Does this look even remotely like YOUR family? 

Today, Pennsylvania legislators unveiled their plan to destroy the families of 20,000 gay and 250,000 heterosexual families.  The heterosexual families, unmarried per the 2000 Census, are the innocent victims in the homo-haters all out war on Pennsylvania's gay families.

Rep Scott W. Boyd, R-Lancaster County and Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler County are among the prime sponsors of this proposal.

Butler County.  Here in Western Pennsylvania.  Right up the road.  A place where any unmarried heterosexual couple faces the loss of some pretty basic rights thanks to Scotty and Daryl's hatred of gays.

This could mean that women cannot seek a protection from abuse order from their boyfriends if they are not married.  See the HRC 2005 report on the impact of similar amendments in other states. 

Gay marriage is illegal in Pennsylvania.  This is a non-issue.  It is simply an attempt to rally the faithful around kicking the homos versus taking care of actual legislative business. 

Remember 250,000 heterosexual families will be caught up in this net. 

Read the ACLU response here

Sue

From 365gay.com, Cleveland's LGBT Community Center is partnering with Cuyahoga County to determine how many homeless LGBT youth there are between the ages of 14 and 24. 

The study is the first major look at gay homelessness in more than a decade, when one study suggested that almost a third of the homeless in big cities were gay, lesbian or transgendered.

Earlier studies have shown that while some gay youths are thrown out of their homes by parents who reject them because of their sexuality other are on the streets because of abuse, drugs or mental illness.

This is a good sign from the County that they want to reach out to help this particular group.  However, my own limited experiences with homelessness tells me that it is ESSENTIAL for this project to have the buy-in of Cleveland's homeless advocates. 

These kids aren't going to open up just because the person reaching out is gay.  They may have already built some trust with the homeless advocates and that's the best avenue to explore IMHO. 

It is heartening, however, to see a determined social service project emanating from the LGBT Center.  Too often, working class and lower income gays are left out of the loop of services because they simply don't have the time or income to participate in the activities.  Nor the freedom to be out. 

Sue