You know PJ, I have known people my whole life who were gay. I have never known one who had to be situation inappropriate unless it was for shock value.
I don’t buy into stereotypical gays because I haven’t met anyone who matches that description. It is a sexual preference and no one shows their sexual preference all day all the time.
I conclude that most mannerisms are effected. There may be a tendency to behave slightly more like the opposite sex but many people who are not gay also have those tendencies.

I was not talking about Federal Funding either. That is usually Nonprofit Groups or Organizations.

Teen suicide is not a gay issue. It is a teenage issue. Teens are conflicted over everything and anything, most ever teen is somehow conflicted over some sort of sexual issue, what leads them to take their lives is more individual, why make it a gay issue?

Do you have any more current information on violence against gays? I find it hard to believe that it is still on the rise 10 years later.

Perhaps I have just lived in places where it was more acceptable. I just can’t say but most of the violence I know of that was directed against gays was more because they took risks they shouldn’t have.

I also know of violence against others who took such risks.

I think that the murder of Matthew Shepard was a tragedy. But I think that anyone walking out in the night with strangers is taking a big risk.
I am fairly sure that anyone walking out with those two thugs was taking their life and placing it into their hands and I wouldn’t give squat for their chances of coming out alive.

I have had gay friends beaten up because they went with strangers but I have also had straight friends who met the same fate.

Criminals tend to take advantage of the unwary. Criminals tend to use any excuse they can think of that might excuse what they did. I generally comes down to who is an easy mark.

And yes, there are people who hate gays! And people who hate everyone else too. There is no identifiable group who doesn’t have someone who hates them.

All of us fit into some groups or sub-groups who also have hate groups who despise us but we don’t make it the hallmark of our existence.