Guest Editorial... We ALL Need To Make More Effort For Change To Happen

Justin

By Tammy Aaberg | CHAMPLIN,MN -- July 9, 2010 was the worst day of our lives. Our lives today, over 2 years later, are still not what they used to be. We have days that are better than others and we have now developed what people might call "a new normal" but we still miss Justin and his beautiful bright light that he brought to our lives every day with his beautiful, almost never-ending, smile and his amazing cello music that he loved to play so often.

On that day, my son Justin still wasn't awake at 2:00 p.m. when my then 7 year old and I returned from getting our new baby chinchilla. This wasn't normal and so after knocking on his door and frantically calling his name and threatening to break the door down my oldest son- who was 18 at the time- heard me and yelled that he would go get a screwdriver. My 7 year old yelled "I'll go get a knife," as the kitchen was just around the corner.

After getting the door open, I didn't see Justin at first but as I walked in I saw Justin dead by his own hand. I screamed his name and ran up to him as I wanted to hug him as he didn't look good, but quickly realized that Justin wasn't there anymore. He had obviously been dead for some hours. I stopped and touched 2 fingers to his chest and felt how cold and rubbery he felt and ran screaming out of the bedroom to call 911. My 7 year old stayed right with me and a couple days later I would find out from my 18 year old son that he stayed in his brother’s bedroom with Justin's dead body until the police came as he didn't want to leave him alone.

Unfortunately today, over 2 years after that awful summer day when I first learned about the bullying and harassment that Justin faced in school on a continuous basis, and confronting the Anoka-Hennepin school board for my first time at a public meeting about what my son and other gay students like him have endured in the schools, my family is still not able to heal the way we should have been able to.

The Anoka-Hennepin school board has continued to deny that their policies were at all at fault. They also continue to allow hate groups to have a major voice in how they handle the safety of their LGBTQ students, and other students that don't accept the "conservative Christian" religious beliefs.

You would think that after having a 15-month period of time during which there were 9 suicides in the school district, with at least 4 of them having some type of LGBTQ connection to being bullied [ In which the SPLC,DOJ, DOE and NCLR had a lawsuit against them.] that they would at least want to look like they care for these kids and have the LGBTQ students believe that they truly don't have some type of disorder.

But,unfortunately within a month after the lawsuit settling, Tom Heidemann, the school board chairman, released the following letter to the Anoka Watchdog newspaper [http://anokacountywatchdog.com/email/2012/03.30.12_update.htm] in which Heidemann states:

"The Board maintained the intent of the sexual orientation curriculum policy while making it defensible in future legal challenges." 

So, he's pretty much saying that there is no intent for the new Respectful Learning Environment Policy, which the district adopted as part of that settlement, to have any change in the way things are run for LGBTQ students in the Anoka-Hennepin School District.

For a good 7 to 8 months following the settlement, I was hoping that the district was working hard to implement some of the policies mentioned in the Consent Decree. When the application on the school district website came online to apply for the Antibullying Task Force earlier this summer, I made sure that I got my application in on time. I felt that I had a good chance of getting on the task force as the applications were going to the new Title IX person hired on as part of the Consent Decree. Sadly I found out just days before my letter came denying my application for the position, that Tom Heidemann, the School Board Chairman was making the sole decision on who would be on the task force.

I stated my disappointment to the Title IX person about this as I would never have wasted my time applying had I known he was making the decision alone. I knew he never would have chosen me as he along with the rest of the school board, never responded to my requests to meet with them in person before the lawsuit was settled.

Additionally, none of the school board members ever told me that they were sorry for the loss of my son, Justin. A couple days after finding out that Heidemann was choosing the Antibullying Task Force members on his own, I received a letter from him stating who was going to be on the task force, and of course I wasn't listed nor were the other 2 people whom I knew had applied. Bryan Lindquist from the SPLC listed hate group, the Parent Action League, (PAL) was selected instead.
This is the man whom earlier this year had given the school board a list of 10 demands [http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2012/01/13/conservative-christian-parents-fight-right-discriminate-against-lgbt-students-anoka-] in regards to dealing with the issues regarding LGBTQ people.

Board Chairman Heidemann took the time to write a 4 page letter responding to Lindquist and PAL’s 10 demands. However, a month earlier my then 9-year-old son Anthony, had written to the school board a letter which he begged me to send and which never received a reply. He still remembers this almost a year later. [ Pictured Above]
Sadly, with all of the above going on, according to the SPLC there is NOTHING the SPLC, DOE or DOJ can do to make sure things truly are being handled fairly in the Anoka-Hennepin School District as they are follow through on making policy changes.
The best response we get is a reference from SPLC and the feds to handling it from "a community organizing perspective," and that "student voices may be the most fruitful."

So, it looks like we are back to asking the students to take a stand again. I'm almost to the point of wondering what impact the lawsuit had except to make the story national throughout the media.

I'm hearing that policies are being made but I would love to see them enforced. When we have the head of the school board acting unilaterally choosing the members of the Anti-bullying Task Force and one of them is from a hate group this worries me as to who else is on the Task Force. So far, out of the 6 people who I've found out have been denied, 5 of them spoke out against the "Neutrality Policy.” If the head of the school board is negatively abusing his power on this issue, who can say what else he's manipulating, especially after seeing his response in the Anoka Watchdog newspaper.

Another hurtful thing in our community and throughout the entire state of Minnesota is the impending vote on the marriage amendment by which some legislators are trying to alter the state’s constitution to say that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Throughout Minnesota, people have Vote Yes signs who agree with marriage as only one man and one woman and have Vote No signs for those who agree that the freedom to marry should not be limited to only one man and one woman.

Up here in Anoka-Hennepin land, there aren't many Vote No signs and only a few more Vote Yes signs. My now 10-year-old Anthony comes home on the school bus many days and is super mad when he sees Vote Yes signs; even one of them upsets him. However, when we drive the 20 miles to Minneapolis where my parents live, almost every single house has a Vote No sign in its yard.

When Anthony sees those Vote No signs all at once, he's a kid in a candy store with how much enthusiasm he has for realizing how many caring people there really are in this world who want freedom for all.

Shawn, Andrew, Anthony, (and holding Justin's picture)Tammy Aaberg

It's so awful to see how much hurt this issue can cause a person, whether they are straight or gay. I see friendships falling apart, families fighting. I even had a teacher friend of mine tell me last week that during a break at play rehearsal, a 7th grade boy said to him, "Mr. Fietek, I can't wait until this election is over." When asked why, he said; "I don't know any gay people, but every time I see one of those Vote Yes signs I get upset because that just seems really hurtful." This is a 7th grader and he gets it.

While the people who want Vote Yes, to win, continue to lie and mislead people and tear families apart with their ads
[http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2012/10/25/reality-check-new-deceptive-marriage-amendment-ad/] we have innocent loving people getting hurt, but supposedly according to the "conservative Christians" this is all in the name of their God.

I just want to tell all youth out there that the Jesus I know and love, loves everyone, which includes them. And you know what? He loves you just the way you are. We can all continue to speak out for equal rights and we WILL continue to see things getting better and better for all, but we ALL need to make more effort for change to happen. I am sure we can do it!