Smear the queer

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I am old enough to remember this as a playground game. Nowadays I am pretty sure it isn't played within earshot of adults on playgrounds. But it is played with much bigger stakes whenever a gay man is killed. The latest game is the murder in Goldsboro of Ron Lane who was an openly gay man who supervised the print shop at Wayne Community College. He was shot to death by Kenneth Stancil who was an employee in the same print shop until he got fired for excessive absences. Even while Stancil was on the run and the body still warm his mother was on TV saying Lane had made passes at Stancil. When Stancil was caught he said Lane made passes at Stancil's brother via facebook and phone. His own mother says that didn't happen. Now the family of Lane's previous boyfriend, who died a couple years ago under mysterious circumstances all but claimed Lane did it. In the meantime Lane's family has keep mostly silent. Some games never die, they just get played for increased stakes.

http://www.wral.com/stancil-s-appearance-crime-a-shock-to-grandparents/14589714/

link above has one of several stories on this case the rest of the stories are linked at the left of that story.

[Blue_Tires]

1. I remember a teacher in middle school lecturing us on how that was insensitive

and we called it "Pitch the bitch" from then on...

(and before anybody asks, the "bitch" was the ball)

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2. still not sure how much of an improvement that was

[PeaceNikki]

3. That's absolutely horrible.

This game was played openly at the conservative evangelical Christian grade school I attended. While great strides are being made with marriage equality, I still see and hear kids using sexual orientation slurs. There's still a lot of work to be done in our society to stop the undercurrents that lead to violence, murder and victim blaming. On behalf of society, I'm sorry stories like this exist.