Protecting Our Children
Every 26 seconds, somewhere in America, a child runs away from home.
Every 47 seconds, a child is abused, very often for reasons stemming from their gender or sexual identity.
Every night in this country, a million children are sleeping on our streets. Here in New York City, estimates are between 8,000 and 30,000 homeless youth, with as many as 50 percent identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered or questioning.
This specific subset of the homeless population has long been overlooked and ignored. Most homeless activists and government agencies focus on adults and families. But with an increasing number of young people acknowledging their sexual identity and coming out at a younger and younger age, not all of them come out in accepting or loving home environments. When they don’t, many find themselves put out of their homes simply for being who they are.
Unlike homeless adults and families, the circumstances leading to homelessness for LGBTQ youth often have less to do with being economically disadvantaged and more with being spiritually, emotionally and physically abused. That abuse can come from family members, schools, churches or entire communities. Unlike the homeless adult who loses his job and falls into economic despair, homeless gay youth lose important social support systems largely due to other’s homophobia and intolerance. When political leaders try to justify the passage of blatantly discriminatory legislation or prominent clergy openly preach bigotry from their pulpits, they contribute to a climate of hatred based on sexual difference that encourages some parents to fail at their basic responsibility--to practice unconditional love.
There is a glimmer of hope however. Around the country, gay and homeless activists, even enlightened clergy, are taking up the cause of these young people.
In San Francisco, a survey was conducted recently to better understand the conditions under which homeless LGBTQ youth were living in that city and in what ways they faced economic hardship. The objective is to use the data to better inform rehabilitative measures such as counseling, job training and education.
In Cleveland, gay and lesbian activists aided by county government, will attempt to count the LGBTQ homeless population, in order to learn how extensive the problem is. Current estimates suggest 4,000 homeless people on any given day, but how many are gay youth is unknown.
Here in New York, a network of churches, including Metropolitan Community Church and The Riverside Church, have banded together with a social service provider to arrange emergency overnight shelter specifically for LGBTQ youth. They formed this coalition when gay and lesbian parishioners learned about the problem and challenged the religious community to do something about it. [In my professional capacity with a nonprofit agency, I assisted this group in the development of their volunteer training manual.]
Here the typical homeless gay youth is Black or Latino, about 17 years old. Yet with the astounding numbers on the streets as mentioned above, there were prior to this effort only 6 (yes, 6!) beds in the entire City of New York specifically earmarked as shelter space for gay kids.
These are just accounts from three cities. The problem exists all across the country, probably in your city as well. It is no doubt just the tip of a very large iceberg. Until such time as we can correct the wrong-headed thinking of uncaring, narrow-minded adults who willfully disown their own children, something must be done to remedy the current plight of their now homeless children.
When I hear people like Pat Robertson railing against homosexuality and suggesting we need to “protect the children”, I often wonder to whom he is referring. Which children need protecting most? Homosexuality isn’t the problem. Homophobia is and the actions of people like him are having dire consequences for our children.
Posted by bernie at January 20, 2006 12:29 AMIt is often because people have been blinded by the prejudices of large establishments (church, government, society), that they feel justified in neglected those who are the most vulnerable in our society. Church teaches us the homosexuality is wrong, yet it was Jesus (who they consider to be equal to God) who taught them the one who's never sinned should cast the first stone. But stones are being flung every day by the church, largely in the direction of gay people. When television talks about homosexuality, we get the vision of a 40 something year old male pedophile. And we get the instinct to protect our children from this man.
But those of us who know that homosexuality is not a perversion, that it is not something we are recruited into, catch the blow aimed at this fictional man. We are all pedophiles, we all try to recruit. It hurt me the day that my mother was talking to me about my older gay cousin, tell me to stay away from him because he's been trying to recruit from his younger cousins. Did you here that?
Our own families have been turned against us because of what they choose to align their thinking with. And it hurts. Sometimes I feel like Bree's son who hates his mother so much because he quickly realized that she could love him less because of who he is. The consequence is that our youth (who have soon come to reaize their own sexual selves) are discarded. Our youthare cast away by the same people who are claiming to save/protect them.
Perhaps its up to the older generation of gay folk to take a stand and protect their own. I was once 19, and I knew way too many guys my age living in shelters because their families have decided that they had no more use of him. What's the use of a child who won't produce, right? The measure of a child who is going to hell anyway, right?! God told us to cast away our children, right? Because God will cast them away, too? Right?
Yeah, how can we expect people to be holier than the God they believe in? How can we expect a parent to treat their kids better than their parent in heaven treates them!? Perhaps one day if we change our ideas about God (which Jesus actually tried to change 2000 years ago), maybe on that day, we'll learn finally that no one has a right to judge anyone else based on any criteria, because perhaps God didn't say what our Bible teaches up he said.
And maybe 10 years from now, or 10 months, or 10 minutes from now, our children won't be cast away like dogs that pee on the bed. If the way we treat our children were a measure of the level of advancement of this society, our future looks really bleak. And it's US who should be repenting for our sins, and not our children.
Me.
Posted by: Reg at January 21, 2006 1:03 PM