The mystery haunting dorm rooms and Internet chat rooms populated solely by men, from the Lower East Side to South Jersey, is this:
Why wasn’t Tyler Clementi’s mother prosecuted for a hate crime?
Why wasn’t his pervy gay lover brought up on charges of indifference?
And, why did reams of people who knew Tyler was the main course in a case of a homosexual Peeping Tom simply get to shrug it off?
Yesterday, Tyler’s Rutgers University roommate, Dharun Ravi, 20, was hit with a mere 30-day sentence for spying with a Web cam on Tyler as he engaged in sex with a much-older guy. Tyler, who was 18, committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge in 2010.
But the wrist-slap penalty (he could have gotten 10 years) means that Ravi will likely spend less time behind bars than we observers did while being held captive at the marathon four-hour sentencing conducted by Jersey Judge Glenn Berman.
This case drew howls from diversity types and ordinary folks worldwide. But in the end, many asked, “Why bother?’’
Why prosecute a doofus douche bag — and possible closet case — like Ravi? Why not go after every single kid whoever shouted an anti-gay slur? Or every mother who rejected her gay son?
While condemning Ravi’s efforts to cover up his crimes, Judge Berman treated the actual spying as if it were a prank committed by a naughty boy.
At times, the judge sounded like Ravi’s greatest booster.
“This defendant was not convicted of a hate crime . . . I do not believe he hated Tyler Clementi. But I do believe he acted with colossal insensitivity.’’
Insensitivity? Sounds like he’s talking about the folks who interrupt dinner with sales calls.
Minutes earlier, Ravi’s own lawyer, Steve Altman, asked that his client get only probation, using a pitch that made Ravi’s sheet-peeking sound suspiciously as if it were motivated not by anti-gay bias, but his own failure to own up to same-sex urges.
Altman repeated, twice, as if quoting a porn flick, that Ravi was not “desiring or wanting to see sexual penetration or sexual contact’’ when he flipped on his cam. “Sexual penetration or sexual contact.’’
So who is responsible for Tyler’s death?
Ravi was never charged in the death. But the hearing hit a low point when Tyler’s mother, Jane, said, disingenuously, “I do not know what Tyler was thinking or what he felt in his final days.’’
She probably has a pretty good idea.
Shortly before he died, a heartbroken Tyler confided in an e-mail to a friend that his own mother had “rejected’’ him when he came out to her as gay.
Yet, sobbing from pain — or was it guilt? — the best Jane Clementi could do was complain, at length, that Ravi barely looked up from his computer while she visited his dorm room.
And what about the dude Ravi caught Tyler making out with?
“M.B.,’’ the predatory now-33-year-old Romeo, had a thing for sex in a freshman dorm room, but wouldn’t buy Tyler a lousy cup of coffee. He failed to reveal his face or his name yesterday. But in a statement read to the court, he, too, gave vast hints of guilt.
He just wants Ravi to “admit he was wrong.’’
“I bear no anger toward Mr. Ravi after plenty of thought and many sleepless nights,’’ he said. He continued, unnecessarily, to say he does not want to see Ravi go to jail or even to lose his right to stay in America. (Ravi is a citizen of India.)
He even said he’d write letters championing Ravi’s right to stay.
But M.B. said nothing about the fact that, in a late night spent with Tyler, he saw Ravi’s Web cam pointed directly at the bed in which he was lying. But he said nothing.
Ravi, who stared at the floor while Tyler’s parents addressed the court, subtly rolled his eyes and stared as M.B.’s statement was read.
Finally, what about the friends of Ravi who said nothing after learning of — or even participating in — spying? Why not go after the majority of Rutgers students? Or beyond?
At one point, Ravi’s mother, Sabitha, spoke, but her words were drowned by her sobs.
Ravi “has been living in hell these past 20 months,’’ she said, before shouting, “I love you!’’
“My 20-year-old son has too much burden on his shoulders.’’
I looked over at Jane Clementi who, too, knows what it is to lose a son.
She was too busy texting on her smartphone to look up, or as much as listen.
Step away from your phone, your Web cam, your texting device, moms.
Your baby might be in crisis.