Anti-Gay People Are Individually Responsible for LGBT Homeless Youths in My Book

I have a tactic I use to stay polite when talking to someone who believes that my LGBT friends and family deserve less than their full measure of human dignity and rights: I assign that anti-gay person’s face that of a homeless LBGT teen. If this particularly horrifying fact hasn’t come across your desk, between 20% and 40% of homeless youths in the United States identify as LGBT.

Why?

One study found 26% of LGBT youths (read: kids) are kicked out of their houses after coming out. Who kicks a kid out of her house for coming out? Probably not these guys:

Probably more like this guy:

When I hear hateful people like Focus on the Family (where “family” reads “not a definition of family I know”) crow about their poorly designed study on adult mental and physical health outcomes for kids of LGBT parents, I assign each of their employees personal responsibility for one of the 575,000 to 1.6 youths on the streets, particularly the 20% to 40% of them who are LGBT.

It’s not the most morally complex stance. I’m sure James Dobson is personally responsible for more than one kid getting thrown out of his house, just like I’m sure the average person who thinks its a-ok to deny rights to my friends and family hasn’t personally thrown anyone out.

I honestly don’t care. I think if a person is willing to say:

“If you’re involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it’s bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement.” — State Senator Michele Bachmann, EdWatch National Education Conference, 11/6/04.

Or vote for a representative who does, in my book he or she is personally responsible for one kid who has to beg to eat, trade sex for a couch to sleep on, sell or take drugs to get through the day. Personally, individually, moral responsible, for the rest of both their lives.

I hope it rests as uneasily on their consciences as the fact of hundreds of thousands of kids sleeping on the street tonight rests on mine.

Inspirational Quote:

“A baby is born with a need to be loved – and never outgrows it.”–Frank A. Clark