The Link Between Bullying, Social Rejection and LGBT Suicide

The sad reality is that suicides among the LGBT community are higher than in the general population.  This is not due to anything inherently wrong with being LGBT or a higher level of mental illness among those who are LGBT.  Instead, the problem stems from how society treats people in sexual minority groups.  Bullying, of course springs to mind, but also involved is family and societal rejection, all typically fanned by the constant anti-LGBT drumbeat of right wing Christian denominations and, now, a White House regime that is arguing that mistreatment of LGBT individuals in the workplace is perfectly legal. Anyone who thinks that LGBT youth aren't watching and listening to this potentially deadly message is deluding them-self. That supposed "Christians" are in the lead in projecting this message of hatred also directly ties to the growing exodus of the younger generations from religion, a trend that I for one view as positive. A recent piece reviews the linkage between unnecessary suicide deaths and bullying and societal abuse.  Here are highlights: 

Chloe was 12 or 13 years old when she began to question her sexual identity. She felt attracted to girls. She knew she was different from most of her classmates. So she didn’t talk about her feelings at school in the United Kingdom. She didn’t share them with her family, either. She knew they would not approve. “It wasn’t something that would be okay,” she said. A feeling of isolation built up inside her, and Chloe felt more and more like she didn’t fit in. Eventually, she tried to kill herself. Data for 2017 show that 17 percent of all high school students — about one in six — seriously considered killing themselves. That figure was nearly one in every two teens (almost 48 percent) for those who are lesbian, gay or bisexual. And 23 percent of these teens made attempts. Nearly one in three teens (32 percent) who were unsure about their sexuality also thought about ending their lives; 14 percent tried.

Scientists have begun to dig into why suicide risks are higher for LGBTQ+ people, especially teens. . . . The problem, researchers say, seems to stem from how society treats members of these minorities. Changing attitudes toward these teens can help more of them live and thrive. There’s no reason why being a sexual minority means a person must face a higher risk for suicide or other mental-health problems, Mueller says. “What does put kids at risk of suicide is when they feel rejected by families or friends or communities and when they feel ashamed of themselves.” Dealing with all of those stresses, she says, “can be really hard.” Those feelings often emerge when society views those who are different through a lens of stigma. “Stigma is about not valuing people who are different,” explains Ian Rivers. It is about “viewing them as less worthy or less important.” Rivers is a psychologist at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. When society treats people who are in a minority group as if they have less value, those individuals can feel serious stress. In some cases, stigma leads to bullying. “I was isolated from the boys and they started calling me sissy and things like that,” said Sirus, a study participant. The teasing turned into violence. And, he added, “the teachers did not pick it up.” So they did nothing about it.

In 2015, Mueller and her colleagues found a link between bullying and suicides of lesbian, gay and bisexual youths. As bullying increased, so did the rates for young people’s thoughts of ending their lives, the researchers reported in the American Journal of Public Health. But bullying didn’t fully explain why the rates for LGB youth were so much higher than for other young people. . . . “It’s about a lot of other factors — like rejection from peers or families or shame.”

Young people also can internalize other people’s bad attitudes. In other words, they come to believe what others say. So even though it’s not true, they might come to believe that they’re “not good” simply because they are experiencing a same-sex attraction, Mueller says. To make things harder, society typically assumes “that everyone is heterosexual.” That, she says, “automatically puts everyone who isn’t at a disadvantage.” Burdens created by a hostile social environment “fall hardest on the youngest people” in LGBTQ+ groups, says Geoffrey Ream. He’s a professor of social work at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y. Ream recently dug into data from the U.S. National Violent Death Reporting System. . . . LGBT youth were 24 percent of the 49 victims ages 12 to 14. LGBT teens also made up 16 percent of the 15- to 17-year olds. Younger people “don’t have the same level of psychological resources” to cope with challenges that older people do, Ream explains. So children and teens are less ready to deal with the abuse that society may heap on them if they are part of a sexual minority. Youths also have fewer options to get out of the house and find resources to help. Family rejection is a big concern, agrees David Huebner. He’s a psychologist at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He and others have found that parents’ rejection ups the risk of health problems, including suicide, among young adult LGB people. Name calling, physical violence and being kicked out of home are obvious examples of rejection. But rejection can also be more subtle. For example, parents might criticize a young person’s dress or behavior for not conforming to gender stereotypes.

Organized Religion: The Worse Bully of LGBT People

Now, in the midst of the Christmas holiday season, many LGBT individuals across America and so-called Christian areas of the world find themselves disconnected from any religious aspect of the season.  Why?  Very simple: through out much of its history - at least since the 1100's - Christianity has been one of the worse tormentors and enemies of LGBT people. Much of this mistreatment of LGBT individuals traces back to the ignorant writings of the Hebrew Old Testament - ignorance which was sadly also picked up by Islam.  Add to the poison of a few passages in Leviticus the sick need of many to fell superior to others and to have some target for abuse as "other", and organized religion has been a toxic evil to so many LGBT people throughout history since the rise of Christianity and the dissemination of the message of hate by Christian missionaries.  A piece in The Advocate looks at this sad truth.  Here are excerpts:

As a gay youth, I attended church like I attempted suicide: half-heartedly, with a lack of conviction, and pretty sure it wasn’t for me. That makes me one of the lucky ones.

Growing up in Wilmington, Del., in the 1970s and 1980s, I had no idea how lucky I was to be brought up in a hodge-podge of faith traditions. My parents were raised in different Protestant traditions, but my mother had converted to Catholicism to marry (and shortly divorce) her first husband. They had an ethical and moral basis in the teachings of Christianity, but neither was particularly connected to the trappings of any specific tradition.  They were married in the Episcopal Church, the best option for a divorced woman in 1971. Early on, and because of that choice, they were part of a congregation that was less judgmental of difference. 

