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There was another boy in the room with Tyler Clementi that night. That other boy, so far as we know, hasn’t been publicly identified.

He also hasn’t committed suicide.

A mob mentality has set in. People—gay and straight, liberal and conservative—are calling for the heads of the two Rutgers students who cruelly and thoughtlessly invaded Tyler’s privacy. Facing charges that could bring them fives years in prison isn’t enough: people are calling for Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei to be charged with manslaughter, even murder. But the other boy didn’t commit suicide. So there had to be something else going on, some other contributing factors, that drove Tyler to such a point of despair and hopelessness that he took his own life. And this one incident of anti-gay bullying, however traumatizing it may have been (and Tyler’s emails and web posts immediately after indicate that he was upset, but not destroyed, by what his roommate had done), were not enough to do it. The other by hasn’t committed suicide. This one event did not take a healthy, well-adjusted, well-loved gay kid and convince him to throw himself off the George Washington Bridge.

I’m convinced that this—the cruelty of Tyler’s roommate—was the last straw.

There are questions that need answers before we crucify Ravi and Wei: Was Tyler bullied in middle school? Was he bullied in high school? Was Tyler, like so many gay teenagers, bullied at home by homophobic parents who thought they could fix their son by heaping condemnation and disapproval on him, by abusing their child emotionally? Was Tyler forced to attend a church where he was subjected to spiritual bullying? Was he surrounded by children who took the hatred of homosexuals, as expressed by their parents and preachers, as a license to abuse and torment the gay kids in their schools?

The rush to crucify the two Rutgers students who were involved in streaming Tyler’s encounter with another boy—who has not harmed himself—is more clearly revealed to be, with each passing day, nothing more than an effort to deflect blame by shifting all responsibility for Tyler’s death onto the shoulders of a couple of foolish teenagers. But it is clear—the other boy did not commit suicide—that there were other people who contributed to Tyler’s death. Indeed, other people may be more culpable: middle and high school classmates who may have brutalized Tyler for years; school administrators who may have failed to protect him; religious “leaders” and religious “traditions” that pounded self-hatred into him. And I’m very sorry to say this but it has to be said: Tyler’s own family may bear some responsibility for his decision to end his life.

There needs to be a broader reckoning. We need answers. And things have to change. Anti-gay bigotry kills and increasingly it kills kids—children who are vulnerable and alone and being bullied emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Chris Christie, the anti-gay governor of New Jersey, was quoted as saying that he can’t imagine how the two students accused of secretly filming Clementi can sleep at night. I’m wondering how Christie sleeps at night—and Barack Obama. When the president says he opposes gay marriage because when it comes to marriage, “God is in the mix,” that sends a harmful message to gay children and their parents and their classmates.

Tyler’s roommate did not act alone. There are accomplices out there: uncaring teachers, criminally negligent school administrators, classmates who bullied and harassed Tyler, “Christian” churches and hate groups that warp some young minds and torment others, politicians on the right and left who exploit and perpetuate anti-gay prejudice, perhaps even Tyler’s own family. We need to learn more. And more charges need to be brought. Not just criminal charges against a couple of stupid teenagers who should’ve known better but didn’t. But ethical charges need to leveled against adults and institutions that knew better but didn’t care.

Ravi and Wei did not act alone. We have to recognize that there were others involved in destroying Tyler Clementi. And we need to start calling the effort to pin all the blame on Ravi and Wei exactly what it is: a coverup.

In addition to being a nationally syndicated sex advice columnist, the author of several books, and the host of the Savage Lovecast, Savage is “a deviant of the highest order” (Daily Caller)....

21 replies on “Who Killed Tyler Clementi?”

  1. Where do these people get their ideas? Maybe they come to the Portland Mercury website, click on the link to the Westboro Baptist Church, and get their ideas from them.

    You people are such fucking hypocrites, it’s disgusting.

  2. I knew Tyler personally, and his parents, and I can tell you, regarding his school career and home life that NONE OF THE ABOVE APPLY.

  3. I have known Tyler and his parents for a number of years and I can say,without a doubt, that regarding his school career and home life, NONE OF THE ABOVE APPLY. Supposition is a dangerous thing. The students involved have to be held accountable for setting events in motion.

