"A popular narrative about suicides of Utah youth — that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or its culture is driving higher rates — is not supported by data, social scientist Michael A. Goodman explained to a BYU Education Week audience.

    "However, even though statistically religion correlates to less risk of suicide, Goodman told his listeners: 'We have a lot of work to do. Any suicide is too many.'"

https://www.thechurchnews.com/living-faith/2021-09-02/latter-day-saint-youth-suicide-whats-real-how-to-help-224095


    They've got the data!!!!  The article touts that, "...they are collecting information from over 2,000 adolescents and their parents over 10 years." So there ya go!  Their data support the conclusion they started with. <Phew!>

    The article did not mention how many dead teens were interviewed, but I'm sure that in speaking with associated Stake Patriarchs and reviewing the appropriate Patriarchal Blessings, no association was found between the church's stark disapproval of 'The Gay' and the suicides.

    Besides, Jesus would have told them to go easy if He were at all concerned with the situation.

    

Is BYU Education Week some kind of aversion therapy? If that doesn't make me want to kill myself, nothing will.

Don't you know / Haven't you heard?

ChurchCo is NEVER to blame!
Never Ever, not even on odd-numbered days, or even-numbered days!!

The church needs to take the money and run. It’s beyond it’s sell date.

The church's attitude towards gays sure doesn't help, does it? Yes, officially the church tolerates gays, but the reality is far different. How is that poor attitude and lack of acceptance going to contribute to the mental health of a teen who identifies as LBGTQ+?

This reminds me of the absolute versus relative risk factors that Big Pharma uses to promote their drugs. I'm not good at explaining this, but it made me realize that though numbers don't lie inherently, they can be used like ventriloquist dummies by those who do lie inherently.

I have been in the thick of the Mormon war on gays from the electro-shock therapy to the faux semi- acceptance of these latter days.

What I know is that it wasn't the electricity that drove my friends to suicide, it was the shame. It was having your gayess held like a knife to your throat as you were coerced into living a life that was not yours under the threat of having your TBM family told, being kicked out of school, and left alone. All this is possible because you still believed the church was true.

Make no mistake, what Oaks and Holland and Bednar, et al, are still slinging is shame even if there are no wires hooked to your wrists. Their phony expression of "we still love you" is only PR for the rest of the world in hopes to be to seen as the wonderful people they attempt to project themselves to be.

> What I know is that it wasn't the electricity that
> drove my friends to suicide, it was the shame.

Of course it was. It was the dehumanization. I imagine those people had a sense of what it was like to be the subject of Nazi medical experimentation. I cannot imagine how one psychically survives such mistreatment, how one walks across campus the next day across the park the next decade.

It is psychological branding with the mark of rejection by one’s God snd one’s community. I could not bear what those people went through.

While I was in the MTC we were a group of 10, all of us going to the same South American country. We studied hard, we prayed, we did what we were told to do. One of the missionaries and I seemed to really hit it off.

He was from an OLD Church family, and related to a lot of the bigwigs in the Church. His family lived in the Avenues of Salt Lake City, they had money and from the way he talked, were the perfect Mormon family.

He got a ton of letters and packages and cookies and was a good-looking guy who also had won state championships in various sports.

We were friends and we'd study together and laugh and I liked X very much.

He was hiding a secret. I didn't know until 2 1/2 years later when I was at BYU and he showed up at my apartment at midnight on a Friday night, as drunk as could be.

He said that I was the only person who would understand and not judge him and he came out to me. I said, well that's between you and God. He said I can't tell my family, I can't tell the Church, so much is expected of me.

Tonight I tried to commit suicide by driving off the Point of the Mountain (coming back from Salt Lake) but I couldn't do it. So I talked to him and tried to counsel him and in the end he was failing at school and went home.

I bumped into him by chance about 15 years later. He looked terrible. He asked me if I wanted to go for a coffee, so we did. He had coffee, I had a Diet Coke (how wicked of me).

He said that he was dying. He could not bring himself to actually kill himself so he went out and had sex with hundreds of guys. He did not care who they were, he just went for it hoping that he'd get AIDS.

And he did. He was excommunicated but a week before he did die, he was rebaptised because his family requested it, not because he had repented or anything. They didn't want the shame of anything to get out.

