It’s not easy growing up gay in America, despite the nation’s increasing acceptance of same-sex marriage and other issues of gay equality.
Gay and lesbian teenagers across the United States are less likely to be happy, more likely to report harassment and more inclined to experiment with drugs and alcohol than the nation’s straight teens, according to a new nationwide survey of more than 10,000 gay and lesbian young people.
The survey, which will be released Thursday by the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based civil rights group, is described as one of the largest ever to focus on the nation’s gay youth. It was conducted online and involved 10,030 participants aged 13 to 17 who identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. It also included interviews with about 500 13- to 17-year-olds who composed the poll’s “straight” population.
The study paints an often stark picture of the challenges of growing up gay in this country, even as same-sex marriage gains support among many Americans and other legal and cultural barriers to gay equality begin to fall.
The survey showed, for example, that half of all gay and lesbian teens reported being verbally harassed or called names at school, compared with a quarter of non-LGBT kids. About twice as many gay and lesbian respondents as straight teens also said they had been shoved, kicked or otherwise assaulted at their schools, with 17 percent of LGBT teens and 10 percent of straight youths reporting such assaults.
Fewer than half of gay teenagers said they believe their community is accepting of people like them, and 63 percent said they would need to move to another town or part of the country to find acceptance. Just 4 in 10 gay teens reported being happy, compared with nearly 7 in 10 of their straight peers.
And more than twice as many gay (52 percent) as non-gay (22 percent) respondents said they had experimented with drugs or alcohol.
Child welfare advocates who reviewed the study before publication praised it for shedding light on a population that is difficult to reach and in need of help, from government agencies and others.
Linda Spears, vice president of policy for the Child Welfare League of America, said the study bears out “our worst fears about LBGT kids. These kids are often so vulnerable in the way their lives are being led because of the lack of support they have. They need what all young people need, parents and others who are there for them and nurture their development.”
Chad Griffin, the new president of the Human Rights Campaign and an advocate for same-sex marriage, said the survey “is yet another reminder that we still have a lot to do in this country so that young people can grow up healthy.”
Griffin, who helped organize the legal fight against Proposition 8, California’s ban on gay marriage, said he hopes the report will inform policymakers and serve as a reminder to parents, schools and elected officials about the challenges facing a vulnerable population.
“These are young people,” he said. “They worry about which hall they can walk down at school, which table they have to avoid in the lunchroom, what happens at church on Sunday and whether they need to hide their identity from their family.”
But the survey also showed that many gay teens find safe havens among their peers, on the Internet and in their schools. Nearly 3 in 4 gay teenagers said they were more honest about themselves online than elsewhere and 67 percent said their schools were “generally accepting” of gay people.
In interviews this week at L.A.’s Gay and Lesbian Center, several young people spoke about the survey’s findings and their own experiences coming to terms with their LGBT identity.
Jonathan McClain, a 22-year-old from Altadena, said he identified strongly with part of the study showing that many young gays and lesbians feel forced to change their identities almost hour by hour, depending on where they are and who’s around. Many LGBT kids are more likely to be “out” at school than they are with their families.
“Sometimes you’re out of the closet, sometimes you have to put yourself back in and watch what you say and how you act,” said McClain, who volunteers at the center.
McClain, who came out after he graduated from high school, said he had never directly experienced harassment.
That was not the case with others interviewed, including Edwin Chuc, from Los Angeles, who said he had been beaten up in middle school and ended up with broken ribs. Chuc said he had lived on the streets for several years and abused drugs and alcohol before turning his life around.
Now a confident 19-year-old who will attend USC in the fall, Chuc said his parents are much more supportive now than they were when he first came out. “I’m happy and I have people I can turn to,” he said.
Logan Woods, 18, of Manhattan Beach, said middle school was tough for him too, but high school, at the private Vistamar School in El Segundo, has been much better, with good friends and a strong gay support group among the students.
