Openly Gay John & Wales Student Raymond Chase Commits Suicide, University Of Rhode Island Student Christopher Hagan Charged After Leaving Series Of Anti-Gay Hate Notes Outside Dorm Rooms, Video Of Tyler Clementi Playing Violin, Judy Shepard Says Dharun Ravi And Molly Wei Should Be Prosecuted To The Fullest Extent Of Law For Role In Clementi Suicide

Campus Pride – a national non-profit organization that supports lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender and straight ally college and university students Friday writes that it “offers its condolences and support to the family of Raymond Chase who reportedly hung himself in his residence hall room this past Wednesday, September 29th, 2010 on the campus of John & Wales in Providence, Rhode Island.” There are no other details on the death of the openly gay Chase, however Shane Windmeyer, the executive director and founder of Campus Pride, said “The loss of Raymond this week is the second college LGBT-related suicide in a week and the fifth teenage LGBT suicide in three weeks. The suicide of this openly gay young man is for reasons currently unknown; however, the recent pattern of LGBT youth suicides is cause for grave concern.”

Meanwhile, the Providence Journal reports that campus police have arrested 19 year old University of Rhode Island student Christopher Hagan, and charged him with misdemeanour vandalism and disorderly conduct after an anti-gay threat was written on the dry-erase board of several dorm room doors. URI spokesperson Dave Lavallee said that university police were called to Barlow Hall at 1:44 am September 24th to investigate, one student saying that they felt threatened after finding a drawing of penis accompanied by the message “You are gay, get out of Barlow before you regret it” outside their door. Hagen was held, then released on his own recognizance, and must appear in District Court October 6th to face the two charges. Hagan has also been referred to the university’s judicial process.

CBS News has obtained a video of Rutgers University undergraduate Tyler Clementi, the 18 year old who threw himself off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate, Dharun Ravi, streamed online a sexual encounter with the freshman without his knowledge, playing violin, Clementi a gifted violist who was to perform Saturday night with the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra. Officials say his name will remain on the program.

Also from CBS News, Judy Shepard, the mother of Matthew Shepard, the openly gay 21 year old University of Wyoming student, murdered in October, 1998 by two men who targeted Shepard because of his sexual orientation, who says that Clementi’s roommate Dharun Ravi, and his friend and accomplice in the events that led to Tyler’s suicide, Molly Wei should be “prosecuted to the full extent of the law. What they did was reckless, thoughtless, and hateful.” Shepard, who gay rights activism has been fundamental in passing a federal hate crimes law partly named in honour of her son, and who founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation to combat anti-gay hate and intolerance, added that “we have such vicious rhetoric floating around the country, I’m not really sure who our leaders are and what they think they’re doing communicating to our young people. All you have to do is go to the floor of Congress, media, newspaper, about the discontent with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the (gay) marriage issue and it still seems we are trying to relegate the gay community to second-class citizens.” Shepard also said that “it’s so important to try to communicate to our children and/or students empathy, to understand what other people’s lives are like, and a general rule of accepting everyone for who they are and respecting them, just for being here. Self-respect is just so important. And if our society is not allowing us to even feel that, I don’t know what the recourse is. But, we work very hard in the school system to try to (combat) bullying, but if we don’t deal with the issues of the bully, we really get nowhere. What we do at school needs to be followed up at home. And what we do at home needs to be followed up at school. I think we just think someone else is taking care of it, and, evidently, they’re not.”