Seventeen-Year-Old Jack Reese Committed Suicide Near Ogden, Utah: Rally Planned
Another gay teen committed suicide last week. This was in Mountain Green, Utah, just east of the small city of Ogden. If the the Ogden Standard-Examiner is any indication at all, it seems like a pretty awful place to grow up gay.
The young man's name was Jack Denton Reese. He was 17. He died last Sunday. Shortly after Mr. Reese killed himself, his boyfriend, 18-year-old Alex Smith, was slated to speak on a "community panel" following a screening of Bully, discussing Mr. Reese's difficulties with anti-gay bullying in school. Smith had apparently completed the discussion before he learned the news.
There shall be an event -- a kind of half-memorial, half-rally -- at 6:30 p.m. on May 1st at the Ogden Amphitheater (343 E. 25th Street, Ogden) so that community members might, according to a press release:
... stand in solidarity with (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) LGBT youth, to speak out and express grief and outrage at yet another loss of life in Northern Utah and to witness for the need for immediate change in schools, churches and society. Until ALL youth are loved and accepted in their homes, able to attend school without fear of bullying, and know that their lives are worth living, this community will continue to demand change.
Numerous community leaders, educators, parents and youth will speak out for acceptance and love for LGBT youth, including active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At the request of Alex Smith, a candlelight vigil in memory of Jack Reese will be held at the conclusion of the event.
According to Mr. Reese's obit:
Jack was very good with computers and loved to play his X-Box games. He enjoyed skiing, four wheeling in the mountains and working with plants. Jack loved animals and will miss his cat, Cat. He was also very good with kids and loved taking care of them. Jack was learning to speak Japanese and loved anything to do with Japan. He was also very good at drawing and photography.
Jaragon: I think these things always happened. It's just that people are finally free to discuss WHY they happened.
In the same way that there isn't more crime than in the past, and there isn't more war than in the past -- there's just a 24 hour news cycle to report on it all now.
Posted by: Asenath | Apr 29, 2012 7:05:13 PM
I am so sick of this topic. This needs to stop being publicized. Stop holding these stupid, selfish kids up as martyrs. They are nothing but stupid and selfish. Yes, bullying is wretched. So was being forced into gas chambers by Nazis. Imagine how 6 million people would have given anything for just one more day of life. You throw it away cause some dbag calls u "Fag" in the hallway? Suicide is the height of selfishness. I am friends w someone who lost her son to this at 13. It destroyed her Nd her family's life. Her marriage fell apart and her other kids are traumatized by the weight of that grief. These kids are NOT martyrs. They are stupid, selfish depressed kids.
Posted by: AJ | Apr 29, 2012 8:29:39 PM
BLAME RELIGION and blame the SICK religious gays who ALWAYS side with their cult...oops, I meant "religion"
Religious GAYS are the ones with blood on their hands.
Show me a religious gay and I'll show you a deeply disturbed, HOMOPHOBIC person who constantly make subtle anti gay remarks.
Posted by: James Celion | Apr 29, 2012 8:41:51 PM
I agree with other posters who put the blame on religious followers, and religious institutions. Time to finally call out the elephant in the room.
If latino or black kids were commiting suicide for being picked on in schools based on being latino and black....the entire countries school systems would be shut down until everyone took a pledge to not contribuet to it (followed by marches)
Be proud to be gay and DEMAND equality. For our youth who are going through a lot.
Posted by: IonMovies | Apr 29, 2012 8:43:46 PM
I don't understand this almost epidemic of young gays committing suicide. It seems to me that with all the advances toward equality, all the out role models tat this is the best of times to be young and gay. Does all the attention make suicide seem glamorous ? Do they see themselves as martyrs? We should get the message out to gay teens that if you committ suicide almost no one will remember your name next month. You will be giving up the chance to have a lifetime of success and failures for NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING!!!!
Posted by: jack | Apr 29, 2012 8:44:03 PM
Also, another problem is the many closeted gays who put shame in being gay. Power comes with numbers. Those indifferent toward the cause and who want to sit on the sidelines and expect change to happen for them -all while sleeping with the same sex but not having any social awareness to problems our community face- are a huge burden
Posted by: Real Talk | Apr 29, 2012 8:44:59 PM
AJ, I wish YOU would commit suicide you POS. I hope someone like you gets the worst kind of terminal illness. Cancer doesn't even begin to describe what you deserve.
