It’s not every day the LDS.org home page proudly displays a photograph of a Mormon apostle shaking hands with the leader of a local LGBT advocacy group, but there it is: Elder Rasband and Troy Williams, executive director of Equality Utah. Three years ago similar photos made newspapers with the passage of a landmark 2015 LGBT anti-discrimination bill, sometimes dubbed the “Utah Compromise.” This time, Equality Utah and the LDS church are two of many organizations coming together at the request of Utah’s governor in a state-wide effort to combat Utah’s teen suicide epidemic. Governor Herbert’s announcement of the new task force Wednesday was widely reported in local news media as well as at the Mormon Newsroom. For those wondering why the church would lend apostolic weight to a local political task force, it’s important to consider some broader context.
Utah’s Suicide Epidemic
In the last decade, Utah’s youth suicide rate has risen dramatically. The Utah Department of Health “observed a 141.3% increase in suicides among Utah youth aged 10-17 from 2011 to 2015, compared to an increase of 23.5% nationally.” Although the real numbers may not seem as impressive to many people, last year 44 youth ages 10-17 completed suicide, a 2015 yearly Utah statewide survey of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders revealed “approximately 19% considered or planned suicide in the past year and 8.6% reported a suicide attempt.” In a state where the LDS Church counts over 60% of residents as members (not adjusted for activity rates), these trends are inevitably reflected in its wards and stakes.
Early in 2017, the state of Utah requested help from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to investigate and recommend more effective courses of action. The CDC’s findings were announced on November 30, 2017 (full report here, summary here, some commentary here and here). One of the CDC’s recommendations appears to have directly led to Governor Herbert’s creation of the wide-reaching community task force:
A comprehensive effort to address suicide across the state can also benefit from taking a collaborative approach, involving partners from across multiple agencies and sectors, including but not limited to, the health department, education, universities, other research institutions, hospital systems, healthcare providers, social services, justice, business/labor and not-for profit groups. Public health agencies can facilitate this effort by mobilizing their colleagues from other sectors in addressing youth suicide. As observed, the risk and protective factors span across individual, interpersonal, and community risk and protective factors, therefore, a collaborative approach will ensure that prevention programs touch on all the necessary sectors and/levels.
The 14-member committee is headed by politicians, but includes representatives from educational institutions, healthcare organizations, suicide prevention groups, local media, LGBT advocacy groups, and business owners in addition to Elder Rasband as a representative of faith-based organizations. The task force has been given approximately four weeks to come up with recommendations for lawmakers, which can then be debated and possibly implemented during this current legislative session (ending in March).
LGBT Issues
As evidenced by the photo of Elder Rasband and Troy Williams on LDS.org, inexorably linked with the LDS Church and suicide are LGBT issues. There are at least two different Wikipedia entries devoted to the intersection of those subjects (see here and here). Anecdotal accounts of Mormon culture and doctrine feeding into depression and suicidal ideation among LGBT youth are common (I have stories from my own extended family). Even at a BYU Devotional just a couple months ago, Elder Ballard discussed suicide in his response to a question on the church’s stance on LGBT rights.
In the months following the 2015 exclusion policy (declaring LDS gay married couples apostates and prohibiting baby blessings and baptisms for children of gay couples), the Mama Dragons, a Mormon LGBT advocacy group, announced they’d observed an uptick in Mormon LGBT youth suicides. A couple weeks later, Elder Oaks was publicly confronted on the issue the church’s accountability in LGBT Mormon suicides. While Oaks confirmed that such deaths are always tragic, he believed his responsibility was to ensure that, whatever the policy disagreements, rules should be “administered with kindness” so that “they won’t drive people to take those extreme measures.”
And that seems to be the current course. Even as the vigorous debate continues whether an increase in teen suicides in Utah is or is not linked to the LDS Church’s teachings and practices related to LGBT issues, there is at least a consensus that churchmembers are bound by covenant to love and respect members of the community, regardless of sexual orientation. The church’s official statement supporting last August’s LoveLoud festival confirmed,
We applaud the LoveLoud Festival for LGBT youth’s aim to bring people together to address teen safety and to express respect and love for all of God’s children. We join our voice with all who come together to foster a community of inclusion in which no one is mistreated because of who they are or what they believe.
We share common beliefs, among them the pricelessness of our youth and the value of families. We earnestly hope this festival and other related efforts can build respectful communication, better understanding and civility as we all learn from each other.