Additionally, since my parents had met onstage in community theatre, they had many friends who were gay and this was the world into which I was born. I went to Sunday school for a few years and went to services on Christmas Eve and on Easter Sunday.

It wasn’t until I came out to them in the late '80s that the subtle insidiousness of church teachings reared its head. Despite having gay friends in the theatre, in their social groups and even in our living room on a regular basis, having a gay son was not an option my mother wanted to consider. I was told I could never bring a boyfriend home, and she openly confessed to worrying what people would think of her. She worried that people would think she was a bad mother and that she’d done something wrong when they found out she had a gay son.

This was not the reaction I expected. Nowhere in her secular life was I given any clue that she would feel any differently about a gay son. Years later, as I reflected on this painful (and thankfully, brief) period, I came to understand that it must have been feelings ingrained by her own religious upbringing.

Like most LGBTQ+ youth, when I started feeling different and out of place (Steven Carrington on Dynasty was the only significant LGBTQ+ character on TV in those days), I was confused. I was depressed. I was anxious. I’d been the subject of bullying for most of my life,  . . . . In the absence of other factors and in the presence of other LGBTQ+ people in her social circles leads me to believe that the religion of her upbringing had coded these feelings deep into her subconscious, and that is where religion became an issue for me.

For too many LGBTQ+ teens, though, religion IS the issue. According to data from a 2011 study from the University of Texas at Austin’s Research Consortium , gay and lesbian youth who reported that religion was important to them were 38 percent more likely to have had recent suicidal thoughts.  . . . Only 5 percent of the heterosexual youth surveyed had considered suicide.

No person, no matter their sexual or affectional orientation, their gender, their class, their beliefs or their interests should be made to feel inferior, particularly in a community that is meant to provide support and love. Religious bullying, whether direct, or in my mother’s case, subconscious, can serve as one of the most destructive forms of bullying and more has to be done to prevent it.

Religious-based bullying of  LGBTQ+ people is insidious. It can lead to isolation, disrespect, and exclusion. According to the National LGBTQ Task Force, nearly 40 percent of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ+, and many of them are likely homeless because their families’ faith could not accept them for who they are. Worse, it is killing LGBTQ+ young people.

[W]e have a moral obligation to embrace each other’s differences: true faith doesn’t bully. It is about love and support. I’m proud to have recently joined the team at the Tyler Clementi Foundation, where our “True Faith Doesn’t Bully” campaign is working to provide tailored resources to help faith communities affirm the value of the lives of every single individual, no matter their identity. . . . We all deserve that.

I have more or less walked away from Christianity in any organized form.  Like many of their generation, my children are now "Nones" despite having been raised Catholic, and my grandchildren, thankfully, are being spared from Christian indoctrination and all of the self-hate and judgment of others that it sadly embodies.

Religion: The Driving Force Behind Anti-LGBT Bigotry

High school co-valedictorian discarded by parents for being gay.

When I belatedly came out of the closet in mid-life, my parents embraced me and supported and accepted me.  After my mother's death in 2011, I endowed a scholarship for graduating LGBT high school seniors in honor of my parents (donations can be made here).  One of the goals of the scholarship was/is to give financial support to students disowned by their "godly Christian" parents/families who value the myths and legends of unknown Bronze Age herders more than their own flesh and blood.  I have friends who suffered this fate and, as a story out of northeast Florida demonstrates the religious based hatred of gays and the discarding of children still stems from toxic "conservative" Christianity.  I remain convinced that causing LGBT children and youths to live in fundamentalist Christian homes is a form of child abuse.  Here are highlights on the travesty out of Florida (a gofundme page has been set up for this young man here - please consider donating): 

The 18-year-old First Coast High School co-valedictorian, student leader, athlete and extremely snappy dresser was supposed to spend his last summer at home, getting ready for college in the Ivy Leagues. Instead, he’s crashing with a bestie and preparing for his first semester at Georgetown University . . . . The more intriguing story, however, is how Seth came to be couch-surfing just months before graduating from high school. Unwinding that colorful, tangled yarn will make you want to cry, or scream.

See, in addition to all the other supposed-to’s, Seth Owen was supposed to be straight. The fact that he’s not has driven a wedge between him and his strict Baptist family who, as he tells Folio Weekly, have kicked him out of the house and refused to sign the financial aid package Georgetown put together, leaving Seth without the $20K he needs for tuition. Seth’s father, Randy Owen, denies kicking him out, and says that he’s willing to provide Seth with the same assistance as the family has done for his brother. “I made it very clear to him that he was not being kicked out, that he would have to make a decision … . We worship as a family. He would be going to church if he lived in our home,” he says. . . . and says he was not aware before a reporter told him that Seth is gay, though he did admit to seeing “a video of him kissing another boy” roughly a year-and-a-half ago.

He plans to study international politics, then attend law school (naturally), after which, he says, he’s leaning toward a career fighting for juvenile justice.

The subject is more than a passing interest; for his college entrance essay, Seth wrote about child marriage. “I think that’s what got me into Georgetown,” he says. His commitment to the subject is also what he says finally, after years of conflict about his homosexuality, cleaved him from family hearth and home.

The niggling awareness that he wasn’t drawn to the opposite sex began when Seth was just a tot. In childhood, he’d sit in the pews and absorb restrictive sermons and lessons, following along obediently as a good boy does, while deep in his heart, he didn’t agree with some of the lessons being imparted.

Seth says that his parents discovered evidence that he is gay a few years ago while searching his phone. Not wanting to hurt them, in his early youth, he’d tried to convince himself that he was “straight with some issues,” but by then, the closet was only a place he knew at home and in church.

Afterward, he says, they attempted conversion therapy—though no one specifically called it that, it was obvious this was the intent. For a few months, Seth says a counselor tried to help him pray the gay away, encouraging him to partake in stereotypical straight masculine behaviors, like fixing up an old car, or watching straight pornography. His father characterizes it as typical, not conversion, therapy, and says that neither parent knew what Seth discussed with his therapist. . . . eventually, the therapy stopped and the family went back to the way things had been before—pretending.