“It’s getting easier for me to live spontaneously and not feel like I have to plan everything out for fear of being hurt,” he said.
The survey was conducted online from April 16 through May 20. It was advertised through social media, as well as through LGBT youth centers across the country. The researchers said the survey method is not unusual for targeting hard-to-reach populations but may not represent a truly random sample.
from The Los Angeles Times

The Boy Scouts of America will review a resolution that would allow individual units to accept gays as adult leaders, but a spokesman says there’s no expectation that the ban on gay leaders will in fact be lifted any time soon.
The resolution was submitted by a Scout leader from the Northeast in April and presented last week at the Scouts’ national meeting in Orlando, Fla., according to BSA spokesman Deron Smith.
Smith said Wednesday it would be referred to a subcommittee, which will then make a recommendation to the national executive board. The process would likely be completed by May 2013, according to Smith, who said there were no plans at this time to change the policy.
During last week’s meeting, the Scouts were presented with a petition, bearing more than 275,000 names, protesting the ouster of a lesbian mother, Jennifer Tyrrell, who’d been serving as a Scout den mother near Bridgeport, Ohio.
Among those who presented the Change.org petition, and met with Scout officials, was Eagle Scout Zach Wahls, an Iowa college student who was raised by lesbian mothers.
Wahls, in a telephone interview, said he and his allies planned a campaign to mobilize opposition to the gay-exclusion policy from within Scout ranks, with the goal of building pressure for the resolution to be approved.
“Up to the day they end this policy, they’ll be saying they have no plans to do so,” Wahls said. “But there’s no question it’s costing the Boy Scouts in terms of membership and public support.”
The Scouts, who celebrated their 100th anniversary in 2010, have had a long-standing policy of excluding gays and atheists. Controversy over the policy intensified in 2000 when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Scouts to maintain the policy in the face of a legal challenge.
Leaders of several regional scouting councils have asked for the policy to be scrapped or modified, to no avail.
from The Associated Press
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Jun Lin

TORONTO, CANADA – On his blog, he liked to call himself Big Bad Justin, but in reality, according to his postings and his acquaintances, Jun Lin was a quiet, unassuming man who came to Canada from China to study engineering and computer science. As a cashier at a convenience store, he never missed a shift. He loved his cat and queued up for the new iPhone on the day it went on sale.
Now his parents are here to collect the dismembered remains of the victim of a murder that has appalled the world with its gruesomeness, videotaped and posted on the Internet.
“I’m going to Canada!” he posted on May 10, 2010.
Last week parts of him turned up in parcels mailed to Canada’s two main political parties. A torso was found in a suitcase on a garbage dump in Montreal, outside the apartment building where he is thought to have been killed. Police reported that what looked like a foot and hand, separately mailed to two Vancouver schools and discovered Tuesday, are thought to be linked to the case. Police are waiting for the head to turn up.
On his blog, the 33-year-old indulged his love for fashion, home-cooked food, Apple products, American TV and Andy his tabby cat.
A copy of what police believe is the video of the killing shows a bound, blindfolded man naked on a bed being stabbed to death with an ice pick, then dismembered.
Investigators suspect a 29-year-old Montreal man, Luka Rocco Magnotta of committing the murder and posting the video online. He was caught at a cafe in Berlin. Montreal police say he and Lin were dating, but no reference to the suspect has yet been found in Lin’s extensive online postings.
“I don’t know under what circumstances they knew each other, but for someone to target him, I never would have thought this,” said Zoya De Frias Lakhany, who was Lin’s friend and fellow student at Concordia University in Montreal.
Lin was a shy, straight-A computer student – “so nice, humble and honest,” said De Frias Lakhany, 21. “He was really involved in his studies and never missed class.”
On the Chinese microblogging site weibo.com, Lin wrote excitedly about moving to Canada. Upon arriving in Montreal, he kept up his mostly cheerful blogging, although he sometimes betrayed a sense of loneliness.
