>The ‘Mo’s Are Coming, The ‘Mo’s Are Coming, And They’ve Got Children!

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I’ve talked a lot about how surprising it was to move to South Carolina, of all places, and to Smallville, a town of just 8,000, of all places, and feel completely welcomed as a gay man, and a gay couple. I’ll admit to having my reservations because where you worship, and what you believe, is one of the first questions asked when you arrive.

But we did arrive. We rented a small house in town for the first six months until we decided where we wanted to buy, and all of our neighbors were quite welcoming. We’d walk the block and people would say hello and come off their porches to talk; they’d wave as you drove up the street.

And both of us were completely welcomed in our jobs, and completely out from the get-go. And as I started to work, I didn’t have one single negative experience about being gay. I was shocked, to say the least. When we finally found the house we wanted, we were told by our realtor, in one of those real estate agent whispers, “There’s another gay couple in the neighborhood.”
But we didn’t meet them right away. we did meet other neighbors and all were very sweet. One even came over with fresh flowers and strawberries from her garden to welcome us. I got the feeling that, although weren’t in Kansas, er, Miami, any more, this would be just fine.

I always thought being gay in the South was a secret you kept top yourself, so  imagine my surprise when I read that the South is the new place for gay couples to raise children. According to the Census Bureau, child rearing among same-sex couples is more common in the South than in any other region of the country.
The South.
Now, I’ll admit to being shocked, but then, when you stop and think–something many of us, yours truly included, sometimes forget to do–parents want to raise their children in a safe environment, in areas where there are other children. Now I know that them there big cities have lots of kids, but some parents want the wide open spaces where their kids can run and play outside, and gay and straight couples are finding that the South is just the place.
Who knew?
Now, while these parents feel the South is the better place to raise their children, they are also reminded on a daily basis that they are less than, that they, and their children, don’t have the same government protections and privileges that their heterosexual counterparts enjoy.
But, wouldn’t it be great, if this new influx of gay couples, and gay couples with children, into the South, spurred a dialogue about being gay, and helped to erase some of the stereotypes that exist here. Stereotypes that are deeply rooted in the churches here; stereotypes that are hard to eradicate because gay people might not be as open, might still, in fact be closeted.
I always say, the more we come out and just live our lives, the more the world, and our neighbors, see us as not so different than themselves.
Which is exactly the case.

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>I Didn’t Say It…….

>Piers Morgan, on banning Madonna from his show:

“It can only be rescinded if she makes a formal apology. For all the grief she’s caused me by being Madonna….I was interested to see she doesn’t know who I am because Madonna and I have been feuding for 25 years…When I watched her in the days of “Holiday,” nothing was sexier than Madonna. Watching Madonna at 52 going out with 22-year-old kids called Jesus and stripping her clothes off for magazines, it’s like, Please, it’s over. We have a new one. It’s called Lady Gaga.”

I sort of agree with him.
Sacrilege, I know.
I have never been a huge Madonna fan, and it seems like she simply recycles her old ideas.
What’s next, an eighty-year-old Madonna posing stark naked on a Florida highway for another Sex book?

Joan Rivers, on being banned by FOX News for calling Sarah Palin stupid:

“What kills me the most is to think I voted for her two-left-footed daughter on Dancing with the Stars. I should have followed my heart and voted for Hasselhoff. Next to her he looked like Nureyev….Since when is Sarah Palin a wordsmith? She’s actually compared herself to Shakespeare after she invented the word “refudiate.” Then Shakespeare tweeted back from heaven, “Fuckest thou!”

Joan, Joan, Joan.

Why would you want to appear on a network that exists solely to publicize and promote people like Palin and Gingrich and Huckabee?

They’re all stupid.

And don’t get me started on Beck and O’Reilly and Hannity, the Trifecta of Asshattedness.

Rush Limbaugh, being dumber and more offensive than ever, about Ronald Reagan and the AIDS epidemic:

“The 1980s were just a vitriolic as they were today. Reagan was called a Nazi just like Bush was. Nothing’s different. It was–folks, if you weren’t alive then or if you weren’t old enough to be paying attention, do not doubt me. The hatred for Ronald Reagan was universal in the Democrat Party and throughout the media….These people blamed AIDS on Reagan. Sound familiar? They blamed homelessness on Reagan — you know why they blamed AIDS on Reagan? Because he didn’t care. Because he never delivered a speech about it. And because of that, AIDS was spread. They actually wanted us to believe that Reagan had the disease, was sneaking into gay people’s houses at night, and impregnating them with the disease and running out. And when we left their houses he went over to Grant Park, or wherever it was, Lafayette Park and stole the pork and beans of the homeless and took them back to the White House and fixed them up and at them. That’s that kind of stuff they were saying about Reagan.”

