Via towleroad, we learn that one of the reason's that Ronnie Paris, Jr. was beaten to death by his father may have been because the father thought the boy was too soft, and could have been gay. The boy was three years old. According to the St. Petersburgh Times, the father is currently facing charges of capital murder (faces the death penalty), and the boy's mother is facing charges of felony child neglect and faces a maximum of 15 years in prison.
I find this kind of crime pretty disgusting on two fronts. Firstly, this just proves that some people are just not fit to be parents. Secondly, the fact that a father would intentionally kill a child because “he thought” the boy was gay, or “soft” is completely out of the realm of any kind of thinking. I say intentional, as this was not the first time he had done it (the Florida Child Protective Services really needs to have an investigation underaking due to their failure to protect the child more).
I'm not a huge fan of the death penalty, but in these types of cases, I feel that it would be a just sentence.