What gay people already knew, science has confirmed
The liars of the Religious Right make a good portion of their money selling the myth that, because gay people experience higher rates of depression and suicide than the general population, then being homosexual must cause these things, therefore give us all your money so that you can pray away the gay. Something like that. Emphasis on the “give us all your money,” which extends also to their uneducated parishioners. Gay people tend to respond by saying something akin to, “yes, well, being a member of a minority that religious people spend their livelihoods demonizing, telling people we’re pedophiles, that we’re sick, and indeed, that we’re going to hell, is bound to have an affect on some of us.” To which they usually respond (because they’re malevolent liars), “Gays aren’t ostracized. Matthew Shepard wasn’t killed for drugs and my McNuggets are gay!” (Exact quote from every fundamentalist who ever lived, ever.) To which we reply, “No, your McNuggets are just experimenting, diddling around if you will, and fuck you Elizabeth Vargas for doing that report in such a way that it didn’t explain the complexity of the story and instead gave idiot Religious Right assholes ammunition.” (For the record, no, it wasn’t just about drugs.)
Sheesh.
Anyway, Teh Science has come out with a study that shows that “homonegativity,” not homosexuality, is the cause of the heightened rates of depression. Science Daily reports:
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have published a study showing that the degree of internalized homonegativity (negative attitude towards homosexuality) among homosexual men is what predicts poor mental and sexual health – not the act of being homosexual.
(snip)
…422 Midwestern gay and bisexual men completed surveys assessing their degree of homosexuality, their degree of positive or negative attitudes towards homosexuality, and a range of mental and sexual health variables.
In all cases, internalized homonegativity, not being homosexual, predicted poorer mental health (particularly increased depression) and worse sexual health.
(snip)
“This study is a missing link in our understanding of the relationship between sexuality and health,” he said. “It provides new evidence that negative attitudes towards homosexuality, not homosexuality itself, are associated with both poorer mental and sexual health outcomes seen in sexual minorities. Conversely, positive attitudes towards homosexuality are associated with better mental and sexual health.”
For more than 150 years, scholars and educators have debated whether homosexuality is an objective disorder or whether societal prejudice, not homosexuality, leads to the elevated rates of depression, drug use, and HIV/STD epidemics seen in studies of gay men, Rosser said. This study tested both theories.
“Given the debates in many religious denominations about homosexuality, and in society about homosexuals and civil rights, it’s also timely,” Rosser said. “In particular, the old advice to gay men to fight, deny, or minimize their homosexuality likely only increases depression, greater isolation, and poorer sexual health. In short, viewing homosexuality as a disorder is not only inaccurate, it may be harmful as well.“
So…the Christofascist groups like Focus on the Family and Exodus International (and all their various incestuous twins) do indeed try to convince gay people to “fight, deny, or minimize their homosexuality,” and loving but ignorant parents absorb these ideas and ostracize their gay children and make them feel unloved, and this entire religious/societal structure causes teens who have not yet wrapped their heads around or accepted their sexuality receive these messages too. Let me tell you, it’s a special experience to be told, when you’re in the closet and can’t accept your own sexuality, that that part of you is unacceptable to God. This is scientific vindication of what gay people have been saying forever, that groups like Focus on the Family and Exodus, with their ex-gay roadshow Love Won Out (the one that went to Sarah Palin’s church) actually, across the board, are hurting people. The gay community says, “Duh.”
(h/t Truth Wins Out)
September 24, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Bravo. Excellent post.
I don’t mind the “Focus on the Family” group as long as they focus on THEIR families and leave mine (partner, parents, siblings, cousins, polygamous ancestors, etc) the fuck alone.
Be well.
September 24, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Well, and the problem is that they don’t leave our families alone, because, as you well know, many of OUR community come out of THEIR families, so their families are our families and ours are theirs, etc.
Basically, as with most right-wing organizations, whatever it calls itself is a good indicator of what they serve to hurt in the world.