“Class is to begin soon,” reads one posting from last year, accompanied by a photo of an empty classroom. “I’m so nervous. Been out of school for so long.”
“I just realized I am 10 years older than my classmates,” he wrote a month later. “They can call me Uncle. It’s so crushing.”
More than 1,000 entries are scattered with photos he took of himself. In some, he stares at the camera, expressionless. In others, he makes faces or poses shirtless.
The photos were accompanied by discussions of his diet and plans for staying fit.
“My calves are getting so thick,” he complained one day. “I am on diet – chicken breast, broccoli, tomatoes, peas and whole-wheat bread.”
A few days later, he explained his weight gain: “I know why I am so fat in Canada. Butter and bread in the morning. I’m so fat,” he wrote.
Yet the photos show a slender man. Followers of his blog commented that he was cute.
Lin’s last blog entry, dated May 16, 2012, has drawn 40,000 comments, most of them expressing shock and condolences over his death. But some of the posters debate homosexuality, with many suggesting Lin’s sexuality led him into a dangerous situation. China’s government considered homosexuality a mental disorder until 2001 and it remains a sensitive topic in the country, where gays are frequently ostracized.
Friends and strangers have lit virtual candles on Lin’s blog. A Facebook page dedicated to Lin features photos of him traveling and posts demanding swift justice for Magnotta, a former porn actor who, authorities say, flew to Paris shortly after the killing and spent several days partying and evading police before his arrest in Berlin.
At the Montreal convenience store where Lin’s boss says he never failed to show up for work, a memorial is piled with flowers and sympathy cards written in English, French and Mandarin.
The Chinese consulate in Montreal said Lin’s family plans to speak with the media when they are ready.
De Frias Lakhany said her friend seemed happy in Montreal.
“He would take pictures of the snow and post them,” she said “He was sweet, never complained and smiled all the time.”
from The Associated Press
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President Barack Obama

Tickets for the sold-out LGBT Leadership Council Gala started at $1,250 per person, and 600 people bought them. The gala was the centerpiece of a two-day fundraising swing to San Francisco and Los Angeles that was expected to net more than $5.5 million. Obama also attended a smaller, $25,000-a-plate dinner later Wednesday at the home of “Glee” creator Ryan Murphy, as well as a breakfast Thursday at the home of developer Charles Quarles.
Actresses Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon and Jane Lynch attended the Murphy reception.
Earlier Wednesday in San Francisco, the president participated in a closed-door roundtable meeting with 25 local business leaders (ticket price: $35,800), and a fundraising luncheon for 250 (general admission: $5,000).
In San Francisco, Obama mentioned neither same-sex marriage nor the previous day’s Wisconsin election, in which Republican Gov. Scott Walker withstood a Democratic effort to recall him. Obama appeared with baseball legend Willie Mays, California Gov. Jerry Brown and Timothy M. Kaine, who is running for Senate in Virginia after serving as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
But in Los Angeles, where the audience included Cher and “Modern Family” star Jesse Tyler Ferguson, appealing to the gay community was the president’s central message. He recalled working out on a Marine base in Hawaii at Christmastime and having one soldier after another (all fit and with low-body fat, he said, garnering more laughs) thank him for repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
“I could not be prouder of the work we’ve done on behalf of the LGBT community,” he said.
The singer Pink was originally scheduled to perform at the gala but canceled because of illness. Criss was the fill-in, and jokingly tweeted on Monday: “?:) So bummed I’ll have to miss my dental appointment to sing for The US President Wed night. thanx @Pink for messin that up!! _#greattiming.”
Asked on Air Force One on Wednesday whether Obama is a fan of “Glee,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said he wasn’t certain.
“I haven’t heard the president talk about that,” Carney said. “I think he has referenced some of the shows he does watch, so I don’t know — I don’t know the answer to your question.”
Money raised at the events will go to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint fund that includes Obama’s reelection campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state Democratic parties.
from The Washington Post