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 | Whether completed suicide is higher than for the general population. |
| Whether attempted suicides are more common. |
| What is the cause of elevated rates of suicide if it exists. |
We will attempt to wade through the misinformation, disinformation, and conflicting data on this topic.
Numbers of gay and lesbian youth suicides:
The Universal Almanac 1 listed a total of 4,960 completed suicides among US youth aged 15 to 24 years of age in 1993. They quote a National Center for Health Statistics report. 2 The true numbers are probably a lot higher, because many deaths categorized as accidents are really suicides.
Statistics of gay and lesbian youth are hard to find.
| The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimated 3 that "as many as 30% of completed youth suicides each year" are performed by gays and lesbians. Unfortunately, many information sources have quoted the 30% as if it is an absolute figure. The Department indicates that it is 30% or fewer. If we assume that the 30% figure is valid and that it is constant across the age range of 15 to 24 years, then approximately 1,488 suicides per year are committed by homosexual youth. If we assume that gays comprise 5% of the total number of youth, then the 1,488 suicides represent an excess of 1240 suicides related to their sexual orientation. |
| The Guardian, an English newspaper reported on a study by Dr Ian Rivers, a senior lecturer in social psychology at York, St John College in England. He suggests that there could be as many as 46,000 young people being bullied for their sexual orientation in British secondary schools. Any child who does not conform to the norms current in their school can find themselves described as gay or lesbian, regardless of whether they are or not. So the boy who is not keen on football can be targeted, as can the girl who is not interested in make-up. Rivers has looked at the effects of homophobic bullying on young gays and lesbians and found that more than half considered suicide because of aggression at school, and that 40% of this group had actually tried to kill themselves; three-quarters of these had tried to kill themselves more than once. 5 |
Cause of suicides among gay and lesbian youth, according to religious conservatives:
Religious conservative generally agree that suicides among youth with a homosexual orientation are elevated. However, they attribute it to two main causes:
| Despair by homosexual youth that they are trapped forever in the homosexual lifestyle. |
| Depression and suicidal ideation brought about by homosexual behavior itself. |
Concerning feelings of being trapped:
| Melissa Fryrear, a gender issues analyst for the Fundamentalist Christian activist group Focus on the Family identifies herself as a former lesbian. She said: "From my vantage point the people that I found were suicidal are those who thought they were trapped in homosexuality, who thought they had to live homosexually. And so they actually had been filled with hope when we shared with them that, 'No, you can come out of this'." |
| Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, a conservative Christian ministry to gays and lesbians said: "That was my experience. I was told there was only one option for me—'You have to accept who you are and there is no other way.' And for me, as a teenager when I was coming out of homosexuality 15 years ago, that made me want to die. (It wasn't) until I found that there was an alternative, that there was something for me, for someone who was pursuing what I was pursuing, that caused me to want to live." |
Cause of suicides according to religious liberals, therapists, etc:
On the other hand, most gays, lesbians, therapists, religious liberals and mental health professionals believe that many of the individuals who commit suicides are motivated to end their life by their self-hatred of themselves as gays and lesbians. This, in turn, is derived from the hatred of homosexuals and homosexuality which permeates society.
Considering that:
| Homophobia is largely based on about 6 quotations from the Bible. | ||||||
| Most Christian churches have actively taught hatred of homosexuality for decades. | ||||||
| Conservative Christian churches are currently leading the fight to:
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We estimate that Christian churches are responsible for at least 40% of the homophobia in the United States.
Another way of looking at this is to imagine what would happen to the acceptance of homosexuality in North American culture if all religious institutions were as active in promoting equal rights and acceptance of gays and lesbians as the Unitarian Universalist Association and United Church of Christ has been for many years. After a few decades, gay and lesbian youth would no longer grow up hating homosexuals. So when they became aware of their own sexual orientation, they would accept it as a normal expression of human sexuality. They would be far less liable to commit suicide to avoid a life of same-sex orientation.
We thus believe that churches can be conservatively assigned indirect responsibility for about 496 youth gay/lesbian suicides per year.
This rate is greater than the witch genocide rate in Western Europe during the burning times.
If we include:
| suicides by homosexuals over the age of 24, |
| youth suicides which are reported as accidents, |
| the additional deaths from STDs due to lack of sex-education in the schools (which is often kept out by religious influence) |
then the churches' responsibility is much greater.
Of course, not all denominations share an equal portion of this responsibility. Some more liberal Christian groups are accepting homosexuality as an alternative, normal sexual expression. But to our knowledge, only the United Church of Christ:
| accepts gays and lesbians (both celibate and involved in committed relationships) as church members |
| accepts gays and lesbians for ordination |
| promote a homosexual-positive educational program in their churches |
| advocates in their behalf against discrimination and persecution, and |
| provides a religious ritual recognizing their unions |
Until all denominations change their policies to match that of the United Church, they will remain part of the problem and not part of the solution. And they will all share some responsibility in each of these suicides.
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Home > "Hot" religious topics > Homosexuality > Basic info. > here |
Copyright © 1997 to 2005 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2005-NOV-19
Author: B.A. Robinson
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