But now that the truth had come out once, going back into hiding proved almost more difficult for Seth, who says he felt “extremely comfortable” with his sexuality among his peers. Nevertheless, he lived a double life: out at school, closeted at home. “I can remember driving home and being in tears because I had to put on a mask,” he says.

In February, during one of those more tranquil times, Seth was sitting in a pew at church as usual, listening to the sermon, when a switch flipped inside him. The sermon was about children being required to obey their parents regardless of the circumstances. Someone in the congregation asked the question on Seth’s mind: ‘What if the parents are abusing the child? Must they still obey?’ ‘Yes,’ was the response.

This was a bridge too far. “It was that comment about the little girl, that she would have to sit there and take this abuse,” Seth says. Later, Seth says he confronted his family. The conversation ended with Seth giving them an ultimatum: He’d go to any church they want, but not that one. It did not go over.

Since then, he stayed with a few friends and mentors before settling in with a close friend for the summer. And he’s remained in communication with his family, who also attended his graduation. It’s obvious when he talks that he still loves and respects them; he’s just no longer willing to be anything but his authentic self for their benefit—even though in his case, it’s more about his principles as they apply to the treatment of others than it is about his sexuality.

On June 18, another of his teachers launched a GoFundMe page to help the young man pay tuition and expenses. Though as of this writing, the fundraiser is well short of its $20,000 goal, the smart money’s on the perseverance of Seth Owen. To borrow a line from his valedictorian speech, “Because of our struggles and life circumstances, we know that we are strong enough, and we are resilient enough to overcome anything and to accomplish everything on which we set our sights.”

Living in the closet is soul killing.  I know, I did it for 37 years, tried to "pray away the gay" and tried suicide twice. Kudos to Seth. Shame on his parents.  Fundamentalist religion is truly a toxic evil that needs to be eliminated from the Earth.

Disposable Children - One of the Evils of Religion

I happened upon the video above which is a advertisement for the Los Angeles LGBT Center. Yes, it's a dramatization, but the story depicted in it sadly happens virtually daily across America.  Forty percent of homeless youth are LGBT youth.  Many, if not most, have been discarded by their parents who put belief in mythical ancient writings over the lives and well being of their their own children.  It literally sickens me.   I was lucky that when I came out, my parents embraced me - hence the scholarship for LGBT youth I endowed.   So many LGBT youth are not so lucky.  What happens to them is one of the great evils caused by religion.  In Islamic countries, their fates are often even worse.  We need to end deference to - and I would argue even tolerance for - religious belief.  All too often it perpetrates evil.  Worse yet, due to tax-exempt status for anti-gay churches, the rest of us are indirectly funding such evil.

Make a difference and make a donation to an organization that helps homeless LGBT youth.

Transgender Teenager Leaves Suicide Note Blaming her Christian Parents for Her Death

I am on record as calling LGBT youth being raised by Christian fundamentalist parents a form of child abuse.  The heartbreaking suicide of 17 year old Leelah Alcorn over the weekend underscores this reality.   Leelah, who born male in a moving suicide note blamed her Christian parents for her decision to end her tortured life.  Rather than accept her or get her the legitimate therapy she needed, her parents forced her to see "Christian therapists" who shamed her and relied on the supposed teachings of the Bible, that book responsible for so much bloodshed and misery over the centuries, to try to force her to reject what she knew was her true self.  In my view, her parents (and the "Christian therapists") should be indicted, tried and convicted of felony child abuse.  Leelah's sad story underscores why "ex-gay" therapy needs to be banned nationwide and quacks parading as "Christian therapists" need to be put out of business. The Daily Mail looks at this sad story.  Here are excerpts:

A transgender teenager who committed suicide by walking in front of a tractor trailer in Ohio left a heartbreaking letter in which she blamed her religious parents.

Leelah Alcorn, 17, died in the early hours of Sunday on highway I-71 in Warren County, Ohio, a few miles from her family home.

The high school student left a poignant suicide note accusing her devout Christian parents of refusing to acknowledge her gender and forbidding her from transitioning.

The suicide note was posted on Leelah's tumblr account through scheduled publishing just a few hours after her death.

The note begins: 'If you are reading this, it means that I have committed suicide and obviously failed to delete this post from my queue.' 

Leelah goes on to reveal that her parents refused to allow her to transition and instead took her to 'Christian therapists' who told her that she was 'selfish and wrong'. 

'I formed a sort of a “f*** you” attitude towards my parents and came out as gay at school, thinking that maybe if I eased into coming out as trans it would be less of a shock. 

'Although the reaction from my friends was positive, my parents were pissed. They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. 

'They wanted me to be their perfect little straight Christian boy, and that’s obviously not what I wanted.'

'On my 16th birthday, when I didn’t receive consent from my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep.'

Leelah then adds: 'I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself.  

It's telling to me that Leelah'sparents said that she was "selfish."  If anyone was selfish, it was her parents who in all likelihood were more worried about what people would think of them than the welfare of their child.  If there is a Hell, her parents deserve to burn in it for eternity.   Here are excerpts for her suicide note: 

If you are reading this, it means that I have committed suicide and obviously failed to delete this post from my queue.

Please don’t be sad, it’s for the better. The life I would’ve lived isn’t worth living in… because I’m transgender. I could go into detail explaining why I feel that way, but this note is probably going to be lengthy enough as it is. To put it simply, I feel like a girl trapped in a boy’s body, and I’ve felt that way ever since I was 4. I never knew there was a word for that feeling, nor was it possible for a boy to become a girl, so I never told anyone and I just continued to do traditionally “boyish” things to try to fit in.

When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong. If you are reading this, parents, please don’t tell this to your kids. Even if you are Christian or are against transgender people don’t ever say that to someone, especially your kid. That won’t do anything but make them hate them self. That’s exactly what it did to me.