Doubling-Down on Suicide Prevention
In a separate article on Wednesday, The Deseret News reported that the church’s official suicide prevention website has been updated with new resources for both members and local leaders. Many members missed the creation of that website in September 2016, overshadowed by the first anniversary of the controversial 2015 exclusion policy.
In the last two years, church magazines have run special articles bringing attention to the issues of suicide and mental health, usually in September to coincide with National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month and World Suicide Prevention Day. (Ensign articles here, here, here, here, and here; New Era articles here, here, and here; Friend articles here and here.)
Previous to the creation of that website, church efforts towards understanding suicide were more sporadic. Three notable efforts were Elder Ballard’s landmark October 1987 Ensign article, “Suicide: Some Things We Know and Some Things We Do Not,” Elder Holland’s heart-rending 2013 conference address, “Like a Broken Vessel,” and the powerful October 2014 suicide prevention video, “Sitting on the Bench.” (Personal note: I still remember when it finally sunk in that Elder Holland was talking about depression at general conference as a real medical disorder, and not just something to be solved with prayer and scripture study. As someone who has a mental illness, that was a big deal.)
***From the Utah Department of Health Website: Those experiencing suicidal thoughts can reach out for free, confidential help 24/7 by calling the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or visiting suicidepreventionlifeline.org. The SafeUT Crisis Text & Tip Line app is also available for download. Suicide prevention resources for LGBTQ youth are available at https://www.thetrevorproject.org.***
Wheat & Tares 
Too little, too late.
I’m grateful for the initiative. Like JewelFox, I wish it had come sooner, but better now than never. We had a suicide in our family last summer. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
I hear ya on that frustration. We had a YSA suicide in our neighborhood last month. Anony, I’m sorry for your family’s loss.
I hope Elder Rasband brings stories back to the Q15. Lots and lots of stories. They need their hearts broken. Otherwise, they’ll never ask the critical question: “Lord, is it I?”
I think they might be starting to consider this question, as evidenced by Elder Ballard’s recent remark about having accidentally demonized porn users. But my own experience, the recent stories of others, and the Q15’s still-defensive rhetoric tells me they need to ask the question regarding many things, but haven’t yet.
I think Elder Holland’s talk on depression was a moving example of vulnerability that I wish was more common. He deserves serious kudos for that talk.
I hope the task force achieves some success, but I think our community really needs to open up and spend time healing each other. To do so requires vulnerability, and vulnerability requires a safe space where people don’t try and fix but rather just listen. We’re not good at creating safe spaces because we have sin rankings, checklist mentality, and focus on worthiness.
We can participate in all the task forces we want but until the toxic environment we have created is changed ,until we no longer engage in open warfare on guys , until we no longer punish children by denying them saving ordinances not because of their own sins but because of the sins of their parents will this plague be abated . I speak as a Young Men’s president who had one of his young men who committed suicide a year ago.. How can we claim to be disciples of Christ and treat children this way .
I offer nothing original, but this bears repeating. Our theology does not allow for exaltation of homosexuals. We now have two men in our first presidency who are sealed to two women and who definitely believe that those women are theirs in the eternities and that those relations are essential for eternal progression. I would like to hear if they think they will be creating spirit babies with these women. Unless a revelation is received that further explains the spirit baby making progress, homosexuals have no place in Mormon exaltation. It would undermine the whole theology if homosexuals were allowed to be sealed. Honestly, what can Elder Rasband do or say? I remember Hans Mattson hypothesizing that the second and third level of the CK could be designated for gays, is that a real solution? I guess we could teach that God will fix them and make them straight if they endure. That seems to be the way it is going and that is not resonating. ( I personally do not believe in polygamy in heaven or spirit babies so I would welcome a revelation clarifying the whole mess, I just think it is about 50 years away before the church distances itself from it. President Nielsen nor President Oaks could or would do it because they are both involved. I am not trying to put them down by pointing out they are polygamists. Of course I could be wrong and Heavenly Father could have lots of wives making spirit babies, in that case gays really are out of luck.)
