LGBT Teen Homelessness is an Epidemic

I have touched on this topic before and to me it is so very, very sad that LGBT teens continue to find themselves homeless often because their allegedly pious, religious parents, be they Christian or some other faith, toss their own children away as if they are garbage simply because God created them differently that the majority. This topic is dear to the heart of my blogger friend Justin from the west coast and just the other night we talked about how wonderful it would be if we had the means to set up a home for homeless gay teens. As a parent, it is beyond my comprehension how a parent can discard their child, particularly in the name of a supposedly loving God. It is these parent, not their LGBT children, who are the ones God will punish. Here are highlights from a 365gay.com article that details the problem:

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As National Coming Out Day approaches, I find myself wondering if the LGBT community is failing too many of the teens who come out. When a teen comes out, and their parents are able to accept them, it is a wonderful thing. However, recent studies have shown that as many as 25 percent of teens face rejection by their parents and families when they come out. Our nation’s homeless youth population is swollen with LGBT youth who have been thrown to the streets as a punishment for their honesty and integrity in coming out.

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In last year’s report “An Epidemic of Homelessness,” the Task Force cited studies showing that up to 40 percent of all the homeless youth in the United States are LGBT. It is upsetting and disturbing to hear the stories kids tell us when they seek help from the Ali Forney Center. We hear of kids being battered and beaten by their parents and family members. We hear of kids being told that they are damned and unloved by God by their religious leaders.

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A common theme I hear in the stories our kids tell us is how, in the eyes of their families and communities, their being LGBT cancels out their human value. They become no longer worthy of love and protection in the eyes of their parents. This is where the broader LGBT community must come to the table. We need to show our kids that they are loved and cherished for who they are. We have an obligation to our youth to create and support structures that protect queer youth when their parents refuse to do so.

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In every city we need to be advocating that youth shelters be safe for LGBT youth, and that distinct programs be created and funded to meet the needs of LGBT youth. Paying closer attention to the needs of our kids needs to be a higher priority for us as a community on local and national levels.

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There are only a small handful of programs in our country dedicated to housing LGBT youth - there are tens of thousands of LGBT youth enduring the terrors and humiliations of homelessness on our streets. The protection and safety of our youth must become a central priority of our community. We need to show these kids, and ourselves, that they are valued. When a kid is thrown to the streets for being gay, it is an assault against each one of us.

Homeless LGBT Youths - Monstrous Parents and Churches

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.”

“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.