Gary Hirte, 19, was sentenced to a mandatory life prison term on Thursday for the murder of Glenn Kopitske, 37. Hirte, who admitted to the murder, claims it was a homosexual encounter with Kopitske that made him kill. Friends of Hirte aren’t buying the reason he killed, but I’m gonna since I have nothing else to go on (and that is why he said he did it).

So… assuming that a 19-year-old boy murdered someone because of the rage he felt from a homosexual encounter with them, shouldn’t we, as a society, examine what messages we are sending out about homosexual activity? Did Hirte kill because he didn’t want to be seen as a “pansy” or a “faggot?” When parents repeatedly tell their sons to act like a real man, do they realize their child might one day end up in prison because he was that affected by their definition of a real man? Is it worth it? I don’t think so. It may be hard at first to question what your beliefs are based on, but it needs to be done before they are forced on to children – for their sake.