  4. Less guessing with the homophobic reporting on the Merc and Stranger, more investigating.

  6. You know, I was going to comment here that Dan seems to have wandered over the line into incoherence, but then all I had to do was look at the first two (and a half) posts, and realize that even when emotion overtakes him, he still makes more sense than yer average motherfucker.

  8. Maybe we could ‘heap responsibility’ on Tyler. It’s great to blame everyone around a suicide victim but there are thousands upon thousands of unhappy people in the world that stick it out and DON’T COMMIT SUICIDE.

    But it’s much easier to blame a bunch of other people for someone’s actions.

  9. I’m sure there were other contributing factors, but here’s a couple thoughts:

    Perhaps Tyler considered the two “pranksters” friends, and felt betrayed, whereas his date probably didn’t know them.

    One committed suicide, the other didn’t. Perhaps thats because they were individuals, reacting differently to a given situation.

    And perhaps Tyler’s reaction became more fraught when others reaction to the stunt piled up.

    The key word here is perhaps. Investigators probably don’t know the whole scenario. Because the public doesn’t know. And yes, even Dan Savage doesn’t know. Speculation and fingerpointing before an investigation DOES NOT HELP.

  10. Dan Savage goes from wondering if Tyler Clementi was bullied by teachers, friends, family members, etc, to accusing them of being accessories to murder in just three paragraphs, without bothering to show any evidence to support his claim. The fact that the other young man didn’t commit suicide proves nothing more than that he could cope with Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei’s acts better than Clementi could. And why is Dan trying to shift the blame away from Ravi and Wei?

  11. I didn’t feel like he wanted to shift blame away from Ravi and Wei exactly, but actually wanted to just shift blame towards society’s failings.

  12. The articlle was less focused than usual, maybe a bit outside of the Savage genre, but an important question/ point.
    There are institutions in the US that serve as reservoirs for anti-homosexual rhetoric and sentiment that make bullying easier and more widespread. These tragic events show that intolerance is not harmless and we should ask the question; are the groups who endorse intolerance culpable for the fruits of their intolerance? …maybe more so than teenagers who probably did not think that posting embarrassing video on the web was such a big deal given the normality of anti-gay sentiment.

  15. @ Amanda, I think it only seems that way since anguished, closeted suicide statistics were until very recently just called, “suicides.”

  16. If I want to hate gay people, I have that right. If I want to tell my freinds I hate gay people, thats my right. If I want to believe gay people deserve to burn in hell, thats my right. If I want to protest gay rights that is my right. if I want to set up a picket for anti-gay beliefs, thats my right.

    Video taping them is not my right. Invading them, is not my right. Physical harm, is not my right.

    This article is just a bunch of “You shouldn’t be allowed to believe gay is bad.” The point is, these people broke the law, and did a very horrible thing to an innocent person. I’m in no way a supporter or anti-gay rhetoric, but I damned well support a persons choise to be as racist and anti-gay and whatever else they wish to be, because its America.

    Don’t deserve any extra time because this was a gay hate thing. That was there personal beliefs. They deserve time for the retarded shit they did; and the gay kid in this story deserves a momment of silence.

  17. @ Anonymous, You also have the right to eat lead-based paint chips for a decade and then make a barely intelligible comment to a blog post, bizarrely helping to make the very point that you dropped in to criticize.

    On behalf of the regular Blogtown commenters, and all patriots in our free democracy, God bless you for exercising that right.

  18. Well said, Colin.
    And to piggy back off the thing you were saying to Amanda: I think this is another one of those things where the rate probably hasn’t changed, but the amount of attention being paid by the media has. There’s been a lot of that going on.

  19. What a lot of people do not understand is that when you are in the closet you are there because you think everyone will hate you if they find out you are gay. If you do not understand why I suggest you actually try listening to what people say for the next couple days. This could explain why Tyler killed himself and the other boy did not. Tyler thought everyone would hate him now that they knew he was gay. If the other boy was already out of the closet he knew that most people would not care and this would only be an embarrassment for him.

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