When Joshua Alameda Franklin, a gay father of two, found out that his sons were being bullied at school he decided to do something about it.
The Huffington Post reported that Franklin says he needed his community on the Big Island of Hawaii to know that violence and bullying his children over his sexual orientation should not be accepted, so he created the YouTube video above.
“It is really serious,” Franklin says in the video. “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.”
“The school is telling the perpetrators that are doing this to my children that they need to tolerate us, and they’re using the word tolerance or tolerate in a way where it’s very exclusive,” Franklin told local news station KITV4. “So, basically what’s being stated is that they’re not willing to tell the kids that are doing this to my children, ‘Hey, you know what, there’s nothing wrong with being gay.'”
“We’re hoping that we can address some of his concerns,” Department of Education spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz told the station. “We would really like the children to continue coming to school.”
Watch the heartfelt video above.