Um, Rush, you drug addicted homophobic ill-informed fucktard.

I wonder if a disease that hit fat-assed, prescription pill popping blowhards hit America and Ronald Reagan never said a word about because he wasn’t a fat-assed, prescription pill popping blowhard, if you’d be singing the same tune.

People were dying and the President ignored it.

No one, NO ONE, said he spread AIDS, you illiterate self-involved fucktard.

Catholics For The Common Good–quite the oxymoron–on DC’s marriage equality:

“It is shocking that the U.S. Supreme Court did not accept the appeal of District of Columbia citizens who were deprived of their right to vote on the definition of marriage. The Court’s decision effectively upheld the finding of the Washington Human Rights Commission that it would be discriminatory to even give citizens a choice to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The consequences of changing the definition of marriage have broad ramifications for how the value of marriage to children and society is perceived and will affect decisions people make about marriage in their own lives. Already, 41% of children born today are deprived of a mother and father who have first chosen to make themselves irreplaceable to each through marriage. This is a human tragedy and a violation of the rights of the child.”

So, it’s despicable to allow people to vote on equality?

People can have their opinions on the matter, but equality should never be put up to a vote.

Newly-elected Republican, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, on how he feels about people who aren’t Christian:

“[I]f  you have been adopted in God’s family like I have, and like you have, if you’re a Christian and if you’re saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister. Now I will have to say that, if we don’t have the same daddy, we’re not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.”

Wow.

Alabama really follows that whole “separation of church and state” thing doesn’t it.

Non-Christians of Alabama?

Pack up and move, because the governor doesn’t think much of you.

Of course, once the firestorm of his idiocy went national, like any good Republican wingnut, Bentley apologized for his bigoted remarks.

Larry Kramer, on the AIDS crisis being a plague that was allowed to happen:

“Governments and bureaucrats and presidents and politicians and the people who run this world lie to people. They tell us HIV is under control. They tell us case numbers are decreasing. They tell us that all is being done that can be done. They tell us HIV is too complicated to eradicate. They tell us gay people and people of color have made more progress than ever before. These are all lies….For some 30-plus years, I have been trying to tell the world where this plague came from and why, and I will continue to do so until I die, too. You see, I simply can’t get the memories and the ghosts of just about every friend I had out of my life. And since there is no doubt in my mind that this plague of HIV/AIDS that took them from me was and continues to be allowed to happen, I am duty bound to tell this hideous history as best and as fully as I can. It’s the least I can do. That is correct: This plague of HIV/AIDS was intentionally allowed to happen. It still is. Nothing has changed in the intentionality department. Hate has a way of hanging around forever and too often winning out in the end.”

Preach it Larry.

We need people like Larry Kramer to keep the world focused on AIDS. They say numbers are decreasing, well, when they say that, they don’t mean everywhere. Numbers of HIV-infected people are on the rise all over the world.

Progress is being made, but we still need to keep vigilant.

Kids In The Hall star Scott Thompson, on Canada’s banning of Dire Straits’ Money For Nothing for its usage of the word “faggot”:

“Shakespeare would be rolling over in his g-word. When you ban a word, you make the word more powerful. All this banning that’s going on just makes (the hate) go deeper and deeper into the soul, where it festers. Let it it out. I want to know what you really think. I can handle it. It makes me feel like we’re five years old and need to go potty. The n-word, I guess, is number 1 and the f- word is number 2.”

It’s a case much like the use of the new version of Huck Finn, where the n-word was replaced by the word ‘slave’.

We need to remember that these words, in books and songs, remind us of how it used to be,m and of how far we’ve come.

And, um, Canada, if you going to ban Money For Nothing, you better start looking at every single rap and hip-hop album, because there’s a lot if faggoting going on there, too.

Utah Republican state Senator Chris Buttars, on repealing the Salt Lake City school board’s recently instituted anti-bullying rules:

“We’re in big trouble in our public education system. I didn’t realize how much until a month ago when I was asked to chair public education appropriations. We met and when we got done we were all so terrified we couldn’t believe it. This was right under our nose….This is an entire program to bring America down and I want to tell you right now it’s well entrenched in Utah.”

So, instituting a policy against bullying will bring America down?