Posted by: Kyle L. | Apr 29, 2012 8:46:54 PM
@ AJ
You need mental health. You're a very sickening, disturbed, sadistic, tortured individual. You have no room to comment on our precious gay youth when you are a raging psycopath. Get help. Soon. Like now.
Posted by: Steve-ATL | Apr 29, 2012 8:48:23 PM
AJ-
It's because of people like you I firmly believe in abortion. Sad you're mom was not exposed to that option before having you. I agree with others, you are on sick piece of dirt.
Posted by: USC Trojan Fan | Apr 29, 2012 8:49:13 PM
Why are you all even responding to AJ? He relishes these suicides. People like him are a leading factor in LGBT suicides. I get right in anti gay bigots faces, confront them, challenge them, FIGHT them, and have no shame about it. THAT leads to change. If only everyone had that chutzpah.
Posted by: Dynex | Apr 29, 2012 8:50:41 PM
Please ignore trolls like AJ. There's no point in responding.
Posted by: Paul R | Apr 29, 2012 8:53:35 PM
AJ has ever right to express his opinions and while I don't agree with everything he said, it doesn't deserve the kind of utterly hateful responses some of you hysterical types posted. Read what he said. The questions he raises deserve thoughtful consideration. Not hysteria.
Posted by: jack | Apr 29, 2012 9:06:52 PM
Was Jack on anti-depressants [SSRIs]? Anxiety medication? Odds are excellent he was. Odds are pretty good they may have played a role in his suicide. I know something as banal as adverse side effects of prescription drugs like psychotropics isn't as 'sexy' as suicide by bully, but it's probably far closer to the real mark. In fact, people killing themselves and others due to adverse side effects of both legally prescribed and illegal drugs is very common.
Posted by: ratbastard | Apr 29, 2012 9:27:34 PM
Wow! Did anyone actually read why I said? These kids are sick and selfish. U have obviously never seen how this sort of thing can destroy a family. I would like u to get to know my good friend whose son took his life and what it did to her and her living children. And I do now and will always call suicide selfish. It's incredibly selfish to leave people behind to pick up the pieces. And every time I think I can't go on, I think of the holocaust. Bullying is a first world problem that I would love to see end, but it remains a first world problem. And those of you calling for my suicide or horrible death are sick and twisted.
Posted by: AJ | Apr 29, 2012 9:37:08 PM
@AJ: Yes I read your comments and said they deserved "thoughtful consideration and not hysteria". Please don't lump me in with the mindless Hysterics who rant against anything they don't agree with or understand.
Posted by: jack | Apr 29, 2012 9:56:45 PM
hey aj, you call your friend's son selfish because of the pain his family experienced after his death, but have you ever considered how painful it was for him to live? i have lived with major depressive disorder since early middle school, tried to commit suicide when i was 17. i knew how horrible my death would be to my family and that's why it took 6 full years of living hell before i ever tried anything. now i'm in college still trying to hold my life together. some days i can function, but other days i can't get out of bed to bathe or even feed myself. no one would decide to ruin the formative years of their life over something as inconsequential as attention (by the way, many depressed people have severe anxiety and hate attention). as unyieldingly callous as you are, however, i could never wish suicide or depression on you or anyone. no one deserves this life
Posted by: mentally ill teenager | Apr 29, 2012 10:08:51 PM
and statistically speaking, the link between anti-depressants and suicide is tenuous at best. the case studies on youth taking anti-depressants have very few cases of teens having severely deteriorating mental health while on antidepressants. in my personal experience SSRI's have made my mood much more stable, but they're not some magic pill that will make you feel happy and they don't work overnight, so it's understandable that some people who are on them might still commit suicide before receiving any therapeutic benefits.
Posted by: mentally ill teenager | Apr 29, 2012 10:17:55 PM
Both A.J. and his critics have good arguments here. I think his point could have been originally made in a more constructive manner, but I understand where he is coming from. All my life, movies about suicide focused on the one who ended his life. Some years ago I saw a movie (I think it was called "Surviving") where equal time was given to the family that survived the suicide of their daughter. And when I saw it I immediately realized how people could be angry at those who commited suicide. Your tendency in this case is to think "His life wasn't bad enough to warrant putting his family through this hell." But the fact is that no one can ever really know how unbearable the pain is for those who end up opting out of life. Even those who commit suicide to spite their family (a small percentage I'm sure) are willing to pay the ultimate price for doing so. And each person's life is a unique set of circumstances. No one really knows what another person is going through inside.
