Jared Fox, 28, knows first-hand about the perils of intolerance.

Just two years ago, when Fox was visiting his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, from New York, he was brutally attacked by a group of teenagers . They beat him, stole his belongings and called him anti-gay slurs. He suffered bruises all over his body.

Only a decade earlier, Fox had been the founder of his public Cleveland high school's first Gay Straight Alliance, a club that became one of the largest in the school and allowed Fox to express himself freely as a gay student, he says. He was dismayed to learn that some of his attackers -- two of whom were found responsible for the incident -- likely attended the same school.

"Over the course of that trial, I really discovered a lot of things about myself and the environment I left there in Cleveland," said Fox. "We can't just start a GSA in a school and think thats it. We cant just train teachers and say that things are going to be amazing. We really have to educate the community."