Anti-gay bullying is one of the motives being considered by the Sunrise, Florida Police Department in the January 10th Bair Middle School incident in which a student allegedly cut a classmate with a razor blade after the classmate punched him (both students are seventh graders). This article at NewYorkBlade.com points out that should an anti-gay bullying motive fit in this case, it wouldn’t be the first link we’ve seen between anti-gay harassment and violence at school.

For example, in the April 20, 1999, shooting rampage at Columbine High School that left 15 dead in Littleton, Colo., classmates of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold said the two killers were often called “gay” by school athletes and other students.

“The whole school would call them homos,” a Columbine football player told Time Magazine.

On Feb. 2, 1996, 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis allegedly gunned down classmate Manuel Vela in Moses Lake, Wash. At the trial, students testified that Loukaitis pledged to kill Vela after Vela repeatedly taunted him by calling him a “faggot.”

Fourteen-year-old Michael Carneal, who killed three classmates at his West Paducah, Ky., school, was enraged by a rumor printed in a school newspaper that he was gay and had a crush on another male student, according to the psychological evaluation of Carneal prepared by Diane Schetky, a child psychologist, before Carneal’s trial.