Gay Mormons committing suicide

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

You can't admit you are wrong even when the simple facts are layed plainly before you.

Just say it, "yes you were right, I was wrong." You always miss that step.

Jacking off making you gay was Kimball's opinion. He's entitled to his opinions. I am also entitled to disregard them.

See that's the rub: they rarely say when it is their opinion. That's up to us to figure out.

Who does the "you" refer to in the first sentence? President Kimball? Are you asking that he appear in resurrected glory to retract his earlier statement in light of the revisions in DSM-III and DSM-IV?

[T Blue]

Originally Posted by ERCougar

On masturbation:
"While we should not regard this weakness as the heinous sin which some other sexual practices are, it is of itself bad enough to require sincere repentance. What is more, it too often leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality. For, done in private, it evolves often into mutual masturbation - practiced with another person of the same sex - and thence into total homosexuality." - Spencer W. Kimball.

I can't remember exactly who this Kimball guy is. Probably an old bishop of mine or something?

I agree there are likely many factors that go into sexual orientation. But there is no doubt that genetics is one of them, likely the dominant factor. Certainly, abuse, parenting, and environment may all influence sexual orientation, but conscious choice would account for a very small minority of homosexuals. Who in their right mind would choose that life?

But your "n of 1" study certainly sways me. Your generalization of this single, unique, and unusual example just makes my original point--there are still many clinging to the notion that sexual orientation results from a series of bad choices, and it can be shifted with a series of good ones (Can you imagine yourself "switching teams", so to speak? Didn't think so.). You seem younger than those I would expect to hold to this idea; that's a little discouraging.

So I guess it is up to me to go to the WWW and find if Spencer Kimball really said this verbatim?

I can't ever recall this being promoted, talked about, discussed, taught, etc, etc...... in any of the young mens lessons I was involved in, must have been the ones I missed while I was out jacking off.

While I might agree with you that it is possible that a part of the homosexual urge is "born" into them, why are some families totally passed over with this "gene" and others have several members who are so lucky toi have been blessed with it during the same era, IOW several brothers and maybe sisters have homosexual tendencies??

Are you saying this is like some form of birth disease, like downs syndrome? I guess some of these people just weren't very valiant in heaven hey??

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by T Blue

So I guess it is up to me to go to the WWW and find if Spencer Kimball really said this verbatim?

I can't ever recall this being promoted, talked about, discussed, taught, etc, etc...... in any of the young mens lessons I was involved in, must have been the ones I missed while I was out jacking off.

While I might agree with you that it is possible that a part of the homosexual urge is "born" into them, why are some families totally passed over with this "gene" and others have several members who are so lucky toi have been blessed with it during the same era, IOW several brothers and maybe sisters have homosexual tendencies??

Are you saying this is like some form of birth disease, like downs syndrome? I guess some of these people just weren't very valiant in heaven hey??

maybe you missed the recent study that came out suggesting that genes related to being gay male confer a reproductive advantage to his sisters.

[BYU71]

An interesting thread. First off I can't or haven't found any definitive articles linking an unusual amount of suicides to the LDS church specifically. My guess would be that suicide is more prevalent amongst any orthodox religion or belief. I have heard of kids, very bright kids committing suicide because they didn't measure up to their or others expectations when it came to grades for example.

It is probably a tougher situation for gays to be born into an orthodox environment. However tragic a suicide is, I don't think a culture should change because of some expectation that the change will prevent the suicide. Perhaps the family unit itself should change and teach their kids that all that comes from SLC shouldn't be taken as coming from God himself. Perhaps that could relieve some of the burden.

I think most children listen to their parents in their formative years over what is said by leaders in the church.

For instance, I never taught my kids masturbation led to blindness or homosexuality. If they were to hear such things from a Bishop or SP, I would say the leader was just full of crap on that particular item.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Archaea

This is considered the Tex approach.

This is not the Tex approach.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by BYU71

An interesting thread. First off I can't or haven't found any definitive articles linking an unusual amount of suicides to the LDS church specifically. My guess would be that suicide is more prevalent amongst any orthodox religion or belief. I have heard of kids, very bright kids committing suicide because they didn't measure up to their or others expectations when it came to grades for example.

http://www.adherents.com/largecom/ld...icideRate.html

[BYU71]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

http://www.adherents.com/largecom/ld...icideRate.html

Those aren't studies on mormons and suicide. They are articles about "active" vs "non-active" mormons. Dr Hiltons conclusions fit what he wanted to find out. If you are active in the church you are fine and if you are inactive your aren't.

So is the inactivity and subsequent guilt trips part of becoming suicidal??

I am surprised he didn't come to the conclusion that there were no active mormons who ever committed suicide. Isn't suicide against church standards. Committing suicide by it's very act makes you inactive as far as following church guidelines and laws.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by BYU71

Those aren't studies on mormons and suicide. They are articles about "active" vs "non-active" mormons. Dr Hiltons conclusions fit what he wanted to find out. If you are active in the church you are fine and if you are inactive your aren't.

So is the inactivity and subsequent guilt trips part of becoming suicidal??

I am surprised he didn't come to the conclusion that there were no active mormons who ever committed suicide. Isn't suicide against church standards. Committing suicide by it's very act makes you inactive as far as following church guidelines and laws.

I never claimed it was a comprehensive study. But I thought you may be interested given the content of your post. If anyone has links to other studies, I would like to see them.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

http://www.adherents.com/largecom/ld...icideRate.html

I would like to look at this study, because the age-breakdowns look like they were cherry-picked.

Why with the small number of suicides, did they break down the anaysis into four different age groups? What were the differences in suicide rate for the other categories, as well as everyone altogether?

But on the face of it, it's kind of stupid. It's sort of like saying "people with very active busy schedules are 10 times less likely to commit suicide than people who are depressed and stay home in bed."

It would be interesting to determine how they determined activity, I'm sure it talks about it in the study.

[BYU71]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

I never claimed it was a comprehensive study. But I thought you may be interested given the content of your post. If anyone has links to other studies, I would like to see them.

It was interesting, but could be taken to confirm the thought of higher suicide rates among LDS because of strict teachings. That was the only point I was making.