This really upsets me.   It is the same wherever you go.  What is a homeless person supposed to do if they can’t even camp out?  It is already miserable to be homeless—it shouldn’t be illegal too.  I have experienced the misery of homelessness at several points in my life and, although there is a certain sense of freedom to it, it is a dangerous and miserable lifestyle that is hard to rise out of.  Contrary to popular belief, most homeless did not become so out of choice and not because they are lazy, stupid, or immoral.  Many homeless people are victims of abuse in the form of neglect and abandonment by their parents or other caregivers.  I invite you to my website: www.FreetheGods.com.  There you will find an article and pictures I have taken of homeless people. I always give them a dollar or two for the privilege of photographing them.  I am often surprised by their cheerfulness and sense of pride.    Often, they will show themselves to have some kind of talent.  There is a fine line between genius and insanity.

Thank you for this.  People really need to understand that the plight of LGBTQ youth is a key reason the struggle for full LGBTQ rights is so important.  When a group of people is labeled second class, a climate of violence and abuse is created toward that group. 

This holiday, I am encouraging people to donate specifically to organizations providing social services for LGBTQ youth.  I want to make sure the money is not wasted or diverted to other purposes.  Can anyone name good organizations or put me in touch with them?

people say that marriage is for a man and woman......then why in biblical times was marriage mostly for the joining of two families rather than the two people??...yes that is true...
bi/gay/lesbian singles and couples meeting
http://www.FindBilover.com

Informative stuff. Thank you. Now let's not forget that every kind of marginilization increases one's chance of ending up homeless, including being uglier: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/16/AR2006021602039.html

You know although these gay and lesbians kids are teens, has anyone brought up the idea of having these kids placed into families that are of their same lifestyle.This would probably bring about a change in their lives, since they tend to make it so hard for gay and lesbian couples to adopt through certain agencies.

First of all, I am a mainline Christian clergyman in a denomination that affirms monogamous same-sex married families with children.
My own monogamy with my spouse is thirty-two years and counting. Our legal marriage was in his native Canada five years ago, or when "traditional" civil marriage was extended to include us.

Whoever said that "traditional" marriage has been always defined in the same way is guilty of arrogant ignorance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Families were married, and were about the way for nations and wealthy nobles to transfer and retain wealth and property.

Marriages were arranged. Christianity did not put their canonical or spiritual marriage until the Catholic Church (the only one at that time) started to add Marriage as a sacrament in the 12th century.

Marriages became romantic love after the industrial revolution and "traditional" marriage in the USA was ONLY for white men and white women only....and propertied ones at that. Whites could not marry any other race legally until September of 1967 throughout the USA.

Same-sex marriage is legal in many nations on earth. Same-sex families is known far beyond the civilized nations, like our neighbor, Canada....who have again allowed for the extension of civil marriage.

Now the religion piece. The USA allows me to be the kind of liberal Christian that I am. It allows for fundamentalist theocrats or Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Jews of reform, conservative or various orthodox sects, Muslims of many different sects, atheists, and polytheists or wiccans..this is America, where no religious belief oppresses anyone else.

Why the confusion between civil marriage and religious marriage?

That is simple. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and other 49 states provide CLERGY with CIVIL MARRIAGE LICENSES TO PERFORM CIVIL WEDDINGS LEGALLY. That lack of division comes from the fact that the Church of England (Anglican) denomination was once the Official and Established and Official Religion of the United Colonies of America before the Revolution.

You do not need a religious service to be civilly married. In Europe, you go to the City Hall and the mayor officiates at your wedding. That, like the US with the judge, is all you need. A religious ceremony follows only if you want one, here or there.

EVERYONE should have a civil marriage - same or opposite sex. Churches decide to give you a religious ceremony if their rules allow it.  Catholics, for example, do not marry divorced persons, even though they can obtain a legal civil marriage. Their opposition based on forced obligation is phony to its core.

We have children to raise. Many other couples do. In MA and CT, we have the right to civil marriage recognized on the state level. Our children still have legal stranger parents on the federal level until DOMA is repealed. The Democratic Congress will pass it and the Democratic President will sign it - reversing what Clinton did.

We personally are a same sex family with a child to raise. We raise him in MA, and we spend the summers in his other father's nation, Canada, and NS in particular.

As a Canadian, my spouse provides me with all the rights and privileges of a married man. ALL OF THEM. This includes immigration rights that as an American, I cannot provide him in any way whatsoever.

Our LGBT and whatever else letter you want to increase the acronym and freedom for all....need care. In many US states, social workers place them in gay or lesbian family foster homes.

We same-sex couples feel a stronger sense of caring for our own teenage gays and lesbians than many opposite sex couples who discard their children. Those who do not surrogate but adopt children to raise are raising the discarded children of heterosexuals.

"Lifestyle" like " homosexual or agenda" are RIGHT WING CODE WORDS. I do not describe straights as 'HETEROSEXUALS" as if they indiscriminately copulate with everyone of the opposite sex they meet.

Going to the country club every day. That is a lifestyle. Lifestyle is a socio-economic word. Living in a single wide trailer.....that, bubba and bubbette, is a lifestyle. Orientation or psychosexual orientation refers to the both of us....it speaks to who we are, and not how we express it in conjugal terms.

This is a Sunday in the season of Advent....and if you are a homeless teen, please view a great organization for LGBT teens who are homeless www.soulforce.org and first view the video DON'T TELL ME WHO TO LOVE.