My mom started taking me to a therapist, but would only take me to christian therapists, (who were all very biased) so I never actually got the therapy I needed to cure me of my depression. I only got more Christians telling me that I was selfish and wrong and that I should look to God for help.

When I was 16 I realized that my parents would never come around, and that I would have to wait until I was 18 to start any sort of transitioning treatment, which absolutely broke my heart. The longer you wait, the harder it is to transition. I felt hopeless, that I was just going to look like a man in drag for the rest of my life. On my 16th birthday, when I didn’t receive consent from my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep.

I formed a sort of a “fuck you” attitude towards my parents and came out as gay at school, thinking that maybe if I eased into coming out as trans it would be less of a shock. Although the reaction from my friends was positive, my parents were pissed. They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. They wanted me to be their perfect little straight christian boy, and that’s obviously not what I wanted.

So they took me out of public school, took away my laptop and phone, and forbid me of getting on any sort of social media, completely isolating me from my friends. This was probably the part of my life when I was the most depressed, and I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself. I was completely alone for 5 months. No friends, no support, no love. Just my parent’s disappointment and the cruelty of loneliness.

After a summer of having almost no friends plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week and feel like shit because everyone there is against everything I live for, I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say “it gets better” but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.

I cannot know what it feels like to be transgender, but it has to be far worse than being gay in a homophobic society. With two serious suicide attempts in my past, I can understand how Leelah came to the point where suicide seemed the best solution.  She wanted the pain and misery to stop and not much beyond that.  As for her parents, I hope they come to realize they murdered their child.  As for other "godly Christian" parents who reject their LGBT children, they have only my utter contempt.  I hope with time society as a whole will come to treat them with contempt and derision and make them social outcasts.  They deserve such treatment.

 

Gay Teens Starved, Tortured, Killed at Camp to Make them "Straight"

Graphic Photo of Raymond Buys - Why Aren't His Parents Being Criminally Prosecuted?

I realize that I often comment on - some readers might say rant - the horrors of the Christofascists who promote the myth that sexual orientation is a "choice" and that gays can become "straight" if they but want to do so.  Having tried to "pray the gay away" my self literally for decades, I know that the "ex-gay"myth is a lie.  But worse yet, these "ministries" can drive gays to suicide or, as a story out of South Africa documents, literally kill gay youths.  It is sick, it is obscene, and it must be stopped.  As noted before, in my view, any parent who places their minor child in an "ex-gay" program needs to be charged with felony child abuse and prosecuted to the fullest extent allowable under the law.  In this day and age, it is mind numbing that parents still cling to the ignorant writings of bronze age nomadic herders - i.e., the Bible and the Koran - and subject their children to the horrors of "ex-gay" ministries.  As Gay Star News reports, three young gays died as a result of their parents' ignorance and the batshitery of "ex-gay" ministries.  Here are some story highlights:

Three ‘gay and effeminate’ teens have died after being starved, tortured and killed at a camp that promised to turn them into 'men'.

A picture of Raymond Buys, 15, taken in April 2011 showed a skeletal, emaciated figure fighting for his life.

Just 10 weeks before, the teen’s parents signed him up to the Echo Wild Game Rangers training course in South Africa in perfect health.

In hospital, Buys was severely malnourished, dehydrated, his arm was broken in two places and there were burns and wounds all over his body. He lay in intensive care for four weeks until he died.
And now, the course ‘general’ Alex De Koker, 49, and employee Michael Erasmus, 20, are on trial for charges of murder, child abuse and neglect, along with two cases of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm in relation to Buys' death.

The teen’s death is alleged to have been the third among the Afrikaans children who attended the R22,000 ($2,400, €1,900) courses, which have been advertized since 2006.

‘I sent my son on this course to make him a better man, to give him a better future,’ Buys’ mother told The Daily Telegraph. ‘I trusted Alex De Koker with his life.’

Last week, the Vereeniging District Court heard the testimony of a boy who had shared a tent with Buys, the Daily Maverick reports.

Gerhard Oostuizen, 19, claims Buys was chained to his bed every night, was refused permission to visit the toilet and on one occasion was forced to eat his own faeces.  He also said he would be beaten with planks, hosepipes and sticks when he failed to carry out manual labor tasks.

Gender activist Melanie Nathan has said the three young men were all perceived as ‘gay and clearly effeminate’.

In reference to ‘gay conversion camps’, Nathan writes: ‘With a little bit of digging [into the story], the gay reparative undertones start to emerge.’

Eric Calitz, 18, and Nicolaas Van Der Walt, 19, had both died after being enrolled at the Echo Wild Game Rangers camp four years earlier.

When Calitz requested to leave, De Koker reportedly told him he ‘wasn’t a moffie [gay] and he would make a man out of him’.

Calitz’s family was informed of his death via text message, saying he had died of a heart attack.
Afterwards, doctors said the cause of death was from a seizure, dehydration and found bleeding from the brain.

I'm sorry, but I have NO sympathy for the parents of these murdered boys.  They need to be prosecuted right along with those who physically murdered their sons.   As a parent myself, any parent who believes the lies preached weekly from pulpits and the lies promoted by "ex-gay" proponents over their own children are despicable.  They need to spend many years behind bars where they can contemplate the role they played in the murder of their own children.  As I have stated before, fundamentalist religion of all stripes is a toxic evil that needs to be eradicated from the face of the earth.  It contribute nothing positive to humanity and over the centuries has claimed many more lives than it has helped.  

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.