Our stake president had a little question and answer session in Priesthood leadership meeting a few months ago. The questions had to be written down so he could prepare for them. The idea that he had the answers was a little funny to me, but I guess it is cool that he was willing to try to answer some questions. One of the questions that he answered was if there was hope for exaltation for people who commit suicide. He got teary eyed, read out of the handbook, said that only God could judge, then bore testimony that suicide victims would have access to the atonement and have a pathway to exaltation. I questioned my bishop sitting next to me who was nodding his head in agreement if he thought we could maybe extend that same hope to all people and he said of course. I said “Good, I extend that hope to homosexuals” and he scrunched his face and let out an audible grunt in disgust. So our handbook specifically mentions that suicide victims might have an out and it is not our place to judge, but does not offer that hope to gays. Add to this the rhetoric of “rather see you in a pine box than have you lose your virtue” and the message seems pretty loud and clear to me.
I would like to know the correlation between a negative bishop’s or parent’s reaction to finding out their child is gay, and suicide rates. If it could be shown that kids of parents and bishops who don’t yell, scream, threaten, blame, shame, etc.. are less apt to commit suicide, then maybe we could have a starting point to trying to train parents and bishops.
Zach,
The CHI section1.3.3 says:
Faithful members whose circumstances do not allow them to receive the blessings of eternal marriage and parenthood in this life will receive all promised blessings in the eternities, provided they keep the covenants they have made with God.
I have no doubt that the new first presidency would say something similar in answer to your concern raised above. Polygamy has very little to do with this.
El Oso- I think you missed the point of my post. In 1830 Joseph Smith’s theology and the theology contained in the BOM only has a heaven and a hell. In 1832 the revelation in section 76 stratified heaven and had some theological ramifications. One of the interesting ones had to do with children who died before they turned 8. You couldn’t just say they are going to heaven because now heaven had different levels so parents wanted to know WHICH heaven they were going to. Check this out https://bycommonconsent.com/2006/10/24/children-who-pass-away/ Sometime around 1842 Joseph further stratified the CK and a requirement to reach the highest level – exaltation – required the sealing of men and women. It is unfortunate that Joseph could not expound more on the purpose of sealing and it’s role in heaven. Once BY got ahold of the reigns he taught emphatically that the purpose of men and women in heaven was to populate worlds by creating spirit babies through celestial sex. He got a little crazy with it and thus we have the lecture at the veil and the Adam – God theory that the church has since distanced itself from. You had at that time Orson Pratt, the mathematician, figuring out how many women and how long it would take to populate a world. JFS preached often about the meaning of exaltation was synonymous with eternal increase meaning the ability to reproduce and lds.org is full of the statement that we are “begotten sons and daughters” of God and heavenly mother.
He went a step further and suggested that those who did not make it to the CK would be stripped of their genitals and made into a unisex ken barbie looking thing, a third gender if you will.
The point of my post had nothing to do with polygamy other than to point out the mindset behind BY’s justification of polygamy. A justification Joseph Smith never used that I am aware of. (Somebody correct me if I am wrong). Monogamy in heaven still has the same problem as it relates to exclusion of homosexuals. There is no way to include practicing homosexuals in our definition exaltation.
So the question remains if parents of homosexuals and homosexuals themselves are ok coming to a church where we teach them they can get to heaven, just not the highest level of heaven? I do not think they will be ok with that. We still have a heaven and hell mindset we just say top level of the CK is heaven and everything below that is hell. We just moved the line.
Truth is defined as things as they are and things as they will be. The majority of Mormons believe that heaven is eternal progress and eternal increase. If we get to heaven and find out that It takes a Male God and Female God to make a spirit baby, then that is truth. If we get to heaven and sex is not part of the equation, then we are making restrictions and putting words in God’s mouth that have terrible consequences for no reason at all.
This issue is not going away and those that have loved ones that are gay and those that are gay themselves find little solace in a church that tells them they are deeply flawed and not capable of reaching exaltation without changing a very distinct part of them. On the other hand, can you imagine the reaction from church members if the church disavowed past theories of eternal increase and our begotteness and allowed homosexuals to marry in the temple? The church would lose a majority of its members. I do not think they are purposefully misleading us, I think they believe wholeheartedly that BY knew what he was talking about and that BRM and JFS did too. So how darkly were they seeing through the glass when teaching this? Interesting times we are living in.
LGBTI persons are not a new thing to God. He created all persons with all sorts of predispositions – whether is be sexual, gender or otherwise. I just cannot understand why the church does not have a better response. The church with its expansive theology and principles of revelation should be at the forefront of supporting and caring for marginalised and vulnerable people in the church and in our communities irrespective of theological tensions. The best they can come up with is a ridiculous policy of exclusion and teachings that suggest people are rejected by God and church for something that is beyond their capacity or capability to change. It is obvious, at least to me, that this would be seen by some vulnerable people as oppressive and would be a contributing factor to thoughts of suicide. The higher law here is recognising that we are all children of God and that care, love and kind judgements are a good start.
