Vigil Held In Philly For Gay Teen Suicide Victims
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- About 150 people gathered in Philadelphia on Sunday for a vigil for gay teenagers who have killed themselves recently following harassment due to their sexuality.
The victims include 18-year-old Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi. He killed himself by jumping off the George Washington bridge after his roommate secretly recorded him with another male student, then broadcast the video online.
Speakers at the William Way Community Center called for more efforts to curb bullying and for stern prosecution in the Clementi case.
Forty-six-year-old Jeanne McIntyre said she was kicked out of her Collingswood, N.J. home after coming out to her parents. But a quarter-century later, she saw the rainbow gay pride emblem raised over a municipal building in the City of Brotherly Love. Echoing a YouTube campaign, she told the crowd "It gets better."
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
