In America, there are benefits associated with marriage. Health, happiness, stability for children, family leave rights, insurance, estate protection, Social Security, even longer life spans. Some want to enjoy these benefits themselves, but deny them to people born with a slightly different chemical makeup. They campaign against equal employment and housing rights and encourage a social and cultural environment of intolerance. These actions inflict emotional damage on a very vulnerable segment of society, our LGBT youth. It is preached that homosexuals are not worthy to marry, raise children, or even join the Boy Scouts. Is it any wonder that gay teens have an attempted suicide rate several times that of heterosexual teens? That as many as 40 percent of homeless teens are LGBT, mostly due to family rejection?
How much teen depression, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide, and homelessness would be prevented if certain churches did not preach their harmful rhetoric? Dave Bronson (Compass, Aug. 16) says that we should all be grateful to Jerry Prevo for running his school. Well, this taxpayer says "It ain't worth it."
— Anne Terry
Anchorage