Tomorrow should be Sophie Lancaster’s 20th birthday.

Unfortunately she won’t be able to be there.

Two years ago, 2007, she and her boyfriend Robert were attacked by a group of youths in Lancashire.

Once he was down, she tried to protect him, and was beaten, kicked, stomped, in the head.

As her attackers left laughing bragging about their deed, Sophie and her boyfriend were left in a puddle of blood in the park.  Sophie’s head injuries resulted in a coma.

Two days later, she died.

Their crime?

They were goths.

No, nothing else.  Just that.

Different.

Being different shouldn’t be a capital offense.  It shouldn’t result in someone being beaten, another being kicked until they go into a coma and later die.

But in this case it did.

Isolated incident, you say?  Not really.

There was no reason for Sophie’s death.  No reason for the attack to begin with.  no reason for the youths involved to brag about their actions as they left the scene.  no reason for the parents of some of those youths to be laughing and joking during the investigation and questioning of their kids.

No reason.

None.

In Sophie’s name a foundation was created, a charity.  In their own words from their website:

The charity, known as The Sophie Lancaster Foundation, will focus on creating respect for and understanding of subcultures in our communities.

It will also work in conjunction with politicians and police forces to ensure individuals who a part of subcultures are protected by the law.

A lot of people are rallying to support the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, especially Illamasqua, a make-up brand.

Illamasqua commissioned a short film, and are hoping to gain 1,000,000 hits.

I’ve seen the film.  It’s worth watching.

Being murdered because you’re different is not the way to go.  It’s too simple to say that Sophie was a victim of the “Youth Culture”, or a gang – Hailing Star shows that not all youths are as advertised in the media.  Sophie certainly didn’t fit the media ideals of what a Youth in the UK is.

Their only “crime” to those youths was to be different.

Tomorrow is Sophie’s birthday.

She can’t be there, but maybe you’d like to give the Foundation named after her a present.