Wow.

I think what will bring America down is the idea that anyone, regardless of who they are, can be bullied and beaten and harassed and taunted.

That isn’t America, Buttars, and you, sir, are an idiot.

Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Cady, on whether or not he regretted bringing marriage equality to the state:

“Absolutely not. That decision was crafted with all of the energy, all of the strength — everything that we do as judges is in that opinion. Everything that Iowa is about is in that opinion….“Judges accept that as their role in society. Even a judge that makes a ruling in a criminal case that may result in the suppression of evidence may not be a popular decision, but judges make their decisions based upon the rule of law and that’s what their duty is and that’s the importance and the strength of all of our government.”

The ‘rule of law’.

Isn’t equality in there somewhere? And why don’t more people understand that as well as Cady understands that?

Elaine Donnelly, of the Center For Military Readiness, on former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty’s pledge to reinstate DADT should he become president:

“I think he’s showing that he is more willing to listen to the voices of combat personnel and leaders than the current administration — and certainly more so than are the members of Congress, who recklessly rushed to repeal a law that enjoyed such widespread support among the military.”

Widespread support in the military?

Did Donnelly not read the survey of military personnel who wanted DADT repealed?

Or is she just another right-wing mouthpiece saying whatever she wants to say as though it were the truth?

As for Pawlenty, well, he’s just pandering to the right wing and the Tea Party, because he knows that over, way over, 50% of Americans wanted DADT repealed, and he won’t win that battle.

It’s just Republican pandering for votes.

Nothing new here.

American Family Association radio host Bryan Fischer, on poor picked on, victim, Sarah Palin:

“The hatred directed at her is mindless, it is baseless, it is utterly irrational, and it is disturbing to an alarming degree. When we look into the face of the unvarnished and seething meanness focused on Ms. Palin, we are looking into the face of evil. We are looking into the face of Satan himself, who is the ultimate source of this vitriol and toxic hate.”

So, um, I don’t like Sarah Palin, so I am….what? Satan? A disciple of Satan?

Or am I just someone with a different opinion, who views Palin as divisive and dangerous and narcissistic and the last thing this country needs?

Glee star Jane Lynch, on why she thinks openly gay actors are rarely cast in leading roles:

“I don’t know when or if that will ever happen. I think because since most of the world is straight — and maybe we’ll get to a place where this will happen — most of the world is straight and we want the audience to project their hopes and dreams for love and romance onto those actors. And if it’s not in some way possible, maybe never probably, in their mind that it could never happen, then they’re not going to do it. You know, most people are straight, and I think that’s probably why.”

Um, most people on the planet are also Chinese, if we’re being honest here, and I don’t see a lot of Chinese people being given lead roles.

I like Jane, but she’s way off here.

I think people want to see someone they can relate to, a character they can relate to, and they can set aside that actor’s personal life to do so.

Otherwise, Pat Morita would have been the star of Happy Days, and not just a costar.

Trent Humphries, Tucson Tea Party founder, actually blames Gabrielle Giffords for her own shooting:

“It’s political gamesmanship. The real case is that she [Giffords] had no security whatsoever at this event. So if she lived under a constant fear of being targeted, if she lived under this constant fear of this rhetoric and hatred that was seething, why would she attend an event in full view of the public with no security whatsoever?”

Wow, so because she had no security she deserved having a bullet sent through her head.

By that logic, because I don’t carry a gun, I should expect to be shot also?

We should simply arm everyone and let everyone hire their own security and then we’ll all be safe.

Guns for everyone!

That’s the key to safety.

Glenn Beck, in 2005:

“I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out — is this wrong?”

Glenn Beck in 2011:

“Sixty percent of Americans say the rhetoric in America has nothing to do with the shooting. It’s — it’s quite honestly an abomination that it’s only 60 percent of the American people. I don’t understand how rhetoric had anything to do with it.”

This, of course, from a man who uses words to incite–remember he called Obama a racist.

This from a man who says he doesn’t condone violence, yet posts pictures of himself carrying a gun.

This from….oh, forget it, Beck is an asshat.

Bishop Robert C. Evans, on the idea of marriage equality coming to Rhode Island: 

“I submit that today, in the State of Rhode Island, we are faced with a challenge to our baptismal promises to renounce the modern day evil works of Satan and confess our belief in Christ and His holy Catholic Church. On the day of our baptism, we chose whose side we are on. The question we must now ask ourselves is: Are we still on God’s side? And if we are, how will we prove it? This challenge takes the form of an attempt to grant to same sex couples that recognition reserved for the oldest and the only institution God created in His own image: Man as male and female united in marriage. The essence of marriage in God’s plan is a union of one male and one female, who are so physically, emotionally, psychologically and religiously complementary that each completes the other in such a way that without the other each is incomplete. For this reason, it is a vocation, a call from God to the persons concerned as to how they are to live their lives and win their salvation.”

