TV Show Remodels The Home Of Anti-Bullying Activist Sideaner Walker

Sideaner Walker became a nationally known anti-bullying activist after her eleven year old son, Carl Walker-Hoover, hung himself in his yard. Tonight ABC's Extreme Makeover remodels the Walker home.

Designer Jillian Harris and other members of ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” team regularly see the good which can come from providing new homes to families. She hopes the home they created this fall for Sirdearner Walker and her family here helps the Walkers continue their healing process. “We have rebuilt a home for a family in need,” Harris said this week. “This is a family that has been through hardships. They cried out with joy when they saw their new house.”

FLASHBACK: Here's Walker's 2009 Ellen appearance.

Washington Post Publishes Editorial From Mother Of Dead Bullied Gay Child

In response to widespread criticism for publishing an anti-gay editorial from Family Research Council head Tony Perkins, the Washington Post has posted a response from the mother of 11 year-old Carl Walker-Hoover, who took his life last year after relentless homophobic bullying. An excerpt:

I am a single mother and a devout Christian who had never been involved in advocacy work or politics. After my son died, and GLSEN reached out to me, some of my friends and family members expressed concern about the organization's work to address anti-gay bullying in school. They voiced religious opposition to GLSEN. Thanks to Tony Perkins' On Faith piece published yesterday, I don't have to repeat the arguments. Perkins' lays them all out practically word for word. And they're all wrong. [snip]

If schools perceive addressing anti-gay bullying as a controversial issue, then they'll continue the status quo of putting their heads in the sand and hoping the issue takes care of itself. It won't. And we need to be clear on one thing - addressing anti-gay bullying is not a controversial issue. If you move through the smoke screen organizations like Family Research Council try to create, you realize addressing anti-gay bullying is simply the right thing to do if we care about all of our young people.

Read the entire essay.

Remembering Carl Walker-Hoover

It was one year ago that 11 year-old Carl Walker-Hoover hung himself in his bedroom closet after being relentlessly tormented by anti-gay bullies at his school. GLSEN requests that you honor Carl today by signing their petition that Congress pass the Safe School Environments Act, a federal bill that would provide funding for schools to prevent and respond to incidents of bullying and harassment. Carl's mother will appear on ABC's 20/20 this Friday night to talk about her son and the anti-gay bullying that pushed him to end his young life.

Carl Walker-Hoover's Mom Testifies Before Congress About Bullying

The mother of Carl Walker-Hoover, who took his own life at the age of 11 due to anti-gay bullying, testified before the House Education and Labor Committee yesterday in support of anti-bullying laws.

Carl Walker-Hoover's Mother On Ellen

The mother of "bullied to death" 11 year-old Carl Walker-Hoover appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres Show to demand an end to school bullying.

Bullied To Death

Today the Boston Globe published an editorial titled Bullied To Death in which the paper decries anti-gay bullying and points out how much worse the situation can be for children in the inner-cities.

Relentless bullying, including anti-gay slurs, by students at the New Leadership Charter School in Springfield pushed sixth-grader Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover to take his own life, according to his mother. The quality of interventions by school officials is unclear. But an act so desperate by one so young is a clear reminder of how schools can become torture chambers for students perceived as different.

Massachusetts led the nation in 1993 by crafting an anti-discrimination law for gay and lesbian students. But the law is only as effective as the educators who implement it. And the stakes can be higher in poor, urban districts like Springfield, where nonconformity too often draws aggressive attention. Teachers or administrators who ignore even a single degrading comment in that environment can open the door to a world of pain.

Gay blogger Rod McCullom: "Bullying is much more intense in poor, urban school districts because this is where children (and their "parents") are taught to glorify "thug" culture. So it becomes unfortunately all-too-common in the black community to taunt and harass boys and young men who do not act like thugs. How many more children have to be bullied to death until we learn this wrong?"