Carol, you are quite right to point out that religious organizations do enormous good in helping the homeless. They pitch in selflessly to fill in the huge gaps left by governmental programs, and offer spiritual hope and solace as well.
I think what you may have missed in my reply was a longstanding objection that I have to members of the religious far right in America, who believe that homosexuality is a sin. When I saw the segment on 60 Minutes about young homosexuals on Sunday night, it cited the statistics that 30% of all teenagers who commit suicide in America are gay, and that fully one quarter of all parents of young homosexuals throw them out of the house immediately when they confide in their parents that they are gay. I think it got me all upset again. I feel like this is such a huge human tragedy, when the developing body of research shows that most children know when they are tiny that they are gay, and homosexuality stems from genetic and early developmental factors.
In other words, this is not a lifestyle choice. What rational human being would choose to be in a position where he or she is teased, harassed, often beaten, put into the position of social misfit? It upsets me when people have their noses stuck so far up into the Bible, interpreting it so strictly, that they just cause hurt and do harm and have totally lost touch with Jesus' real teachings, which were to love and accept the poor and the damaged and the outcast. When even the current Pope, who is not known particularly as a liberal, can realize all of this and call upon Catholics to love and accept their gay children as they are, and yet these conservative, judgmental Christians still choose to cast their own children aside, I do have an objection to that.
The tie-in with homelessness is that in San Francisco we have mild weather, a socially tolerant and compassionate climate, and outreach programs for runaway gay teenagers who are thrown away by their families. Most of these children come here and end up on the street, selling their bodies to buy food, and a lot of them end up on drugs to kill the pain. I simply cannot fathom anyone who would kick their child out of their family because they are gay, and this is a cause of homelessness, and death, for teenagers. We are talking sometimes about children as young as twelve here. It is simply incomprehensible to me that a parent could treat a child like that.
Sorry to be so heavy, but this is one subject where I do drag the soapbox out, because I think it is so important.
Chrissy |