Wow, another invocation of Satan.

So, then, I don’t like Palin, so I’m the devil.

I’m pro-marriage equality, so I’m the devil.

Okay.

>The Ballad Of Sarah Palin….by Lady Bunny*

>Quite possibly NSFW, and I don’t like the use of the crosshairs at the end….

* I sense we’re in for yet another MamaGrizzly Bore “I’m a victim” video.

>Too Bad, So Sad

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Bishop Harry Jackson got his collar in a twist because Washington DC allowed equal marriage. And he spit and sputtered and stomped his feet and brandished the same tired rhetoric his ilk always brandish when equality happens.
God’s law! Bah!
Traditional marriage! No such thing.
Sanctity! Bite me.
And Jackson took his tired rants and tried to appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn marriage equality and let the people of DC vote on it.
But the Supremes said No.
Jackson’s appeal was de-nied.
Good for SCOTUS.
Equality should never be put up for a vote. We didn’t vote on whether women had the right to vote; we didn’t vote on whether black people had the right to vote; we didn’t vote on Civil Rights.
It’s equality, and the fight for it, and the right for it shouldn’t be left in the hands of the people, because you will always have someone, like a Bishop Harry Jackson, or a NOM or a Bryan Fischer, or any number of pandering-to-the-right Republicans, spinning what the story is about into some sort of End Of Days theory, when it’s about equality.
i keep saying this, and I;ll keep saying this: if you think Carlos and I shouldn’t be allowed to marry if that’s what we wish, then that’s okay. you can thin that. If you think Carlos and I are headed straight to Hell because we’re gay, you can think that, too. If you think we’re an abomination, run with it.
But you cannot use your fears and your religion and your so-0called belief in God to deny us equality.
Blibbety-blah-blay-blue Bite me.

>Those Wacky Republicans

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Talk about out of touch.
I mean, in the House, they voted to repeal Health Care Reform–or as they civilly called it, “killing” health Care Reform–which caused a congressman from South Carolina–sigh, are they all idiots here?–Joe “You lie” Wilson to Tweet: “We repealed Obamacare!”
Except, Joe, you lie. You didn’t repeal it; you voted to repeal it. It won’t happen in the Senate, and even if it does, Obama will veto it.
But keep celebrating your non-win Joe, because now you don’t have to focus on the economy, which most Americans are most concerned about, or those two pesky wars, or the environment, or anything else that matters and maybe, just maybe, can get fixed.
And, to further prove my point that the Republicans heads are shoved so far up their collective out of touch asses, we have Iowa.
All those Republicans, and I’m looking first at you Steve King, you moron, want to remove those radical activist judges who interpreted the Iowa Constitution to mean everyone is equal under the law, and to let gay men and women marry. King and his brand of inbreds want to install their own radical activist judges on the bench so they can take away equality.
But guess what, asshats?
According to a recent poll, while you are busy introducing resolutions to place a marriage referendum on the ballot, and are feverishly drafting legislation to impeach the four remaining state Supreme Court justices who joined a unanimous 2009 decision that brought equal marriage to the state, a new poll released by the group Justice Not Politics, finds that only 36% of Iowans agree with you, and 54% of Iowans think you’re a bunch of fucktards.
I think Iowans want you to focus on, oh, the economy, maybe; on unemployment. perhaps. But you want to fight this fight because you think you’re right.
But you aren’t. You’re just the typical, shortsighted Republicans.

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>The Vatican Says It’s Misunderstood

