"I'm homosexual and I'm afraid about what my future will be and that people won't like me."

A Humans of New York photograph of a child that's getting a lot of attention on Facebook, including a response from Hillary Clinton.

I find this very touching — the boy, not HC getting into the picture — but I'm averse to giving children this kind of open-to-the-whole-world attention. Who is this boy? Who had the right to give the photographer permission to use him this way? Where did he learn to say "I'm homosexual"? I would think that a modern American boy who knew enough to be able to make that observation about himself would say "I'm gay," not "I'm homosexual." And why would a child who was that worried about it talk about it? What else did he say and what questions were asked that led to the startling nugget that became his caption? What other pictures were taken along with this sad-victim pose? Did he understand how any of this would work? Did his mother/father who presumably consented for him?

I love Humans of New York, and this entry is a huge success for it, but I question the ethics of catching a little boy up in a social media swirl, even though the response to the child is overwhelmingly positive, with many prompted to give the obvious response to "I'm afraid... that people won't like me": I like you! 

ADDED: This post gets my "using children in politics" tag.