Further Reflections on LGBT Teen Homelessness

I wrote the other day about the report done by the CBS affiliate in Miami, Florida, that focused on the plight of homeless LGBT teens who have been discarded by their families simply because they are LGBT. With three children of my own, I simply cannot grasp what kind of twisted, warped and self-centered parent could discard their own children. Coincidentally, I came across a post on this blog that I wrote in July, 2007, in which I related the response to a May, 2007, post that I had shared with my late mother and my sisters. For newer readers, my dad died in September, 2006, and my mother in January, 2011. Here's a highlight from the July, 2007, post:

I was touched by what my mother and one of my sisters said in e-mails to me. First excerpts from the e-mail from my mom, who will be 80 in the fall (she still cracks me up at times):

"Dear Michael, I am not quite sure what a blog is, but I do know you must have been happy with your Dad's response to you and [my ex-boy friend name has been omitted]. You were his son and that was all that mattered! . .

Would that all of these warped and horrible parents who discard their children could understand the simple truth that both of my parents embraced. It's so simple. These are you children and you should love them. To honor my parent's wonderful acceptance of me as I am, I set up this remembrance.

Will the White House Anti-Bullying Conference Yield Any Results?

There has been much media hoopla in some quarters over the White House anti--bullying conference which has provided an opportunity for pretty sound bites, but will anything actually come form it? It seems bullying is rampant - aid in part by the Internet which allows bullies to inflict torment on more of a 24/7 basis - yet in most areas efforts to implement anti-bullying policies with real teeth (and which specifically include anti-gay bullying prohibitions) go down to defeat as Republican lawmakers tremble before Christianists who want to be able to denigrate and marginalize LGBT individuals whenever and wherever possible. Virginia is a case in point. Anything that the coven of Christofascists at The Family Foundation perceive to include protections based on sexual orientation will be vigorously oppose regardless of whether or not polls show that a significant majority of Virginians support protections. The GOP controlled House of Delegate's recent killing of a bill to protect state employees is a case in point. The Family Foundation merely sends out messages through its cancer like network of far right churches and the Republicans soon are wetting themselves in fear of the Christianist attacks they will face from religious extremists who have nothing but disdain for the civil liberties of others. The Washington Blade looks at this week's White House conference. Personally, I am not hopeful that we will see hard hitting results. Here are some story highlight:
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President Obama on Thursday opened the doors of the White House to anti-bullying advocates for a conference in which participants discussed harassment of students and devised strategies to curtail bullying.
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In remarks starting off the conference, Obama said if the conference had one goal, it would be dispel the myth that bullying is “a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up.” “It’s not,” he said. “Bullying can have destructive consequences for our young people.
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During his remarks, Obama noted that students who are gay are among the types of children who often face bullying at school. “A third of middle school and high school students have reported being bullied during the school year,” Obama said. “Almost 3 million students have said they were pushed, shoved, tripped, even spit on. It’s also more likely to affect kids that are seen as different, whether it’s because of the color of their skin, the clothes they wear, the disability they may have, or sexual orientation.”
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Dan Savage, founder of the “It Gets Better” online video campaign aimed at helping troubled LGBT teens, said the conference was of “tremendous symbolic importance” because it identified bullying as a national problem, but said more could be done with the issue of parents being the bullies of LGBT youth.
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“What was never addressed is when the parents are the bullies,” Savage said. “LGBT kids whose parents reject them are eight times likelier to attempt suicide; kids who are LGBT are four times. It literally doubles the risk of the already quadrupled risk of suicide for LGBT kids when their families reject them.”

The Tragic Consequences of Parental Non-Acceptance

I've focused on bullying and the lies of the "ex-gay" myth a lot lately. The two go hand in hand because the fraudulent "ex-gay" propaganda fuels the animosity of bigots who often like to believe that LGBT individuals have chosen their sexual orientation. Both play a role in gay teen suicide. Another factor that can in some instances be a further catalyst pushing LGBT youth towards suicide is parental rejection and/or refusal to accept their children as God made them. Driving home, I spoke by telephone with Alise Williams, bullycide victim Christian Taylor's mother, who expressed what to me EVERY decent parent should feel towards their child: gay, straight or whatever, I love and will continued loving him/her because he/she is my son/daughter. Sexual orientation should not matter to a loving parent. Sadly, too many LGBT youth are not dealt that hand. A case in point increasingly seems to have been openly gay 18 year-old high school student Lance Lundsten who took his life back in January, 2011. Timothy Kincaid has a post at Box Turtle Bulletin that, while focused on the local media's attempts to cover up Lundsten's suicide, also offers some disturbing commentary on his father, Jon Lundsten. If true, Jon Lundsten may have helped set the stage for his own son's death. I don't know if Kincaid's conjectures are accurate, but if they are, as a parent myself, I cannot comprehend the mindset. Was pleasing the Catholic Church - and likely, worrying about his own embarrassment at having a gay son - worth a his son's life? Here are some post highlights:
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[L]ack of “factual basis” did not limit others from engaging in a public relations effort to deny who Lance was, squelch any talk about issues that could have led to his death, and craft a pretty lie to replace the story that fellow students were presenting. Rather than allow the tragedy to be an opportunity to acknowledge that Alexandria, MN, has a culture of animus and hostility towards gay people, including their own children, those who should have protected Lance instead joined together to bully him after his death.
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Lance had a strained relationship with his parents and was living with his grandparents at the time of his death. After his son killed himself, his father stepped up as spokesman for his estranged and now dead son and declared that it was a medical condition that killed the young man.
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And although the coroner refuted this claim, Jon Lundsten was not interested in considering whether his son had been bullied or whether Jon’s own difficulties with his son had contributed in any way to Lance believing that life was not worth going on. So he stuck with his “enlarged heart” tale.
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Besides diverting any need to talk about any icky gay stuff, this solved a more immediate problem. Declaring Lance’s death not to be a suicide allowed for his memorial and burial to be through the Catholic Church. Rev. Father Steve Binsfeld could officiate.
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And Jon Lundsten had found himself an ally in his campaign of denial and deceit: Al Edenloff, the editor of the local newspaper. . . . . But across town, the television news was not going along with Jon Lundsten’s diversion. Instead, they ran a story on the reports of bullying, talked with the coroner’s office, interviewed a gay former student from Jefferson, and exposed the truth that Jon Lundsten, Al Edenloff, and Terry Quist wanted to keep hidden.
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And fellow students who saw through all the denials began to band together, insisting that if the adults wouldn’t protect gay kids, then they would do what they could to help.
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Not to sound cruel, but I hope Jon Lundsten is haunted the rest of his life with the knowledge that he might have been a cause of his son's suicide. He engaged in a form of child abuse that to me is unconscionable.

