the price is right

Speaker Pelosi needs to put protecting gay kids first
by deb price

The photograph of new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was political gold: Surrounded by a sea of lawmakers' shiny-faced girls and boys, a few of them her own grandkids, the first woman to lead "the people's House" waved the gavel, signaling a new era, particularly for America's youngest citizens.

Odds are that at least one of the 19 children will start becoming aware of being gay by age 10.

If Pelosi's picture-perfect snapshot is to mean something beyond being a politically useful prop, she should direct the new Congress to take its first serious look at what it's like to grow up gay in America.

That picture isn't so pretty. And those of us who're gay adults have the psychic scars to prove it.

Painfully aware that much of the world considers them worthless, many gay kids struggle with a cycle of self hatred that they carry into adulthood, if they are lucky enough to survive that long.

Why should Pelosi put "Protect our gay kids" atop the House's to-do list? Heart-breaking research provides plenty of reasons:

Compared with classmates, gay kids are more likely to use alcohol and drugs, engage in risky sex, have more sex partners, skip school for fear of being attacked, think of suicide or even attempt suicide, according to a 2001 article in the American Journal of Public Health. Gay kids whose schools provided gay-sensitive instruction about HIV reported fewer problems.

Nearly half of gay kids told the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network in 2005 they attend schools that teach a federally funded "abstinence-only" until heterosexual marriage courses.

That sort of sex ed makes gay kids feel invisible -- or worse. Gay students at such schools reported higher levels of skipping school because they don't feel safe, being bullied and feeling unable to talk with teachers, counselors or other adults paid to help them through rocky growing-up years. And these kids were less likely to know any openly gay school official.

Seventy-five percent of gay youth report hearing anti-gay name-calling like "faggot" or "dyke" often at school. And more than one-third (38 percent) said they'd experienced anti-gay physical harassment at school, the network's National School Climate survey found.

Young males, ages 15 to 22, who have sex with other men are at high risk for HIV -- that's particularly true among African-Americans and Hispanics -- but 55 percent keep their orientation secret, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Those secretive boys and young men, the CDC says, are less likely than open gays or bisexuals to get tested for HIV, so they are less likely to know if they are infected. They're also likely to have female sex partners, whom they put at risk for HIV.

The most vulnerable gay kids -- throwaways, runaways and lockaways -- report appalling levels of anti-gay abuse in foster care, homeless shelters and juvenile detention centers, the Child Welfare League of America finds.

Pelosi ought to use her forceful "mother of five" voice to speak out against these outrages and insist that our nation live up to its obligation to gay kids. Now, that would be a pretty picture.

Reach Deb Price at (202) 662-8736 or dprice@detnews.com.