Angry that an openly transgendered Cortez boy reportedly suffered from sexual harassment at school, and ultimately may have died because of anti-gay hatred, mourners of Fred Martinez Jr. have turned their emotional energy toward creating safer schools and community acceptance.

On Thursday, a program on safe schools will be held in Durango at Fort Lewis College. On Saturday, participants at a candlelight vigil culminating at the Montezuma County Jail will "demand justice" in the boy’s homicide.

Sunday, a community forum will be open to anyone who wishes to discuss gay and lesbian issues in Cortez. And Monday, many anti-bias activists are expected to attend the preliminary hearing for Shaun Murphy, the man accused of slaying Martinez.

Judy Shepard, the mother of a gay college student brutally beaten to death in Laramie, Wyo., three years ago, will be in Cortez for many of the week’s events, as will national representatives of PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgendered People), according to Four Corners PFLAG President Betsy Stephens. Political and celebrity figures have also been asked to attend, Stephens added.

Martinez’s badly beaten and decomposing body was found June 21 near the sewer ponds on the outskirts of town. Two weeks later, Murphy, 18, of Farmington, was arrested after he reportedly bragged he had "beat up a fag." He has formally been charged with second-degree murder and is being held in the Montezuma County Jail.

Pauline Mitchell, Martinez’s mother, said her son endured hateful taunts because of his sexual orientation while attending Montezuma-Cortez High School and eventually left the high school to take night classes through the Adult Education Center in an effort to escape the unwelcome climate. In a July press release, Mitchell denounced the school’s efforts to protect her son from such harassment.

"I blame the people in charge at the school for not making sure he was safe," Mitchell said in the release. "I am angry that they thought Fred was the problem."

PFLAG National Vice President Carolyn Wagner said Thursday’s presentation, "Safe to Learn: Protection Our Children From a Climate of Hate," is targeted at helping schools ensure safety and respect for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students.

"We have to address this incessant teasing and harassment towards those who are different," Wagner told the Journal. "There is a clear correlation between this type of harassment in schools and hate crime."

Area school officials have been invited to Thursday’s presentation and will be offered "concrete tools that schools can implement immediately to do everything within their power to insure hostile-free hallways, cafeterias, classrooms and campuses," Wagner said.

"Legally and financially it will be in their (the districts’) best interest to attend this meeting because we can explain to them the current federal statutes that are applicable to this type of harassment and discrimination and how they are putting their own federal funding and their own personal property at risk if they fail to follow federal guidelines and laws."

Stephens said addressing sexual harassment against gay or transgendered students is long overdue and she hopes schools will participate because it is the best interest of their students, not just because they have to.

"The death of Fred Martinez has given us the impetous we needed to get this program implemented in the Four Corners," Stephens said. "It has caused this chapter of PFLAG to say, ‘This is it! We’re mad!’ We really need to start dialogue, no matter how painful it is going to be for those administrators, principals and teachers."

Saturday at Parque de Vida, Mitchell will lead a candlelight vigil in memory of her son. The crowd, anticipated to exceed 200, will hear various speakers as well as a poem and a song written in memory of Martinez.

A Native American choir from Fort Lewis College will lead the group in song as the procession moves across the street to the jail.

"That’s a symbol of begging that justice be served," Wagner explained.

Sunday, a community forum on issues involving gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons will offer the public a chance to express their thoughts, Wagner said.

"This is a time for us all to come together and face whatever concerns, fears and misinformation there may be surrounding GLBT people," she said. "This is the place to address those concerns and to understand that you’re entitled to your own religious beliefs, but no one is entitled to express those in the form of discrimination or violence.

"Anybody is welcome to attend; we just ask that people be respectful of the life that was lost."