Further Reflections on Death, Families and Parental Acceptance

While I have been enjoying myself in Key West, I have remained haunted by the loss of my mother and, indeed, at times I simply cannot believe that she's gone. Intellectually, I grasp it, but emotionally I have a long way to go. I lost a sister in 2001, my dad in 2006 and now my mother. Maybe the difficult comes from the fact that I was there at the hospice with her when she died. For her it was a dignified and peaceful exit. For me, it is something seared into my memory as I watched the life force ebb out of her. If she was conscious somehow that I was there with her, I am glad that I was there for her. By the same token, it is something I never want my own children to go through - better I die totally alone than they be put through the soul wrenching experience. With the Norfolk memorial service approaching next Saturday, I am thinking a great deal about what to say, what readings to select and so forth. One thing I will note for sure, however, is that despite her sometimes conservative Catholicism, she "got it" when it came to parental acceptance of a gay child. A piece in Out Front Colorado underscores just how lucky I was with both my parents, but my mom in particular when contrasted with what Ryan Kendall, who testified as a fact witness in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, experienced - and so many other LGBT individuals sadly experience at the hands of their parents. Here are highlights from that article written by Kendall himself with an editor's note for background.
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Editor’s Note: On January 20, 2010, Ryan Kendall testified as a fact witness in the landmark case Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal trial to overturn California’s discriminatory Proposition 8. Kendall took the stand to speak to the immutability of sexual orientation, living proof that you can’t “pray away the gay.” Kendall, a Colorado Springs native, was subjected to “reparative therapy” beginning when he was just 14, when his evangelical Christian parents discovered he was gay. Now, a year after his testimony, in this OFCB exclusive Kendall reflects on the trial, the terrifying and true scenarios that filled his testimony, and what the Perry case means not only for marriage equality, but for all LGBT kids still suffering from intolerance and hatred.
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The random, interconnected series of events that led to my testimony in Perry v. Schwarzenegger has always seemed purposeful to me. It comforts me to know that in some small way my experiences served a noble purpose.
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I was asked to tell my story. It was an unpleasant story with details that I didn’t care to remember. While each call lasted an hour or more, I rarely made it more than a few minutes before my voice was contorted with pain. At times I would sob almost inconsolably. Throughout the process the attorneys were always kind and concerned with my emotional well-being. They repeatedly asked me if I was certain that I wanted to proceed – after all, they knew this was difficult.
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“Yes,” came my emotional response.”People have to see this. They have to know what happens to us.” It wasn’t my story that the world needed to know, but the story of all LGBT youth who have suffered without need.
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I was 14 or 15 when it happened. The previous year or so of my life had been a living hell. After my parents discovered that I was gay, they rejected me. On a daily basis I was told that something was wrong with me, or that I was disgusting or repulsive. I was just a kid – I didn’t understand why my family had turned against me. I didn’t know how to process their cruel words – words that burned right into my soul. I was living in a constant state of fear and anxiety.
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I was alone with my mother in our dinning room. I will never forget that moment. I was looking my mother in her eyes as she spat out the words, “I would rather have had an abortion than a gay son.” It was an awful moment and I was desperately hurt.
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My family was torn apart because of anti-gay attitudes that condemn people without a cognizable reason, solely for being who they are. Mine is not the main injustice of this story. It is the needless destruction of a family that I find unforgivable. I needed my family – we needed each other. All I wanted was to heal my family, and for my parents to love me again. I failed in that task; it required the impossible. I couldn’t be what I wasn’t. The only choice left was to fight for my soul, so I did.
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My heart goes out to Ryan Kendall and the countless LGBT youths who experience such needless and cruel rejection. In contrast to their experience, my mother put her arms around me and said she loved me and wanted to protect me from being hurt because of who I was. That's the message EVERY LGBT child should be hearing from their parents and other family members. The fact that so many do not is a terrible indictment against religion as a whole. It is the cause of so much abuse and hatred. And to my mother, I say "Thank you."

Parental Rejection - Or, It's All About Themselves

Sadly, I know those whose parents have disowned them when they have come out. They use all kinds of excuses for their inexcusable behavior, often citing religious belief or cultural traditions. In truth, however, I believe that it's really all about the parents' own self absorption and greater concern about themselves than their children. A story out of India takes this behavior to an extreme. Here, the family's son merely played gay in a movie, yet the parents are disowning him. In their statements to the media, it is absolutely clear that the parents don't give a damn about their child - instead it's all about themselves. As a parent, I cannot comprehend how one gets their priorities so totally f*cked up. Here are highlights from the Times of India:
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The Delhi High Court's judgement in favour of homosexuals last year hasn't had much impact on the family of actor Yuvraaj Parasher, the lead of Dunno Y ... Na Jaane Kyun that has India's first gay kissing scene in it and also shows love-making and several intimate moments between two men.
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Yuvraaj, TOI has learned, has been disowned by his family for playing a homosexual on screen and has been thrown out of his home in Agra.
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Worse, his father is ready to go to court and officially cut off ties with his son. Seen as India's answer to Ang Lee's sensitive drama Brokeback Mountain that boasts of remarkable acting from Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, Dunno Y ... Na Jaane Kyun sees Yuvraaj partner with actor Kapil Sharma to breathe life into their bold characters.
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Yuvraaj's father Satish Parasher told BT, . . . He kept us in the dark right from when he signed the film and told us that he is acting with a girl. When we heard about the poster and the things he has done in the film, we were shocked, hurt and humiliated. People will make fun of us and we won't be able to live peacefully ever again."
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"His mother is totally devastated," said the aggrieved father. "We are a respected family and I'm appalled that he is playing a gay man's role. We're finished. All the dreams and hopes we had built around him are over. For just a film role, he has lost out on his blood ties. We don't want to see his face ever... not even when we are dying."
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And there you have it, a shining example of religious and societal based based "family values." I find it utterly disgusting.

