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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
April 10, 2009
ESER
It's a wrap
31
www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com
JANET MACOSKA
Movie Mogul Concierges John Farina, left, and Eddie Boyte, along with Dan Kilbane in theater operations, prepare for the next wave of screenings at the Cleveland International Film Festival, which ended on March 29.
The festival filled a total of 66,476 seats over its ten days, over 25 percent higher than last year's attendance and almost double that of 2003.
An LGBT film again took a top award at the fest, with Trinidad, a look at the "sex change capital of the world." The town of Trinidad, Colorado is home to Dr. Stanley Biber, who performed some of the earliest successful gender reassignment surgeries. He is now retiring, and his replacement and others in the field settle in to life in the small
town.
Trinidad won the Nesnady + Schwartz Documentary Film Competition.
In all, a total of 140 features and 170 short films played the 33rd Annual Cleveland International Film Festival.
--Anthony Glassman
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Parents sue Mentor schools,
say bullies drove son to suicide
by Anthony Glassman
Mentor, Ohio-The suicide of a 17year-old student after years of anti-gay harassment illustrates the need for stronger anti-bullying rules, his parents contend in a lawsuit filed March 27 against his school's administrators.
Eric Mohat, who was straight, was involved in the drama program at Mentor High School. Because of that, and his theater friends, he was routinely harassed by "jocks" at the school, including physical abuse. Some of it took place in view of his math teacher, who was also an athletic coach.
His parents, William and Janis Mohat, are suing Mentor High School in federal court to force it to enact a strict anti-bullying policy, requiring increased penalties up to expulsion for a third offense.
One of the bullies told Eric in class, "Why don't you go home and shoot yourself? No one will miss you," reported the Cleveland Plain Dealer. That same day, Mohat did just that, with his father's legally registered handgun.
Math teacher Thomas M. Horvath allegedly heard the 2007 exchange and did nothing. Horvath is one of three named defendants in the case, along with superintendent Jacqueline A. Hoynes and principal Joseph Spiccia.
The Mohats also say that two other members of Eric's class killed themselves. Both were bullied. Another student committed suicide later.
The "jocks" called him various antigay epithets, often in front of teachers,
who did little to stop the harassment.
The Mohats want the district to recognize their son's death as a "bullicide."
"These kids were extremely bright, and [the bullies] thought they were nerds," Janet Klee told ABC News. She counsels a suicide survivors' group attended by the families of two students who committed suicide. "I say that not in a derogative but in a good sense. These were good kids who were easy targets for bullying."
One of Eric Mohat's friends, Brandon Hughes, wrote a suicide note two weeks after Eric's death, talking about the bullying they faced. Brandon is still alive, now 19 years old and working. His father pulled him out of Mentor High School.
"What it boils down to is the football players, cheerleaders and kids with money have a different set of rules than everybody else," Hughes' father Dan said. "It's not that much out of the ordinary, and the disturbing part is the school is more concerned about sweeping it under the rug than getting to the bottom of what's going on."
A number of suits have been filed around the nation against school districts accused of doing little to stop both anti-gay and more generic harassment and bullying. The first and one of the largest of these was filed by Jamie Nabozny in 1995 against his school in Ashland, Wisconsin, where he was bullied for four years for being gay. He sued the school, and was eventually awarded close to $1 million.
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