A post on Gaytwogether about homeless LGBT youth who have been thrown out by their parents (http://gaytwogether.typepad.com/gaytwogether/2008/04/homeless-lgbt-y.html) caught my eye this morning when I was doing my brief morning news/blog survey. It has been at the back of my mind all day up to this evening. The questions I have kept asking myself throughout the day have been (1) what kind of sick, depraved parent could throw their child out for being gay and (2) how has the Gospel message of Christ about love of neighbor become so perverted and hateful in the hands of so many alleged Christians, especially those belonging to fundamentalist denominations? Under their misdeeds instead of “God is Love,” the main message is “God is Hate.” Hate towards gays, hate towards non-Christians, hate towards immigrants, hate towards liberals, and in many case, hate towards blacks and minorities. The list of who these “Christians” hate - despite their utterly disingenuous double speak of “hate the sin, love the sinner” - is nearly endless. They have made Christianity into something very evil.
But what struck me most from the article is how could a parent EVER disown and discard their child? I truly would lay down my life for any one of my children, thus it simply is outside my mental thought processes that I could discarded one of my children purely because some pompous, Pharisee like, hypocritical pastor or cleric has said homosexuality is bad based on a few lines written centuries ago by uneducated, scientifically illiterate, nameless individuals. What horrid, monstrous people to do such a thing!! I believe God, the Creator, or whatever name one might use, has a special punishment in store for those who disseminate such hate and poison. Here are a few highlights from the Gaytwogether post:
Six months ago, 15-year-old Drew said he would have described himself as an “ordinary teenager.” “I lived with my parents in a nice house in a good neighborhood in upstate New York,” he said. “I got good grades at school, and my life was pretty great.”
But what struck me most from the article is how could a parent EVER disown and discard their child? I truly would lay down my life for any one of my children, thus it simply is outside my mental thought processes that I could discarded one of my children purely because some pompous, Pharisee like, hypocritical pastor or cleric has said homosexuality is bad based on a few lines written centuries ago by uneducated, scientifically illiterate, nameless individuals. What horrid, monstrous people to do such a thing!! I believe God, the Creator, or whatever name one might use, has a special punishment in store for those who disseminate such hate and poison. Here are a few highlights from the Gaytwogether post:
Six months ago, 15-year-old Drew said he would have described himself as an “ordinary teenager.” “I lived with my parents in a nice house in a good neighborhood in upstate New York,” he said. “I got good grades at school, and my life was pretty great.”
“It all changed the night I tried to tell my parents I was gay,” he said. “My mom was pretty cool with it, but my dad just freaked out and started screaming. Then he started hitting me.” “He’d never hit me before, never,” he sobbed, “but when I told him who I was, that I was gay, he just got so mad. He said he was going to kill me and I believed him, so I ran.”
After spending a few nights sleeping at a friend’s house, Drew returned home, hoping that things might have calmed down. “I tried to open the door, but my key didn’t work any more. So I started knocking and eventually my dad came to the door and told me that I was no longer his son and he never wanted to see me again. He said if I ever tried to get in touch with him or my mom again he’d find me and kill me,” he explained.
In 2007, the Empire State Coalition conducted a local survey in which it found that almost a third of homeless young people in New York self-identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. These findings closely mirror a similar study conducted nationally by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which estimates that between 20 percent and 40 percent of all homeless youth define themselves in this way.
1 comment:
You know me. You know what I do. I agree with you 100% on this. It is my heart to serve this population. My task is to find a way to do so. Thank you for posting this.
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