The Consequences of Parental Rejection of Their Gay Children

I've noted before that LGBT youth make up a disproportional percentage of homeless youth overall.  And much of the phenomenon tracks directly to these youth being rejected, disowned and thrown out by their "godly Christian" parents.  And the long term consequences of such rejection are often very damaging.  While these self-righteous, self-congratulatory parents are patting themselves on the back for their godliness and drinking up the snake oil peddled by fraudulent "ex-gay ministries" and homophobic pastors, their children are suffering and in some instances literally dying.  Kathy Baldock (pictured at left), who describes herself as an evangelical Christian, was recently ejected from an "ex-gathering" where she sought to highlight exactly what these foul consequences can include.  Here are highlights from her blog:

It was a message for parents with gay youth.

Do you know the consequences of rejecting your gay youth as opposed to accepting them?

If parents with gay children were to follow the teachings and therapeutic tools offered by Kent Paris, your gay youth are EIGHT times more apt to attempt suicide than those gay youth who are accepted.

They may suffer depression SIX times more often than those who are accepted.

They are THREE times more likely to get involved in drug and alcohol abuse than those gay youth that are accepted.

They are THREE times more likely to contract HIV and/or STDs than accepted gay youth

This is research; this is scientific, peer reviewed research.

If you are the parent of a gay youth, when you leave here, stop on the way home and buy a package of razors, a bottle of whiskey, a hypodermic needle and a lifetime supply of antibiotics because that is the life you will more often impose on your gay child through your rejection and shaming.

This is what you will be doing to the child you have been charged to raise in the way they should go.

Do not try to force your child to be something they are not, something to your liking. You will not only be responsible for the effects on their mental and physical health, you will also, in all likelihood, push them from God.

In my view, it is no coincidence that most of the "ex-gays for pay" - who seem to be the only "ex-gays" one can ever find - have histories of drug use, alcoholism, and/or HIV.  Their parents disowned them and they experienced precisely what Baldock describes.  And only after having largely destroyed their lives, they become victims of the charlatans of the "ex-gay" movement who recruit them with promises of money and false respectability when they have lost everything.  I've known a number of individuals who have been subjected to "ex-gay" ministries by their parents and in almost every case they were damaged by the experience.  Some come out of it and some have parents who come to realize the error of what they did to their children.  Other parents - those whose children found suicide to be their only means to stop being gay - don't have the luxury of reconciling with their children.  

And who profits from all of this tragedy?  The pastors and snake oil merchants, of course who pander for money peddling anti-gay hate and animus.  These folks make the nastiest whore look virtuous in comparison.

Kathy's blog has this that is forth reading:

Please watch this video to get the back story as to why I care about the GLBT community. I know that as recently as 2004, when asked, I did not believe I would see any gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people in heaven.