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So, it was just yesterday that I posted about a letter, written by the Vatican to a group of Irish Bishops to warn them against reporting priests accused of raping and molesting children, and instead let the Vatican handle the situation, by moving the suspected priests so they could rape and molest again [see post HERE].
After that post, I got an email from Tom at My New Life with a link to an article detailing the Vatican’s response to “The Letter”. As you can imagine, my interest was piqued.
The Vatican, circling the pope’s red shoes to fend off this new ‘threat’, has declared the letter to be “deeply misunderstood.” The letter specifically says that the Irish bishops policy of mandatory reporting of child abuse cases “gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and canonical nature.”
So, um, yeah, in the words of the Vatican, reporting child abuse, and I’ll be fair here, ALLEGED child abuse is cause for concern about the morals of those doing the reporting; not, however, in the morals of the ALLEGED molesters, or in the members of the Vatican, who wished to keep this dirty little secret.
While the Irish bishops understood the letter to mean the Vatican did not want them to report suspected crimes, victims groups are declaring the letter to be the “smoking gun” that shows how the Catholic church enforced a worldwide culture of concealing crimes by pedophile priests of which Rome bears ultimate–and legal–responsibility.
Andrew Madden, a former Dublin altar boy who was raped repeatedly by a priest, Ivan Payne, in the 1980s: “The letter confirms that the cover-up goes as far as the Vatican, that Vatican officials knew exactly what was going on, and that they proactively sought to deter Irish bishops from cooperating with civil authorities in Ireland.”
A child was raped, repeatedly, and those who professed to love and protect children, instead chose to protect the rapists, and ordered that protection in a letter.
Still, the Vatican scrambles, and this week they insisted the letter was only intended to emphasize that Irish bishops follow church law meticulously; Vatican spokesman, Reverend Federico Lombardi, said the Holy See wanted to ensure that pedophile priests wouldn’t have any technical grounds to escape church punishment on appeal.
Now, why would they need technical grounds to escape church punishment? I mean, in the case of pedophile priest Tony Walsh, the Vatican’s method of punishment was to take him out of his parish where he was accused of raping boys and put him in a monastery where he raped another child. Is that the Vatican’s idea of punishment? And, since when does the church, any church, get to decide how to punish someone who breaks the law?
And, because of ‘The Letter’, the Irish bishops, who had proactively begun cooperating with law enforcement in cases of abusive priests, suddenly changed their tune, and never implemented their commitment to report all suspected abuse cases to police.
I understand faith. I understand having faith in the Catholic religion, but could someone, anyone, tell me how Catholics continue to follow their leaders when it becomes clearer and clearer that they have spent decades allowing priests to rape and molest children, and then refusing to punish those priests, and instead simply transferring them somewhere else and hoping they wouldn’t molest another child.
How do they do that?

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>Architecture Wednesday: A Frank Lloyd Wright Farmhouse

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I love a Frank Lloyd Wright house. I love the fact that he took everything into consideration, from what each room should be used for, to where you sit, and where you should, and, even, sometimes, how you should dress–one story has it that FLW designed a dress for the homeowner of one of his creations to wear so she would fit in with the house.

So, today we have Fawcett house by Frank Lloyd Wright. It’s a luxury farm house–which may seem like an oxymoron–on approximately 80 acres site in San Joaquin Valley of California.

The entire property is a work of art; there are 5 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, open plan living room, dining room, & kitchen formalized by ornamental screens, a utility-store room and central laundry. The spiritual center of the house is 12 foot wide fireplace in living room which is the great place to gather with family and friends.

The house’s garden and courtyard also are its pride. There are swimming pool, Koi pond with fish, workshop, 3 car carport and great Japanese style garden landscape design. The site also includes a walnut orchard.

Yours, for just $2,395.000.

For me, owning an Wright house is priceless.

from DiggsDiggs

>The HCDSB Changes It’s Tune…..Slightly

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It was a little more than a week ago that i posted the story of the Halton Catholic District School Board [HCDSB] in Canada not allowing a Gay/Straight Alliance [GSA][ to be formed at their schools because, well, they don’t allow Nazi’s to form groups either [original post HERE].
Yes, gays and Nazi’s are apparently very similar to the HCDSB.
Well, now it seems that, after many vocal complaints and protests, they may have changed their minds, though the board’s new equity policy may still discriminate against gays.