Posted by: mary | Apr 29, 2012 10:52:53 PM
This is so sad and so exhausting; all these suicides by young gay men. So many lives filled with promise, so many talents lost to the world, so many opportunities not to be explored, so many dreams not to be realized, the possibility of someday finding love and happiness never to happen because so many in our nation have souls poisoned by religion, minds corroded with ignorance, seething with hatred, intolerance and bigotry. Narrow minds and putrid hearts of selfish people who just cannot or will not accept the beauty of a different kind of love.
Will this ever stop? How many more young lives can we allow to be wasted that could be saved from needless self destruction? If only we recognized as a society what we are doing to our children that everyone would cry out loudly "enough!" When a youngster is forced to endure so much pain and anguish at the hands of bullies and amplified by vile "religious" leaders that they hurt so much and feel so alone they decide to take their own life, we as humanity have failed. We've become a sick and wicked society. I weep for this young man and the others before him and after him who have decided on the same fate. I would like to say that if you give the world a chance, things might get better. If you just hang in there, you can make things better. You may not think so, but you can. I'd say have hope, but I know that's not enough when the anguish becomes unbearable and the social wounds cut deep. So, I weep for humanity and curse the growing cancer of ignorance that has metastasized through our social fabric and body politic, a malignancy fed by religion, hypocrisy and bigotry. I only wish I could do more. The world is a sadder place without you in it.
Posted by: Bob R | Apr 29, 2012 11:23:28 PM
MENTALLY ILL TEEN - actually, an explanation (not proven) is that the serotonin increase does make a person feel better initially; better enough to feel capable, therefore able to go through with a previously impossible act. Not better enough to see options. Not better enough, yet, to grow beyond the things or perceptions of things that make life seem impossible. Wait 4-6 weeks, and the theory is that the second messenger system in neurons has time to kick in, to support growth, which makes options easier to recognize.
I hope you continue to move forward, to grow beyond the pain.
Posted by: TJ | Apr 29, 2012 11:27:20 PM
As for AJ - so sorry his friend's child caused so much pain. Even sorrier that he can't grow past his pain, and that of his friend, to make it less about him (and her) and appreciate that that child's pain, and the hopelessness it fomented, made considerations of others impossible.
To be honest, I was angry when I first read this post. I was angry at poor Jack. I was angry that he gave up, thought he was incapable of handling the pressures yet was capable enough to ommit an extremely difficult act to commit to, much less actually commit. And then I realized that I was blaming the victim.
It is a horrible, horrible thing that happened. The focus must not be on Jack's "selfishness" but a world that causes gay kids so much damn pain.
Posted by: TJ | Apr 29, 2012 11:39:51 PM
AJ you are the only sensitive, emotionally twisted, and selfish person I see in this story. Me, me, me. My friend, my friends feelings, my opinion. Me, My, I, wah, wah. GET OVER IT! No one gives a CRAP what you went through. I care about GAY TEENS, not some twisted, insensitive, emotionally unstable grown gay man who is so demolished that he turns the suicide of our gay children back to himself. Go away FOOL
Posted by: Micah | Apr 30, 2012 12:19:07 AM
AJ
You're completely shut off toward the sentiments and humanity of these gay suicide stories. Notice I said GAY suicide. I've noticed you've been avoiding that, and acknowledging the huge problem gay kids face in terms of the intense hate, bigotry and intolerance they face daily. You bring up the Holocaust, and mention first world problems. No. GAY INJUSTICES. Gay targeted bigotry and gay targeted hate. You resent that our community is finally demanding change. We'll never, ever be silenced until our gay kids feel safe, comfortable and our rights are in place. Don't you dare try to hetero wash this by removing the homophobia angle of the narrative,
Posted by: IonMovies | Apr 30, 2012 12:22:23 AM
Well said Ionmovies.
The narative in these stories is *homophobia* those who are trying to change that, and insert ways to 'blame the gay' are homophobic, and have probably expressed anti gay viewpoints on other topics. To be so calculated to turn this story into the fault of gays, as opposed to hold homophobia accountable is a vile attempt to campaign your homophobia.
Posted by: James Celion | Apr 30, 2012 12:25:12 AM
Jesus F Christ, this just breaks my heart. Why Oh Why didn't you call somebody or run away or anything else but take your own life?
Posted by: Bill Michael | Apr 30, 2012 3:22:19 AM