A Stitch in Haste

Marginal Revolution had a brief post today citing a study on the demographics of suicide. It is of no interest to me whatsoever.

But the post is a good excuse to revisit a different kind of suicide watch -- gay suicide.

The conventional wisdom is that gay teens, especially gay male teens, are far more likely to commit suicide, or at least to attempt or contemplate suicide. Whether gays represent a higher proportion of completed suicides is unsettled.

Exact statistics regarding anything having to do with gays are always hard to come by, as I have noted in previous blogposts. But here's a site with, among other pages, a summary of the academic literature -- which, contrary to the lies of some very vile bigots, is quite extensive.

Those of you who worship the false gods of federalism and the "democratic process," who believe that bigotry and second-class status for some is perfectly permissible so long as it's passed by a two-thirds majority of the legislature or by a referendum of your Great Unwashed neighbors, stop for a moment and fully contemplate the pain you inflict and the potential consequences of your actions.

Consequences like this one:

Dear Family and Friends,

I'm sorry it had to end this way but it was my fate. I couldn't handle life anymore. You see, the reason I ran away before to commit suicide is the same reason I did again. I'm gay. I never wanted to be and I always wished it would change, but it didn't. I wanted to live a normal life but God created me this way for some reason and there was nothing I could do to change it. I was born this way, believe me I would not choose this way of life for I know how hard and unaccepted it is. I'm painfully sorry you all had to deal with this but I couldn't deal with it. This way I could live a peaceful afterlife instead of a life of fear, agony, and manic depressiveness. Please realize I did not want to hurt anyone I just wanted to end my own pain. I love you all dearly and will someday see you all again hopefully with your understanding hearts and souls. I just hope God will bring me to heaven.

Love always and eternally, Bruce

Bruce was 21 years old. He killed himself by jumping from the Grand Canyon's "No Name Point."

Or, rather than suicide, was it murder by bigotry?

How tough is it for teens to be different?

[T]eens who perceived themselves at either weight extreme — very fat or really skinny — were more than twice as likely as normal-weight teens to attempt or think about suicide.

The study was based on a nationally representative 2001 survey involving 13,601 students in ninth through 12th grade.
...
"Suicide ideation was more likely even among students whose perceptions of body size deviated only slightly from 'about the right weight,'" said lead author Danice Eaton, a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Alain Joffe of Johns Hopkins University said widespread media images of perfect bodies might help shape adolescent perceptions of normal.

If just being too fat or too skinny is enough to increase the risk of suicide ideation or attempt, then just imagine the increased suicide risk to gay youths from their externally-imposed poor self-image.

Imagine being in a school system where the educrats and politicians all express a desire to help the fat kids (whether through intelligent programs or warm-fuzzy-feeling junk food bans) and the anorexics too, but where gays were being scorned, ridiculed, or thrown out of their homes, where their clubs are banned or restricted, where they see adult gay role models being legislated against (and sometimes brutally murdered).

And would those "widespread media images" — the same ones that that portray everyone as beautiful, lean and healthy — be the same images that portray an exclusively heterosexual society, where gays, if present at all, are often mere caricatures?

Good data are hard to find, but anecdotal evidence is almost limitless. Gay teen suicidalism rates (at least ideation and attempt, if not success) are far above straight counterparts. It remains a much neglected issue in the gay rights movement and is often completely unspoken within educrat circles.

We may be losing the battles against high school drop-out rates, illiteracy, drug abuse, teen pregnancy and so on, but at least those battles are actually being waged. Gay teen suicidalism, meanwhile, is subject to malignant neglect.

After all, partnership rights are of no use to a gay teen who kills himself before he even graduates from high school.

My previous post on the subject here. Resources for troubled gay teens (and adults too), including help lines, here.

Thomas Friedman:

Why are young Sunni Muslim males, from London to Riyadh and Bali to Baghdad, so willing to blow up themselves and others in the name of their religion? Of course, not all Muslims are suicide bombers; it would be ludicrous to suggest that.

But virtually all suicide bombers, of late, have been Sunni Muslims. There are a lot of angry people in the world. Angry Mexicans. Angry Africans. Angry Norwegians. But the only ones who seem to feel entitled and motivated to kill themselves and totally innocent people, including other Muslims, over their anger are young Sunni radicals. What is going on?

This question suggested an analogy to me — one that is admittedly a stretch and perhaps flat-out wrong. But I'll posit it anyway: The analogy between Europe's unassimilated young Sunni Muslims and America's unassimilated young gays.

Now of course troubled gay kids don't go blowing up innocent third parties. But they do occasionally commit suicide. And they are far more likely to ideate about suicide. They engage in destructive behavior, but mostly to themselves. They drink, use drugs, have unprotected sex. They often turn their backs on "traditional" American society, formalizing and finalizing an exclusion that often already existed informally within their family and community.

And often the family and community responds much the same way as Friedman does: by asking why. How can young people on the cusp of having all the benefits of modern Western life be so immune to assimilation — to just be "normal"?

Friedman has some suggestions in the context of young Sunni terrorists:

One is that Europe is not a melting pot and has never adequately integrated its Muslim minorities, who, as The Financial Times put it, often find themselves "cut off from their country, language and culture of origin" without being assimilated into Europe...

Meanwhile, here in America a large segment of the population rejects the "melting pot" concept and tries to deny it to gays with discriminatory laws and histrionic gay-baiting rhetoric. In Europe the militant Sunnis choose not to assimilate; in America many seek not to permit gays to assimilate.

