Is there a proportionality problem in America when it comes to federally funded programs involving gays?

I wrote up a post for Mr. Conservative about yet another federal grant directed at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Question (LGBTQ) community.  I’m reproducing the post, below, but I have a few questions for you to think about as you read it. (Doesn’t this make you feel as if you’re in a college class, although I hope not a boring one?)

In the beginning of the post, I note that this group makes up roughly 5% of the population.  At the end of the post, I note that the Obama administration invests a lot of money into LGBTQ studies, while the media saturates the airways with LGBTQ issues, including gay marriage.  As part of noting all this money the administration spends, I also point out that the LGBTQ community is more likely to have spousal abuse issues, drug and alcohol abuse issues, sexually transmitted disease issues, and depression and suicide issues.

With that in mind, my questions are as follows:

1.  Although it’s a small portion of the population, the LGBTQ community is a very troubled community.  Does that make it appropriate to spend what might seem like disproportionate federal funds, not just generally on runaways, drug addicts, drunk drivers, spousal abusers, but specifically on LGBTQ subsets that have these problems?

2.  Considering that the LGBTQ community faces greater acceptance now than at any other time in human history, why are its members still so terribly plagued with self-destructive behaviors?  It seems to me that, despite all the love and acceptance (and the abusive groupthink forced upon people who won’t get with the program), there’s still something innately homophobic in young people.  My kids attend ultra liberal schools where the message in both the homes and the schools is gays must be loved and accepted, as well as accorded the ordinary respect all human beings deserve.  Despite that, the greatest slur one boy at school can hurl at another is still “You’re gay.”  I wonder whether, even if we spent the entire federal budget on the LGBTQ community, we would able to change this innate hostility — and as long as the innate hostility exists, can LGBTQ young people be spared the psychic injuries that lead too many of them to run away, take drugs, drink, engage in dangerous sexual activities, abuse their partners, and commit suicide.

Your thoughts?  And just to be clear, this is not meant to be an attack against gays.  As I said in my Mr. Conservative post, I don’t have a bone to pick with the reality of homosexuality and its various subsets.  I simply wonder about whether we can change the risks they face and how much money our society should spend to try to insulate them from those risks.

And here’s my post:

***

Male prostitute

Runaway children are a societal tragedy. They are at risk of drug and alcohol abuse, prostitution and other sexual abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, depression, and suicide. According to the Administration for Children & Families (ACF), which is a subset of the Department of Health and Human Services, children who self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning are statistically more likely to become runaways than other children. That’s why the Obama administration is planning on spending almost a million dollars to create “transitional living programs” for the LGBTQ youth community.

In its grant announcement, the ACF explained that, “Each year in the United States, an estimated 1.6 million unaccompanied youth between the ages of 12 and 17 experience homelessness, which puts youth at a high risk for health, behavioral, and socioemotional problems compared to the general youth population.” Moreover, “It is estimated that between 20 and 40 percent of all homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. This is disproportionate to the estimated percentage of LGBTQ youth in the general population, which is between 4 and 10 percent.” Many of these LGBTQ children run away, says the ACF, not for the general reasons kids runaway, but specifically because their families reject their LGBTQ status.

The ACF’s grant announcement also explains that, as compared to other runaways, LGBTQ kids are more likely to get sexually assaulted and to engage in unsafe sexual practices; are more likely to abuse substances; and are more likely to suffer from depression leading to suicide. For all these reasons, the federal government has determined that it should spend extra money on them, as opposed to spending money generally to help runaway teens. Or, as the grant statement says, “Although there is a growing body of research and information on runaway and homeless youth, there is a compelling need to do more to understand and build the capacity for RHY [Runaway and Homeless Youth] providers to better serve LGBTQ homeless youth.”

Runaway teens

To that end, the ACF is paying $900,000 taxpayer dollars to fund efforts that “may include identifying innovative LGBTQ specific intervention strategies, determining culturally appropriate screening and assessment tools, learning of services and systems of support that respond to the needs of the LGBTQ youth, pinpointing the gaps in services, and better understanding the needs of LGBTQ youth served by Runaway and Homeless Youth (RHY) agencies.”

It turns out, though, that this $900,000 isn’t actually intended just for teens. Instead, the grant provides services and housing for LGBTQs between 16 and 22. So it ignores the ones under 16, despite their greater vulnerability, and provides government funds to “youths” who are 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22 – in other words, legal adults.

The ACF announced the grant on June 14, and will be accepting applications until August 13.

As we noted at the top of this article, runaway teens are a societal tragedy. Impulsive, unprepared, unhappy young people have huge “victim” signs flashing over their head, with every predator, pimp, and crook honing in on them. The fact that so many of these children, straight or LGBTQ, become drug addicts, prostitutes, AIDS victims, and suicides represents a series of individual tragedies, not to mention a blight on a healthy society.

Homeless youth

Having said that, it strikes us that the federal government is spending an inordinate amount of taxpayer money and government time on LGBTQ concerns. Although best estimates are that the LGBTQ population makes up only around 4-5% of the population, the Obama administration has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to gay specific programs, including, but not limited to:

1. $300,000 to gay domestic violence victims (and gays and lesbians have more domestic violence than the general population);

2. $15,000,000 to study why lesbians are fat and whether the fat is related to their sexuality;

3. $2,700,000 to discover why lesbians drive drunk (and the LGBTQ community has higher incidents of drug and alcohol abuse);

4. $500,000 to send “gay lingo” texts to gay drug addicts, to help diminish their drug abuse;

5. $450,000 to support gay rights overseas (with President Obama’s gay rights statement in Senegal thrown in as a freebie as part of the $100,000,000 Africa tour);

6. $254,000 to educate male prostitutes about safe sex;(which makes you wonder if there’s any benefit to the expensive and controversial “safe sex” lessons every single American kid starts having in about the 5th grade); and

7. $500,000 to study the lives of gay fathers.

As the Middle East is shaken by civil war in Syria, revolution in Egypt, and craven American retreat in Afghanistan; and as the economy goes from sluggish to moribund, with only Obama’s pet capitalists getting rich, our media focuses obsessively on gay rights, with anyone who opposes the end of traditional marriage being called a “hater.” As far as the Left is concerned, that one word, especially if shouted loudly and often, is enough to win the argument about swift changes to a fundamental institution that has, for thousands of years, been predicated on biological reality (man plus woman equals baby) and on the need to keep a society’s population stable.

Homophobia is not the issue. Although the LGBTQ community won’t believe me, I’m not a homophobic. I believe that Nature or the Creator (whichever you look to) did indeed shade human sexuality, and I’m sufficiently libertarian to stay out of people’s private lives. So it’s not homophobia.

What’s getting weird, though, is the obsessive, overwhelming, all-encompassing homophilia (that is, love for homosexuals) we’re seeing from the Obama administration and the mainstream media, an obsession that is taking money away from everyone else in America, and distracting our attention from much more significant problems regarding America’s security and economy.