Yet Another Example of Religion as a Perverse Evil

While I still believe in a creator of the universe and see merit in the Gospel message of love of neighbor, I increasingly view most religions as an evil. Over the centuries, religion has caused - and continues to cause - so many countless needless deaths. Indeed, despite whatever good may spring from religion derived charities, in aggregate the evil seems to outweigh the good. Via Bob Felton's blog, Civil Commotion, I came across a truly disturbing story of a Muslim father who ran over his 20 year old daughter (pictured above) and killed her because he believed "she'd become too Americanized." Perhaps I found the story so upsetting because I have a daughter of my own who is 21 -and another who will soon be 28. Not in my wildest dreams can I imagine harming either of them because they may not accept me and/or my religious beliefs in every way. While this particular story involve murder and a Muslim parent, far too many self-professed Christian parents are only marginally better as they disown their own children because they are gay or they deprive them of life saving medical treatment all in the name of religion. Words do not adequately describe the prolonged and horrific torture that I believe this Muslim father should suffer for his sin against he deceased daughter and his sin against all that is decent and good. Here are brief highlights from the Phoenix New Times:
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Noor was thoroughly assimilated into American culture but kept in touch with her Iraqi roots (she was fluent in Arabic) and considered herself a Muslim, the same religion as her parents. But she had moved away from her parents in early 2009 (not for the first time) after another blowup over how she was living her life — tight jeans, makeup, boyfriends, modeling photos, and an attitude that screamed independence and self-determination. The clashes escalated in 2008 after Noor, then 18, left her marriage to an older cousin in Iraq — her father had "arranged" it — and returned to the Phoenix area.
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Riffat Hassan, a retired University of Louisville professor and expert on the Koran, writes, "Muslim culture has reduced many, if not most, women to the position of puppets on a string, to slave-like creatures whose only purpose in life is to cater to the needs and pleasures of men." The Almalekis were proud members of that "Muslim culture." By moving in with Marwan and Amal, Noor Almaleki had made it clear that she would not be her father's puppet, his "slave-like" creature. She was determined to live how, and with whom, she wished.
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No one can say exactly how many "honor killings" occur, but anecdotal evidence (from media accounts and government data) suggests that hundreds of Muslim women and girls die this way every year.
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Seemingly out of nowhere, Amal saw a vehicle coming right at them. She lifted her hands in defense, as if to stop the inevitable. In that moment, she could see Faleh Almaleki behind the wheel. The Jeep smashed into the women. It dragged Noor across a curbed median and left her splayed on the pavement, unconscious and bleeding. The impact hurled Amal Khalaf about 27 feet. She suffered a broken pelvis, broken femur, and myriad cuts and bruises, but she remained conscious.
Peoria police later estimated that the SUV was moving as fast as 30 miles per hour. Noor was barely alive, having suffered massive brain and spinal injuries, as well as many broken bones.
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Whether Faleh assaulted the women on the spur of the moment or premeditated his action, he had time to reflect on what he did: run over two defenseless women, one of whom was his firstborn child.
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Honestly, I could not read the entire story. If the child killing father gets a long prison sentence, it's difficult for me not to hope that he's sodomized and ultimately killed in prison. The man is a monster.
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Yes, this was a Muslim honor killing, but the difference between this sad story and Christianist mistreatment of their children is one of degree. The underlying religious based hate and insanity remains much the same.

Prayers for Bobby - Update

On Thursday of this past week I did a post about a new TV movie starring Sigorney Weaver that aired tonight on Lifetime based on the true story of Bobby Griffith and his mother, Mary Griffith (pictured at left), an evangelical Christian whose inability to accept her son's homosexuality perhaps helped drive Bobby to commit suicide in 1983. The boyfriend and I watched the movie and it was wonderfully done and extremely powerful. Prayers for Bobby should be mandatory viewing for all parents and pastors. I recommend that readers who missed it tonight watch for it when it is re-broadcast. Moreover, the feelings felt by Bobby in the movie are similar to those many of us have felt during our teen years (and later) as we have tried to reconcile who we are with the hate based message disseminated by so many churches.

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Ultimately, Mary Griffith got the message - but not in time to save her own son - and as the movie shows, she ultimately became a gay rights advocate striving to make sure other LGBT teens and adults do not suffer the shame and fate of her son. Moreover, her message to other parents is to make sure that they do not make the mistakes she made. The Advocate has an article on Mary Griffith that tells more about her activism activities. Here are some highlights from that article:

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Ex-evangelical Christian Mary Griffith overcame the suicide of her son Bobby and became an outspoken advocate for gay rights. . . . . You don’t see a lot of statues commemorating reformed homophobes, but Mary Griffith arguably merits one. An ex-evangelical Christian who, by her own admission, helped shame her gay son, Bobby, into suicide in 1983, she’s spent the rest of her life trying to save other kids from the hurtful lunacy she inflicted on him in the name of God. Her story, known to millions who’ve read Prayers for Bobby -- journalist Leroy Aaron’s unflinching 1995 account -- has inspired a Middle-America-friendly film starring Sigourney Weaver that airs on Lifetime Television January 24.

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“I think the movie comes very close to what happened,” says Griffith, now 74, a disarmingly straightforward woman who’s still atoning for the years she spent “trapped” in robotic bigotry, briskly insisting that Bobby resist Satan the way other moms urge their kids to brush their teeth, while willfully ignoring his collapsing self-esteem.

