Michael Caulfield/WireImage.comFor a few minutes on her show today, Ellen DeGeneres put aside celebrity guests and even her dancing to address an issue that hits close to home: homophobia.
Fighting back tears, DeGeneres spoke about Lawrence "Larry" King, a 15-year-old boy who was killed on Feb. 12 because he was gay.
Brandon McInerney, 14, has been charged with shooting King in the head in a classroom full of students at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, California.
“I would like you to start paying attention to how often being gay is the punchline of a monologue or how often gay jokes are in a movie,” DeGeneres said to an estimated 2.5 million viewers. “And that kind of message, laughing at someone because they’re gay, is just the beginning. It starts with laughing at someone, and then it’s verbal abuse, then it’s physical abuse, and it’s this kid Brandon killing a kid like Larry.”
Days before he was murdered, King had asked his killer to be his valentine, and witnesses reportedly saw McInerney taunting King about being gay. Local law enforcement officials have not discussed a motive in the shooting, but prosecutors have also charged McInerney with committing a hate crime. It’s widely assumed that the hate-crime allegation is related to King’s sexuality.
“Larry was not a second-class citizen,” DeGeneres said in her remarks. “I am not a second-class citizen. It’s okay if you’re gay.”
And this may not be the only time DeGeneres addresses the issue on her show. I hear producers may be putting together a future segment about the killing, with appearances by King’s family, friends and school officials. DeGeneres is on hiatus next week and will begin tapings again on Mar. 10.
Eliza Byard, deputy executive director of the the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a national organization that helps fight antigay bias in grades K-12, applauded DeGeneres for speaking up. “When someone like Ellen steps up and puts the case out there so beautifully and so simply to the world, it could be an incredible moment of change for the culture,” she said.
For more on King and details about local vigils that may be happening in your area, go to glsen.org. Online vigils have also been created at MySpace and Facebook.