With the suicide of local teen Jamey Rodemeyer, the topic of cyber bullying, and more prevalently, the bullying of gay, lesbian, and bisexual students at high school, has become an even bigger issue for many people across the nation. The story of Jamey in particular personally sickens me. What bothers me the most I think is how relentless the bullies were towards Jamey, and how they still are. How would someone be able to live with themselves knowing they told another individual to kill themselves, and they actually did? What is even more vile is the fact that the group of students who were tormenting and bullying Jamey did not stop the rude and hurtful comments after he was dead. They continued to write on his Facebook wall saying that they were glad he was dead. What makes this situation even more horribly shocking and repulsive is that the same students also targeted Jamey’s sister at her homecoming dance chanting Jamey’s name and taunting her when a Lady Gaga song was played. How could those people have the nerve to do that? There is talk of trying to get a legislation passed that would make Cyber bullying a crime punishable by jail time. The proposed law would make anyone found responsible for another person taking their own life guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to up to fifteen years in prison even for a minor. I think that fifteen years may be too harsh if the accused is a minor, but jail time should definitely be the punishment for hate crimes over the internet. It comes down to the fact that the people that bully others, especially over the internet, contributed to the death of another and they deserve to be punished just like any other regular murderer. The death of Jamey is truly heartbreaking and it’s a shame that it takes a tragedy like this to bring an issue to light.
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