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“I don’t particularly like to look back. I don’t like who I was,” says Griffith, who still lives in the Walnut Creek, California home in which she raised her three surviving children. “It’s humiliating just to go through the Bible and see the fairy tales I believed. . . . Bobby tried to open her mind by giving her books about homosexuality, Griffith says: “But anything that would uplift Bobby and made me see him as a decent person…was viewed as evil [by her church].” It took his suicide, she says, to make her realize that she’d been using religion to avoid thinking through life’s complexities for herself.

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In a remarkable conversion, this shy and unworldly woman renounced her faith and went on to become the president of an East San Francisco Bay PFLAG chapter, and a nationally known gay activist and speaker, urging other parents to listen to their children, not the Christian Right’s theatrical scare tactics.

Prayers for Bobby

On Saturday night the Lifetime channel will be airing a new made for TV movie starring Sigorney Weaver which sounds like it will be a "must see" movie. As Variety is reporting, in the film Weaver plays Mary Griffith, a deeply conservative and religious woman who begins to question her opposition to homosexuality after the suicide of her gay son. Like many fundamentalist Christian and far right Catholic parents, Griffith will not accept her son's sexual orientation and her attitudes contribute to her son's suicide due to his inability to accept that he's gay. I suspect that the story is more common than we know since so many suicides are covered up by families and officials. Not surprisingly, Daddy Dobson and his fellow hate merchants who ignore all legitimate medical and mental health knowledge on sexual orientation are none too please about the movie. First, here are highlights from Variety:

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Sigourney Weaver is set to topline and co-produce the Lifetime telepic "Prayers for Bobby" . . . based on the 1995 Leroy Aarons book of the same name that recounts the true story of a family's refusal to accept their son's homosexuality. Russell Mulcahy ("Queer as Folk") directs from a script by Katie Ford ("Miss Congeniality").

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In her first telepic role, Weaver will star as Mary Griffith, a devout Christian who winds up becoming an advocate for gay and lesbian youths after her son is driven into a deep depression by his family's disapproval and attempts to "cure" him of his sexual orientation.

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The truth of what too often happens when parents/families will not accept their LGBT children and reject them or put them through bogus "cure" programs has the Christo-fascists whining and the spittle flying. Here are some examples of the dishonest blather coming from Daddy Dobson's Citizen Link (NOTE: the movie is "controversial" only among the Kool-Aid drinker set and also that in my view, Dobson speaks for anyone but God):

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The Lifetime Channel is airing a controversial new movie this weekend in which conservative Christian parents shoulder the blame after their gay-identified son commits suicide. "Prayers for Bobby," based on a true story from the 1970s, stars Sigourney Weaver. Family advocates are concerned the film tells only half of the story, leaving out the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.

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Louisiana mom Terri Brown can identify with the parents in the movie. For 17 years, she has prayed that her son would find freedom from the homosexual identity. “I can understand a mother’s despair," she said, "especially a Christian mother’s despair. Because we know what the Bible says about homosexuality.

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Jeff Johnston, gender analyst at Focus on the Family, said the movie's message runs contrary to God’s. . . . No matter where the movie lands, Johnston said, people can and do change their sexual orientation — he's living proof.

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I'm sure that Terri Brown has inflicted immeasurable pain on her son all because of her own self-centered, falsely self-righteous views. As for, Jeff Johnston, he's yet another sad "ex-gay for pay" - the only kind of ex-gays ones seems to find, the ones being paid to claim they "changed" in return for a pay check. WWJD?

Study: Parental Reaction Has Huge Influence on Gay Suicide

San Francisco State University's Family Acceptance Project has released a new report which is highlighted in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), that looks at the effects of parental rejection on LGBT youth. I have actually had a copy of this new study entitled "Family Rejection as a Predictor of Negative Health Outcomes in White and Latino Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Young Adults" for nearly two weeks but it was embargoed until 12:01 am today. The findings are in many ways what one would expect - namely, that negative family reactions to youth sexual orientation often has very negative consequences, including increased rates of suicide, depression, and/or drug use - but it is nonetheless helpful to have a legitimate study to backup what should seem obvious. Based on individuals I have met, it is often easy to see precisely the adverse outcomes described in the study report. Here are some highlights:

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The results of this study show that negative family reactions to an adolescent’s sexual orientation are associated with negative health problems in LGB young adults. As such, this study provides empirical evidence to begin addressing long-standing questions about the precursors of high levels of risk consistently documented in studies of LGB youth and young adults. Because families play such a critical role in child and adolescent development, it is not surprising that adverse, punitive, and traumatic reactions from parents and caregivers in response to their children’s LGB identity would have such a negative influence on their risk behaviors and health status as young adults.

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LGB young people from families with no or low levels of rejection are at significantly lower risk than those from highly rejecting families related to depression, suicidality, illicit substance use, and risky sexual behavior. So helping families identify and reduce specific rejecting behaviors is integral to helping prevent health and mental health problems for LGB young people.

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The current study also has important implications for identifying youth at risk for family violence and for being ejected from their homes or placed in custodial care because of their LGB identity. LGB youth are overrepresented in foster care, juvenile detention, and among homeless youth. Moreover, conflict related to the adolescent’s sexual and gender identity is a primary cause of ejection or removal from the home.*

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Specifically, the study found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual young adults who reported high levels of family rejection during adolescence were:

• 8.4 times more likely to report attempting suicide

• 5.9 times more likely to report high levels of depression

• 3.4 times more likely to report illegal drug use

• 3.4 times more likely to report having engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse.

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The clear import of the study is that Christianist and homophobic parents who reject their LGBT children - and professional "Christians" like James Dobson who market anti-gay hate - have much responsibility on their hands for the adverse consequence that their children and LGBT youth come to suffer. Obviously, loving and truly Christian parents would not reject their children, but then these types of parents aren't truly Christian in the first place.