I understand why young people are killing themselves.

When you are gay, who do you have to turn to?

No matter how supportive my family is and how many close friends I make, I still feel a constant loss and I still harbor incredible amounts of anger. Although I’ve surrounded myself with people who love me, I am still surrounded by the constant din of hateful rhetoric. Whether directed at me, or just mindlessly spouted into the collective, it hurts.

And who out there is watching out for me? I’m not asking who can I call that will tell me they love me or who can I go hug and share my anger with. I’m asking who, in a position of power, is watching out for me? Our “fierce advocate” Obama? Nope. His administration’s clear ambivalence to our plight and lack of action are evidence that his campaigning was little more than hollow, lifeless, careless promises. In my eyes the biggest policy decisions he has made about LGBT people is to defend the Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the two harshest laws discriminating against us. Fair weather fan, I guess.

What about other elected representatives? Well considering Congress won’t even vote yes to debate something as simple and widely favored as Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, I guess I can’t turn to anyone there.

Perhaps I can count on the media. After all, it is the media’s responsibility to investigate and report. They’re the unwritten part of the system of checks and balances. When all branches of our government go haywire, we can count on reporters to set the record straight. Then, on Coming Out day, Washington Post publishes a vitriolic (and completely false) mess of hate speech. My face is still bruised from that slap.

Unfortunately I can’t turn to the country as a whole. Those are the people I need the government to protect me from.

We can tell clearly from NY Gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino that everyone is willing to reap the benefits of LGBT people, and nobody in the upper echelons is willing to stick their neck out for us. Despite leasing his properties to two gay bars in the past, one run by his son, he campaigned saying “I don’t want them [children] to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option.”

So when every day you are faced with wondering whether mentioning a bar you were at, or a song you were listening to, or the clothes you are wearing, or the name of someone you went on a date with will end in ridicule, or worse, violence, what would you do?

Well I get really angry and write about it. I know I’m preaching to the choir but it makes me feel a little better. Not everyone is that strong though. For some people, when faced with this level of discrimination, and given seemingly no way out, death seems like a better option. It’s not, but I can see where it might look that way.

The good news is there are places for gay people to go and be safe. If I wanted to get rid of this stress and hurt, I could just stop paying attention to the news and shuffle around some of who I follow on Twitter. Escape isn’t that far away and maybe that’s why I can handle it. I also know that within my lifetime the majority of these silly laws will probably be gone, and while gay people may not be seen as equals by all, it will be a heck of a lot easier.

I just wish everyone would see that while I’m different, I’m not different. The difference between gay and straight is no greater than the difference between brown and blond. And I wish that people realized that changing our laws to recognize that fact is no less urgent than ending our war in Iraq or balancing the budget or finding a cure for cancer.

There is an unspoken epidemic in this country. It’s not people being gay. It’s people who are gay who are depressed and angry and who have no remedy but to sit and wait while those in power decide when the appropriate time is to say “now you are equal.”