About 45 people attended a candlelight vigil held in Montreal's Gay Village Wednesday night to condemn what organizers described as the deaths and suicides caused by homophobic bullying of young people.
The vigil, part of a series of events held simultaneously in more than two dozen Canadian and U.S. cities, came after the suicide last month of Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old student at Rutgers University in New Jersey who jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate posted a video of him engaged in a gay sexual encounter.
While representatives of local gay rights groups attended last night's vigil in Montreal, the event was organized by Jean-Pierre Roussain, a private citizen who said own youth had seen its share of discrimination and bullying.
"I don't have all the statistics on what's happening in schools," he said. "But there's a tendency on the part of people, particularly adults, to say 'it's normal, they're just kids, it will pass'.
"They don't recognize the seriousness of what's happening ... they should be telling (kids) there are differences in the world, that everyone has as much to exist as they do."
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