouldn't have known about Larry and his personality had he not been killed, but once again, it's not the fact that he died that I appreciate.
So, for the sake of more accurately encompassing the true nature of my dedication, "Break the Mold" goes out to EVERYONE who has defied prejudice, hatred, or discrimination of any kind just to be themselves.
And that, irrefutably, includes Lawrence King.
May he rest in peace.