Churches contribute to gay suicides

[wyguy]

Churches contribute to gay suicides - most Americans believe

Two out of three Americans believe gay people commit suicide at least partly because of messages coming out of churches and other places of worship, a survey released Thursday found.

More than four out of 10 Americans say the message coming out of churches about gay people is negative, and about the same number say those messages contribute "a lot" to negative perceptions of gay and lesbian people.

Catholics were the most critical of their own churches' messages on homosexuality, while white evangelical Christians gave their churches the highest grades, the survey found.

The Public Religion Research Institute asked 1,017 Americans their views on religion and homosexuality between October 14 and 17, in the wake of a highly publicized rash of suicides by gay people.

Gay rights campaigner Dan Savage said the idea that churches send out an anti-gay message "totally jibes with my experience and that of millions of other gay and lesbian people."

He cited Joel Burns, a Forth Worth, Texas, city councilman whose emotional tale of being bullied as a young gay man went viral on the internet.

"He remembers being told to go home and commit suicide and that he was going to hell," Savage said, adding that the source of such attitudes "wasn't in algebra."

Leaders of the Christian right "have redefined Christianity so that it is about being anti-gay," he said.

And he cited other poll findings that suggest more Americans than ever before define themselves as having no religion.

"When you dig down, you found people who said they were Christians who didn't want to be identified with being anti-gay," he argued.

But Jim Daly, the head of Focus on the Family, argued in a commentary for CNN that Christian churches are not to blame.

"To violate the dignity of another person, in any form or fashion, is to contradict the very basis of Gospel-centered living. And to suggest that an orthodox understanding of Christianity encourages abuse against homosexuals is a sad misreading of the very tenets of the faith," he said.

"Some self-described Christians do not act in Christ-like ways toward those who are different than they are," he conceded.

"They save their harshest judgments for the sins they don't struggle with themselves. That is not biblical Christianity in practice," he said.

Only five out of 100 people gave churches generally an A for their handling of "the issue of homosexuality" in the Public Religion Research Institute survey, while 28 percent said their own church handled it well.

One in three people said that messages from places of worship contribute "a lot" to higher rates of suicide among gay and lesbian youth.

Another one in three said they contribute "a little." Only one in five said they do not contribute at all. The rest said they did not know.

Americans were equally split on whether homosexual relationships between adults are wrong, with 44 percent saying yes and 46 percent saying no.

Link

[Fez]

I think.......

Oh, I couldn't be bothered...

[MorningGlory]

I think that blaming the church for their perversions isn't going to keep them out of hell. The gay agenda is acceptance of their disgusting lifestyle....and they'll do and say anything to advance that. No matter; God won't be persuaded that theirs is an 'alternative' way of living your life.

[wyguy]

I think that blaming the church for their perversions isn't going to keep them out of hell. The gay agenda is acceptance of their disgusting lifestyle....and they'll do and say anything to advance that. No matter; God won't be persuaded that theirs is an 'alternative' way of living your life.

The homosexual propaganda machine is doing it's work well. Did you see that movie about 8 months back with Sigourney Weaver called "Prayers for Bobby" where she played a Christian mother who drove her gay son to suicide because of her Christianity? It was a propaganda masterpiece - showing how the Christian mother was cruel and did little but spout Bible verses at her homosexual son until he jumps off a bridge. Then, of course, after the kid's death, she changes her mind and accepts homosexuals for who they are. I think I wore down half an inch of my teeth from grinding them during the movie. They even had a "pastor" who tried to convince her to accept her son's homosexuality as normal.

Check it out. I'm sure there are clips of it online as well.

Prayers For Bobby

[BFP]

Speaking as the mother of a gay son...although I don't spew Bible verses at him unless he asks for it... He very well knows my Christian stance on his lifestyle. This does not stop me from loving him, and chatting with him, and laughing with him, but it does really a strong message about what I do and do not want to hear from him...

There have been a couple of suicide attempts...every time stemming from the drugs he took, not from anything we said or did. He went through a time in his life where everything was blamed on us, but now he seems to really understand that he is the author of his own book...NOT us.

As much as we definitely should continue to pray for homosexuals, accepting their sin is NOT the answer to anything. If they would rather accept suicide than Christ, then that is of their own doing, no one elses.

THe church offers them a maessage of repentance and forgiveness....the outside world who does not accept the gay propoganda offers them beatings and tonge lashings...and the church is supposedly to blame? I think not!

