Ellen Degeneres On Lawrence King

OC Memorial For Lawrence King

NCJW/OC, a coalition partner of GLSEN OC, is sponsoring an event on Thursday, February 28th at 7PM at the Aliso Viejo Public Library titled How to Talk With Your Kids About Guns. This event is dedicated to the memory of Lawrence King, and features a speaker from Women Against Gun Violence. Admission is free.

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Lawrence King, 15, was a self-identified gay student who attended Green Junior High in Oxnard, CA. His feminine gender expression "was freaking the guys out" according to one of his classmates.

Apparently, for this, he had to die.

Lawrence was shot at point blank range in his eighth grade English class by a 14-year-old boy who had apparently been one of his anti-LGBT tormentors. Friends of the victim said he was a frequent target of bullying because he sometimes wore makeup and jewelry and had told classmates he is gay.

The teenager sometimes wore feminine clothing and makeup, and proclaimed he was gay, students said. Some of the male students were bothered by his appearance, calling it a distraction, several students said.

"He would come to school in high-heeled boots, makeup, jewelry and painted nails -- the whole thing," said Michael Sweeney, 13, an eighth-grader. "That was freaking the guys out."

The school district superintendent said school staff were aware that King had butted heads with other students, including the suspect, and that they had offered both students help.

Bullying in schools has long been a problem. The U.S. Congress still hasn't passed the Matthew Shepard Act as an appropriate and measured response to the unrelenting and under-addressed problem of violent hate crimes committed against individuals based on actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability.