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Texas is in the throes of rewriting the curriculum standards for its K-12 textbooks. And that is something to be very, very worried about.

The United States Justice Department recently struck a blow against bullying behavior. Officials there reversed a decade-old policy and asked to intervene in a harassment suit brought by a gay youth.

The trouble with Women’s History Month—with all these special months—is that they encourage people to think that problems have been solved.

A school district in northern Mississippi has cancelled its high school prom rather than let a lesbian student wearing a tuxedo attend with her girlfriend.

“I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don't forget to be a good boy… .”Tennessee state lawmaker Harry Burn received that note from his mom in August 1920. And like a good son, he subsequently changed his vote from “nay” to “yea,” breaking a 48-48 deadlock in the state’s general assembly. “I knew that a mother’s advice is always safest for her boy to follow,” Burn commented afterward, while noting it wasn’t often that a man had a chance “to free 17 million women from political slavery.”

As my 10th-grade students came back from lunch, it was clear that a few of my more squirrely young men needed time to readjust to the ways of a classroom after being away all summer. “It’s just a joke between us, Mr. Greenslate,” said Aaron. “We all know Jason from outside of school, and so that’s just how we mess around. Once you know us better you’ll understand.”

Billy Lucas grew up an Indiana farm boy in Greensburg—halfway between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, Ohio. He grew up winning blue ribbons for his prized and much loved horses and lambs. He also grew up enduring taunts, threats, and physical abuse from bullies. He grew up with those bullies telling him he should kill himself because they thought he was gay. Whether he was or not, Billy never said.

September has been a grim month. Three boys—15-year old Billy Lucas in Indiana, and 13-year olds Asher Brown in Texas and Seth Walsh in California—took their own lives after being subjected to relentless anti-gay bullying in school. And then, just one day before this miserable September ended, news came of another tragedy. This time, Tyler Clementi, an 18-year old college student, believed it was better to jump off the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River 600 feet below rather than live through being outed and humiliated at the hands of his homophobic roommate who streamed video of Tyler’s sexual encounter with a “dude” for the world to see.

The suicides of boys tormented by anti-gay harassment grabbed the public’s attention this fall. Those suicides are the tip of the iceberg. For every tragic and unnecessary case that makes it to the news, there are others we don’t hear about. These are the ones that families are too ashamed to disclose. Then there are scores of suicide attempts that leave parents desperately trying to convince schools to do the right thing.