Gay father makes heartfelt video after his son is bullied

A gay father of two has made a heartfelt video in which he describes the bullying his young son has been subjected to at school.

Joshua Alameda Franklin, from Hawaii U.S.A, wrote on his YouTube page, “My young children harassed on the daily because I am openly gay. Trying to create awareness and how wrong this type of treatment is.” The accompanying video feature himself and his 10 year old son Alae, who has been the victim of name calling and repeated physical attacks from other students. The boy has already had to move schools because of the bullying, and Franklin claims that even taking up the case with teachers hasn’t stopped it.

“I was bullied because, people would ask me if my father was gay and I would say ‘yeah there’s nothing wrong with that'” Alae explains in the video. “I tried to walk away from this kid. He jumped on me, slammed my face and gave me a black eye.”

Franklin then asks viewers to join him in trying to change attitudes on the small island of Hawaii. “I wanted to share this really personal problem in my life in an effort to possibly create awareness in our communities and what this potentially does to our children if people don’t step up and say that it’s not OK.”

Franklin has since spoken on U.S. news channel KITV4 where he said that although teachers have encouraged ‘tolerance’ from the other children, not much has changed, and since his son is being bullied on a daily basis, he is considering home schooling.

Watch the full video below.

[youtube height=”HEIGHT” width=”WIDTH”]https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=148&v=Q5rE26w0dXo[/youtube]