Give A Damn Campaign Targets Unfit Parents
Cyndi Lauper has been promoting an important anti-homophobia campaign with a new message aimed squarely at parents who harm and discriminate against their own children.
It’s a sad statistic that gay, lesbian, and trans youth are disproportionately represented among all homeless youth in North America, falling between 20 and 40 percent of the total homeless youth population, depending on the region.
The Give a Damn campaign aims to raise awareness about all GLBT youth issues, but after the success of Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors Residence, New York’s first permanent housing facility for GLBT youth between the ages of 18 and 24, Cyndi has been pushing for resources to build even more shelters. “As a mother,” wrote Lauper, “I could never imagine throwing my kid away for any reason, let alone over something like their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
“It would be like ripping out a piece of my very own soul,” she added.
If you want to learn more about the Give a Damn Campaign, I strongly encourage you to check out its website and support it in any way you can. This problem is bigger than any one campaign, though, so it’s important to also support projects for safer schools and training for leaders and role models to give rejected youth somewhere to go other than the streets.
- Cyndi Lauper blasts homophobic parents [Winnipeg Free Press]