Another Look at the Religion Fueled Homelessness of LGBT Youth

ADDITIONAL REFLECTIONS: I know several LGBT individuals who were thrown out by their families while they were in their teens simply because of their sexual orientation. Some eventually found reconciliation with family members, others sadly never have had that luck and have been left to assemble substitute families of their own making. Either way, the emotional and psychological scars last forever to varying degrees. In addition, many such teens never have the chance to finish their education and their potential contributions to society are stunted if not lost. All because their parents and other family members preferred to cling to the writings of ignorant, uneducated peoples from more than two millennium ago.

Here in Virginia, the state laws treat LGBT citizens as little better than vermin - we can be openly discriminated against in employment, housing and adoption referrals and our committed relationships receive zero legal recognition. Indeed, even state agencies and departments are free to fire LGBT employees should their sexual orientation be discovered by homophobic Christianist employers or supervisors. We are far less than even second class citizens. And if given their way, Gov. Taliban Bob McDonnell, the Christofascists at The Family Foundation and many in the Virginia GOP would make our legal status even more inferior. Thus, as noted before on this blog, there are reportedly hundreds of homeless LGBT youth in the Hampton Roads area. The problem, of course, is not limited to this region and is, in fact, a national crisis. Surprisingly, the Virginian Pilot - which typically doesn't expose homophobes since they and their bigotry are considered "not news worthy" by the Grand Poohbas at the Pilot - has a story today on this national crisis. And what fuels this crisis? Religious based bigotry and discrimination, naturally. Here are some highlights:

Iro Uikka clutches his throat as he describes the violent clash that led to spending his nights sleeping in New York City subway cars. "When I told my mother I was gay, she grabbed me by the neck and threw me out," he says. "Then she threw my coat on top of me and shut the door."

Uikka is among tens of thousands of homeless youths across America who are LGBT - lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Most are on the streets because they have nowhere else to go - outcasts who leave home after being rejected by family members or flee shelters because residents bully or beat them.

LGBT young people represent a dramatically high proportion of an estimated 600,000 or more homeless youths across the country - between 20 percent and 40 percent, . . . But only about 5 percent of youths identify themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The White House has taken notice. Members of the Obama Administration are hosting a national conference on housing and homelessness in America's LGBT communities on Friday in Detroit. They'll discuss these issues with advocates, community leaders and the public. Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh, who is openly gay, is one of the participants. . . . Detroit has the only nonprofit agency in the Midwest that focuses on LGBT youth . . .

[T]he largely voiceless, powerless youth are fighting to survive from coast to coast. They live on streets, in subways and train stations, on river piers, in parks and abandoned houses. They're robbed, raped and assaulted. Some are murdered. And they're invisible to most Americans.

Lesbian, gay and bisexual youth are about four times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers, according to the CDC. And one in three is thrown out by their parents, according to data collected from youth across the country by the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University.

Some youth use "survival sex" to land in a warm bed, or they move from home to home of friends and acquaintances. In the past, Ryan Kennedy resorted to survival sex. He lists his education on Facebook as "Urban Survivalism at University of NYC Streets." He adopted a rebellious middle name for his page, calling himself "Ryan TransEquality Kennedy."

One is a lively 19-year-old bisexual man from Virginia. When he leaves in the late evening, Baresco Escobar goes to the far end of Brooklyn to sleep in an abandoned house with dozens of homeless kids, covering bare floors with blankets and cuddling for warmth.

"Home is where you're supposed to have stability, unconditional love, support, a foundation," he says. Instead, back in Virginia, "I was in a place of dysfunction, with expectations that didn't apply to me - full of judgment, discrimination and hypocrisy."

Siciliano believes there's a new reason for the rising number of LGBT youths seeking shelter. As some states legalize gay marriage and the military welcomes openly gay soldiers, "many kids think, `Oh, I'm ready to come out,'" he says.

As a result, the average age of young people declaring their sexuality - or at least sharing their doubts - has dropped dramatically in recent years to as young as the early teens, according to Family Acceptance Project. Some families are not ready for them, nor are segments of society, he says. Each rejection turns into a homeless youth looking for a bed. And there aren't enough. "These kids are the collateral damage of our cultural wars," Siciliano says.

In my view, the best argument for not wanting any association with the term "Christian" is the horrors inflicted on others virtually daily by the self-righteous, self-congratulatory Christianist set. Bob McDonnell, I include you in this crowd. I hope that some day you wake up to the harm you and your cohorts have done to others.