[Botz]

I wonder why we are so quick to pick up stones to throw at homo-sexuals, and seem to single this sin/lifestyle out more than any other, when each of us has been saved by the grace and the mercy of G-d from whatever we were into...witchcraft, porn, adultery, promiscuity, thieving, violence and murder, lying, cheating ... ad infinitum.

I think it is evident that some assemblies of Believers DO contribute to some Homo-sexuals despair and suicide by their judgmental attitudes and complete lack of love or understanding, when many of them are hurting so much inside, and constantly wrestle with self-hate and loathing....yes they need Jesus, but they need the Jesus who will reach out to them and save them from ALL their sins, not some facsimile who has nothing but contempt and condemnation and looks at them as if they have just climbed out of the sewer.

[Lily of the Valley]

The Church will be blamed for many things--- I'm sure Satan is enjoying this very much.

As for the gay people committing suicide, I don't know of any church (personally) that teaches that a gay person should kill himself/herself. But the church DOES have the responsibility to teach the faith correctly and homosexuality is a sin, just as pre-martial sex, stealing, and murder are sins. The people who are killing themselves are to blame--- harsh, I know, but as a person who has dealt with depression, I've been down the suicide road and you ALWAYS have a choice. It's truly a shame that these people did not repent of their sins and come to know Jesus in their short lives--- my heart breaks for them, but they didn't have to kill themselves because of the pain they felt from being told that their sexual preference was wrong.

[Isaiah 6:8]

I noticed that this is not a fact. They asked people in a poll if they think the Church did it. There is no evidence if it is from the church or if its from drugs, alcohol or depression, or other outside attacks. This article slants the poll data to mean something else. I was going to bash the poll data with a sledge hammer and started out but I have had to edit my comments as it looks like the poll was unbiased but this article is just another case of interpreting the data as they see fit as per Cnn's propaganda machine.

Case in point, wording of the title.

"Churches contribute to gaysuicides, most Americans believe"

Actual Survey title

Less than 1-in-5 Give America's Places of Worship High Marks on Handling Issue of Homosexuality

Opening salvo, er line from CNN

Two out of three Americans believe gay people commit suicide at least partly because of messages coming out of churches and other places of worship, a survey released Thursday found.

Survey says...

A plurality (43%) of Americans say the messages coming from places of worship are negative, and 4-in-10 Americans believe that these messages contribute “a lot” to negative perceptions of gay and lesbian people. One-third (33%) of the public also believe that messages from religious bodies are contributing “a lot” to higher rates of suicide among gay and lesbian youth, and another third (32%) say these message contribute “a little;” only 21% say they do not contribute at all.

“The survey shows that a significant number of Americans are aware of and concerned about the negative impact of messages about homosexuality from places of worship, particularly with regard to gay and lesbian youth,” said Dr. Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute. “Notably, despite the negative evaluations of places of worship in general, Americans are more likely to give their own places of worship high marks; nearly half Americans give their own place of worship either an “A” (28%) or a “B” (17%) on their handling of this issue.”

It mentions the suicide on one line. This article makes the whole survey about it!

The survey also says

(bold added)

Americans across religious traditions are more likely to say that messages coming from places of worship are generally negative than generally positive. Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated are most likely to say that messages are negative (47% and 65% respectively).

This was not a strictly Christian Church survey! This article, made it about the "Christian Right"

oh and one more thought, this could be a typo but only 1,010 people were polled per the polling website, not the 1,017.

So more propaganda and poll twisting.

[georgedrw81]

I wonder why we are so quick to pick up stones to throw at homo-sexuals, and seem to single this sin/lifestyle out more than any other, when each of us has been saved by the grace and the mercy of G-d from whatever we were into...witchcraft, porn, adultery, promiscuity, thieving, violence and murder, lying, cheating ... ad infinitum.

I think it is evident that some assemblies of Believers DO contribute to some Homo-sexuals despair and suicide by their judgmental attitudes and complete lack of love or understanding, when many of them are hurting so much inside, and constantly wrestle with self-hate and loathing....yes they need Jesus, but they need the Jesus who will reach out to them and save them from ALL their sins, not some facsimile who has nothing but contempt and condemnation and looks at them as if they have just climbed out of the sewer.

Right. God knows each one of us. The decision belongs to Him.

Blessings