Beware the Gay Suicide Card

One of the arguments made by critics of the LDS Church on the topic of homosexuality is that its stand causes young people to take their own lives. Detractors are actively using the gay youth suicide card on the LDS Church in the wake of President Packer's talk at the Church’s General Conference, Oct. 3. On Oct. 7, a “silent protest” was held where a group of mostly young people lay down, death-like, outside the gates of the Salt Lake Temple. While we should all mourn suicides, is the Church responsible? Will the words Pres. Packer spoke at a church meeting really cause people to take their own lives as activists are saying?

It has been admitted by activists that lies are acceptable in order to further their cause. One example is, talking about being “born that way,” activists said, “If this is an easier route to acceptance (which may in fact be the case), is it really so bad that it is inaccurate?”

It follows that we must take every pronouncement of a “gay suicide" with a very large grain of salt. In fact, some families of these suicide victims being cited by activists are speaking out.
Affirmation, a group self-described as LDS and pro-gay, in an article about suicides, is warned by family members of young gays David Standley and Todd Ranson who recently died not to jump so quickly to the causes of their deaths.

“David had a very severe mental illness his entire life where he experienced depression that he was unable to overcome. His biological father also committed suicide, which increased his chances to 90 percent that he would also do the same. David had the same mental illness as his biological father and his biological father’s father,” wrote Standley’s mother.

“Some people have said that Todd ended his life because he was gay or felt persecuted by the LDS Church and his family, but this is not true,” a family member wrote on a tribute web site dedicated to him . . . “Todd attempted suicide previously and we know from that experience that his manic depression was a constant thorn in his side and that there were other factors that influenced his suicide.”

As a matter of fact, mentally and emotionally healthy people of all ages do not kill themselves because others disapprove of them. Correction, criticism, and even rejection are part of life. We get disappointed, dropped, dumped, dismissed, disowned, and deceived by others. History is full of individuals and groups, good and bad, being rejected. People are even imprisoned because society cannot accept their behavior. And yet the vast majority do not commit suicide. Therefore, criticism or rejection, including bullying, cannot be blindly accepted as the cause for gay suicides.

A study called “Risk Factors for Attempted Suicide in Gay and Bisexual Youth” (G. Remafedi, 1999), reports that for every year a young person puts off labeling himself gay, the risk of suicide decreases by 20% (See narth.com). Of course activists do not want this known. We once asked a youth counselor at Utah Pride if she ever tried to dissuade a young teenager from labeling himself gay quite yet and there was total silence on the other end of the phone.

Rather than disapproval or perceived rejection from one’s family or church, could it be that there are hidden factors at work that contribute to gay youth suicides? How about encouragement to adopt a popularized but unnatural sexual label? How about addiction to soul-killing same-sex pornography and promiscuous anonymous sexual encounters? How about the mind-altering drug abuse that goes along with homosex? How about being introduced by adults to behaviors too heinous to mention in polite society? How about being told they are forever homosexual and thinking they will never have a normal sex and family life? How about hearing over and over that gays commit suicide if they aren’t accepted by their family or church? How about confusion, self-loathing, depression, and guilt coming from a young person’s own dark thoughts and behaviors with no hope or resources for deliverance in sight?

As we’ve been hearing, some believe no “serious crisis [should] go to waste.” Please note that schools play down student suicides so as not to encourage copy-cat behavior. We never see gay activists playing down suicides. On the contrary, any suicide they can possibly connect to gayness is shamelessly exploited to further their cause.

Given the above considerations, we should be highly skeptical of sexual activists’ exploitation of any person’s violence against himself.


Also see “Is ‘gay’ agenda to blame for teen suicides?” by Linda Harvey at www.missionamerica.com

Update: It's no surprise to us that soon after this post was published Affirmation  removed the families' remarks about the above young men's real reasons for suicide from their websites.Can anyone doubt how despicable and dangerous the gay suicide lie is?