Former HCDSB student James Hopkins gave trustees a picture of what it’s like growing up gay in small town Ontario, and says he plans to pressure the Ministry of Education to push for one equity and inclusive education policy for all school boards.
Catholic and otherwise.
Hopkins: “Day in, day out, I suffered. What I, and so many other gay youth, experience is not an act of hatred, but one of fear. Without exposure [to gay people], how do we fight ignorance?”
And then, iIn a 6-2 vote, trustees decided to rescind the ban on GSAs and shelve the equity and inclusive education policy. While a new policy is being drafted, the board will use the Catholic “template”–a version of Ontario’s equity policy that’s written specifically for English Catholic boards.
Originally Halton wasn’t satisfied with the Catholic template, so they made a few edits, like removing words like “sexual orientation” and “gender” and then altogether banning GSAs.
Board chair, Alice Anne Lemay, when asked whether or not the board will allow groups to be called gay-straight alliance clubs, refused to answer: “I can’t answer that tonight, the policy will go to senior administration and will be implemented in the schools.”
See, it’s all in the word gay, because if you use the word gay then kids might start thinking they’re gay and then you’ll have an infestation of gay kids looking for acceptance and tolerance and a place to go where they can be themselves and, well, for the HCDSB, that’s just wrong.
I think they believe that Catholic kids, because they go to Catholic Church and Catholic schools, will not ever be gay; it must be those other religions, and those atheists, that produce the queer children.
And, even thought the ban has now been lifted, the HCDSB may follow suit with other Catholic school boards and adopt a broad “diversity group” policy, creating space for anti-discrimination groups, which allow students to discuss a number of social justice issues, such as racism, sexism, poverty and homophobia.
Which is nice, but will not expressly work to find a safe haven for gay students.

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>Color Me Not Surprised But Still Disgusted

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Y’all know how I feel about the Catholic Church. They paint being gay as being the biggest sin, the most disgusting sin, while they have spent decades–and I think it’s longer–protecting child rapists, moving them from parish to parish, promoting them, protecting them, hiding them.
And now this.
In a new documentary, a letter from the Vatican is discovered, and it’s contents shared: the Vatican–and by Vatican I mean the Pope, and by the Pope I mean co-conspirator–stopped attempts by Irish bishops to defrock abuser priests.
Yes, the Vatican asked that child rapists be protected. the Vatican which paints itself as the protector of children, protected rapists of children.
It all started because, just last month, a High Court order finally allowed the full publication of a previously censored chapter in the Murphy Report on the Dublin Archdiocese. And that report revealed that when bishops made moves to dismiss paedophile priest Tony Walsh, the Vatican instead wanted Walsh sent to a monastery.
The documentary, Unspeakable Crimes, shows how Walsh then went on to abuse another child after the Vatican asked to protect him. The mother of that child, who wishes to keep her name private, points her finger at the Vatican for the abuse of her son.
While the priest was never prosecuted–a sin unto itself–the Irish archbishop, through the Church tribunal, recommended that Walsh be dismissed from the clerical state. But then the Vatican stepped in and overturned the decision of the tribunal, and sent Walsh to a monastery where he raped another child.
But, hey, at least the Church looked good, even if another child’s life was destroyed, and, after all, isn’t that the important thing?

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>Two More Suicides…..Or Is It Just One?

>The internet was all abuzz with the news that another LGBTQ teenager had committed suicide after repeated episodes of bullying at school.

Eighteen-year-old Jefferson High School Student Lance Lundsten died Saturday and, according to local news channel KSAX, Lundsten had recently revealed on Facebook that he was gay, and some students at his high school had begun to bully him for his sexual orientation.

And then the Sheriff’s Office confirmed that they believe Lundsten’s death to be a suicide, though they have not released any details about the medical emergency call that was made on Saturday.

Awful news, and yet, maybe it didn’t quite happen that way.

There are now conflicting reports about Lundsten’s death of Lance Lundsten, and it might not have been a suicide.

According to autopsy reports, Lance Lundsten died from cardiac edema, a condition caused by an enlarged heart. Though toxicology reports are still some six to eight weeks away, it seems that there is no evidence that drugs or alcohol played any role in his death.

Lundsten’s father reportedly called KSAX and said that the coroner ruled that Lance died not of suicide, but coronary edema. He said his son had an enlarged heart, and that neither drugs nor alcohol was found in the teen’s system.

Lance Lundsten was gay; and he was bullied at school, but right now it doesn’t seem as though his death was a suicide as a result of bullying.

The story continues to unfold.

But then we have another teenager dead over the weekend, and this one is a suicide; and it is the result of bullying, though Tiffani Maxwell wasn’t gay.

She was just a target.

Tiffani Maxwell was apparently bullied so badly that, after fellow students falsely told teachers they had seen her doing drugs, and the school subsequently expelled her, that she took her own life.

Her mother, Sandy, told news channels: “She got text messages, saying ‘Tiffani you’re in rehab.’ ‘You’re on drugs.'”

She wasn’t the gay kid, she was just a kid; she wasn’t bullied because she was gay, she was bullied because other kids have nothing better to do than taunt and harass a fellow student.

And now she’s dead.

Lance Lundsten

Tiffani Maxwell