Also at work is Sunni Islam's struggle with modernity. Islam has a long tradition of tolerating other religions, but only on the basis of the supremacy of Islam, not equality with Islam.

Again, there is a sort of inverse correlation with contemporary American fundamentalism, where religious fundamentalists essentially tell gays something like: "In America you are free to be whomever you want, so long as you understand that this is a Christian nation. We may 'tolerate' you, but always remember exactly who's tolerating whom here."

Part of what seems to be going on with these young Muslim males is that they are, on the one hand, tempted by Western society, and ashamed of being tempted.

Another striking similarity to young gays. They want to be ordinary Americans, yet they also want, as gays, to be themselves. And they see a quite vocal group of people who insist the two are mutually incompatible. How can one not expect youths confronted with such a dilemma not to become deeply troubled and in some cases act out on those inner conflicts?

Finally,

This is not about the poverty of money. This is about the poverty of dignity and the rage it can trigger.

If there's one thing that American gays can relate to, it's the "poverty of dignity" we face in America today.

Again, you're not very likely to see a gay with sticks of dynamite strapped to his chest. But the next time you see a gay person behaving in ways you cannot comprehend — bizarre ways or self-destructive ways or isolationist ways, ask yourself: Was it being gay that made him that way, or was it being gay in America that made him so?

Two three brief news stories caught my eye:

ITEM: The next battle in the nanny-state wars? The War on Teen Suicide --

A growing number of U.S. schools are screening teenagers for suicidal tendencies or signs of mental illness, triggering a debate between those who seek to reduce the toll of youthful suicides and others who say the tests are unreliable and intrude on family privacy.

The trend is being aggressively promoted by those who say screening can reduce the tragedy of the more than 1,700 suicides committed by children and adolescents each year in the United States.

MY TAKE: Not once do the words "gay" or "homosexual" appear in the article. Which is both sad and maddening, since at least some of those 1,700 suicides were by young gays conflicted over their sexuality and tormented by a society that far too often insists that there is something wrong with them. Some studies suggest that gay teens are ten times more likely to ideate about suicide than straight youths and that as many as half of all male teen suicide attempts are by gays. Where is the outrage by concerned parents, teachers, bureaucrats and politicians over that aspect of this crisis? The article singles out "Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), whose son Garrett died in 2003." Senator Smith voted in favor of the Marriage Protection Amendment last week. With all due condolences to the Senator, concern over teen suicide and voting for anti-gay bigotry are incompatible positions. My previous posts on gay teen suicide here.

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ITEM: Throw the baby out with the...

A man who knew his wife wanted to die stepped aside as she crashed their minivan down a 300-foot cliff with their children in the back seat, authorities said Friday.
...
The criminal complaint prepared by New York State Park Police states Victor Han "did intentionally drive Hejin Han to Perkins Memorial Drive while she was in a suicidal state of mind, park her vehicle near a steep cliff embankment, get out of the vehicle and walk away from the vehicle with the belief that Hejin Han wished to go to Bear Mountain to commit suicide."

MY TAKE: It is always dubious to argue from anecdotes, but when the opposition posits irrational absolutes such as "children are always better off with a mother and a father," then anecdotal counterexamples are permissible. How can people like Maggie Gallagher honestly insist that sexual orientation is, summarily, a more important criterion for parenthood than basic psychological and emotional stability? The two are not correlated: Gays can be good parents; straights can be lethal parents. Anyone who truly insists that "it's all about the children" should follow through and acknowledge that it must also therefore be "all about the parents."

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LATE ADDITION: A bigot fraudulently insists that gay teen suicide is because of the "gay" part, not the "bigotry" part --

Going far beyond the research results, Focus on the Family claims a recent study presented at a Canadian public health conference links "pro-gay advocates" to increased rates of lesbian teen suicide attempts, a claim that has baffled the scientist who conducted the study.

"Nothing in the brief results we presented or in our overall study could lead to such conclusions," said Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc, an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, and research director of the McCreary Centre Society.

Gay teen is troubled by her sexual orientation.

Gay rights advocate insists "it's okay to be gay."

Anti-gay bigot insists "it's not okay to be gay."

Troubled gay teen commits suicide.

Who do you think is more responsible?

When they say "it's all the children," they lie.

More thoughts at Ex-Gay Watch, PHB.

"Weighing many of the traditional risk factors -- mood disorders, alcohol abuse, recent loss of a loved one, and family history of suicidal behavior -- may not be enough."
--Health Day News (via LiveScience)

It's especially "not enough" when one significant "traditional risk factor" for teen suicide -- the third leading cause of death among teens -- is mentioned nowhere in the piece, namely being gay, especially in an anti-gay home or environment.

Granted, the focus of the piece is on the efficacy and risk of anti-depressants for teens and not the "nature-nurture" debate regarding the causes of teen suicide or teen suicide ideation. Nevertheless, if a kid is contemplating suicide because his parents just told him that he's a "pervert," or a "sinner" or "just confused," then pumping him full of Prozac is unlikely to help. The issues are inseparable.

Harvest the low-hanging fruit first: The medical community -- from the APA to the pharmaceutical companies -- need to confront, not only in doctor's offices and ERs but also in the media, schools and even churches, the literally lethal impact anti-gay bigotry has on gay youth. Worry about which pill to prescribe later.