At his funeral, nothing was said about his sexual orientation, just that he was a good son. (I didn't attend but I know people who did). He basically killed himself because he couldn't handle it.

Took him 13 years after his mission, but he ultimately killed himself. VERY SAD because he would have made somebody a great husband. He was an awesome guy. If he could have gotten over the guilt trip and found himself maybe another gay Mormon but that's life.

I did forget to mention that on our mission, there was a missionary, I was the Zone Leader and the District Leader kept telling me about this Elder who just goofed off. He was also from a good Church family, well connected in Utah, and he did nothing. He went on a mission because his family told him to and it was expected.
There were rumors that this Elder was gay, and the Mission President knew it and never sent him home. He had slept with Americans and natives (at least 3-4 that we heard about) He just skated his way through his mission. He was even called to be an Assistant (all because of his family name).
He got home, got married, started a business, made a lot of money and a few years ago I was watching GC on TV and there he was, giving a talk. I almost fell off of the couch.
I guess he repented big time? Or is it the fact that his company (I looked him up online) was worth $35M?

about my daughter's wedding. Her gay son is getting married for a third time to a female. He is in his 50s. Like my sister said, "You can't be gay in that family." BUT NOW she has a transgender grandchild. She is being accepting of this, but I think it is because of her own child's acceptance of their child. I can't imagine her husband (who I can't tolerate) dealing with this. Wonder when he is going to kick the bucket. I think he is 90 now. Still very active (in church and otherwise--still skis and hikes).

My "husband" doesn't necessarily get a pass on a lot of things, BUT I've seen his pain and it is for that reason I stuck by him to the point of marrying him as that is what he wanted, and he wanted children. They aren't just damaging the gay children, they are damaging all those impacted by their attitudes towards gays, the mothers, the fathers, the children, the wives and the husbands. The damage they are causing is CRIMINAL.

And when I found out he is gay, they were saying he was damned if he didn't CHANGE to straight. DAMNED. That is exactly the word the bishop told me. Of course they are causing a lot of gays to commit suicide and I would bet it goes even further than that. Because I couldn't figure it out all those years ago, I was suicidal, but that wasn't good enough. I needed to cease to exist because their attitude toward those who commit suicide isn't so great either.

In the past homosexuality was viewed as a sin by most church’s. Sinners were supposed to feel like shit. So if you dob’t want to feel like shit, repent and sin no more. Failure to repent and not sin makes you responsible for your misery. Suicide is just another sin caused by the previous sins.

As far as the church is concerned is love the sinner but they reap what they sow. This was an easy line to tow when most of society thought in similar fashion but things now have changed but the church hasn’t.

The church’s dilemma is it can’t change enough to satisfy the critics without gutting and reinventing the whole church. That’s a lose, lose proposition because they will drive off the core membership and they know the more liberally have no desire for religion anymore.

If they were smart they would cut their future loses and just become a real estate holding company and put the church thing to bed. I figure after they pay the expenses they are probably making a billion dollars a year off of donations. They make many times that in actual investment returns a year.

The church just needs to decide if the bad publicity and being blamed for suicides is worth $1 billion a year in revenue. The active members pay $7 billion a year in tithing. It costs around $6 billion to run the church.

The church has liquid investments over $100 billion. Some figure in a good year, the church brings in around $30 billion. Much of this wo

Be on paper but where do you think the money to build temples comes from? Not the best investment in my opinion but the land is the real value. The building not so much but if the land is valuable enough it doesn’t matter what’s on it.

But who owns it if all their holdings are obtained from tithes?

The church is a corporation. So the corporation owns the assets. Specifically the church is a corporation of sole meaning in it’s charter the oldest surviving apostle owns the shares of the corporation. So in a way, the church is an incorporated trust of the Quorum of the Twelve where the most senior apostle is in charge of the assets.

The so called church members own nothing. The church itself is a division of a corporation. The Corporation of The President of The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the umbrella all else falls under.

Most members have no idea what the church is nor do they understand they have no legal claims to church assets. It’s not your temple or meeting house. Members live belonging to a rich church because they thing they are part of it. Nope. The church takes your money. Go try and walk into the Church Administration Building without an appointment and see how welcome you are.