I don’t see how Elder Rasband could feel comfortable being a part of a taskforce that deals with youth suicide – particularly with LGBTI persons – when the church that he represents has its current policies in place.
Although it is good that there is church representation on such an endeavour, I hope that the church is willing to change and adjust its approach as a result of conclusions from the taskforce and general introspection….
Dave – Oz, “Although it is good that there is church representation on such an endeavour,…” There HAD to be church representation on the task force. LGBT youth suicides in Utah are widely seen as the fault of the church. Therefore, any effort to combat youth suicides in general (and LGBT suicides specifically) is getting into sensitive political territory. With the church putting a public seal of approval on any recommended measures (by Elder Rasband’s presence), it clears a major hurdle going into a legislature with predominantly LDS politicians (who have to pass temple recommend interviews with their local leaders).
Mary Ann – That’s interesting….being outside of the US and Utah I dont often see the closer political connections….
As someone 100% opposed to “the policy” I want to point out that Utah Dept of Health lists 4% of the suicides as LGBT.
Jpv, I’m interested where you got that number. Is that for 2017? When the CDC did their analysis of suicides over 2011-2015, they could only identify sexual orientation in 40 cases. “Of the 40 cases that had information on the decedent’s sexual orientation, six (15.0%) were identified as sexual minorities.” The only way you could get 4% out of that is if you broadened it out and said those 6 were the only LGBT kids in all 150 suicides they studied, but that would be seriously misrepresenting the data.
A good overview of the more or less current LDS position is a Deseret News story from January 2016, “LDS Church leaders mourn reported deaths in LGBT community.” The article includes a statement by the Church, released to the media through an LDS spokesperson, as follows (as quoted in the DN article):
“Every soul is precious to God and to the church and the loss of life to suicide is heartbreaking. Those who are attracted to others of the same sex face particular challenges and pressures in this regard, both inside and outside the church. We mourn with their families and friends when they feel life no longer offers hope. Each congregation should welcome everyone. Leaders and members are taught to follow the example of Jesus Christ and to reach out in an active, caring way to all, especially to youth who feel estranged or isolated. The church has repeatedly stated that those who feel same-sex attraction and yet choose to live the commandments of God can live fulfilling lives as worthy members of the church. We want all to enjoy the blessings and safety offered by embracing the teachings of Jesus Christ and living the principles of His gospel.”
And just as an aside, why can’t these supposedly official LDS statements be posted and archived at LDS.org or at the Newsroom so we, the members of the Church, can verify they are actual statements issued by the Church? Why do we have to rely on the mainstream media to convey what the Church says on these topics, without any context to the statement and generally without any explanation in the article of whether they are quoting the entire statement or just a portion of it? There is a “News Releases” tab at the Newsroom, but it does not post the text of any press releases, it mostly just highlights LDS leaders doing this or that talk or visit.
Thoughts on an interesting discussion with an evangelical last night.
Conservative- someone who has absolute certainty about a key concept, such as the existence of God or Jesus saved me. So nothing they will discover in the future can possibly change their mind about these key concepts.
Progressive- a person who, looking at all the recent increases in our understanding, does not have certainty because a new discovery or insight might directly or indirectly domino into changing their fundamental understanding about any concept. In fact, this has already happened and is happening for them.
Applied to the LGTB question: The orthodox LDS position is conservative. They have certainty and they are not going to change it. Nothing new told to them will change their view. Homosexuals can and should repent and change. The majority of those on the other side advocating for acceptance of homosexuality are also equally certain. Homosexuals are inherently this way and were created by God and have no moral culpability about their natural internal desires. Essentially they are also not progressive except insisting upon others to change and on many an occasion passing severe moral judgment upon those who wont. This certainty goes both ways.
We have much experience with this problem dating deep into history. We have many gay people who have tried to change and have not. We experienced long periods of time where homosexuals were tortured and executed or driven completely under ground. We have many more gay people now who don’t see any need to change and insist on living their lifestyle openly and they don’t seem to have any more problems than heterosexual people. We have large sexually isolated prison populations where people temporarily change and change back. We have hundreds of people in the evangelical world who claim to have once been exclusively homosexuals and then have changed. Probably some on the LDS reservation but I haven’t met them.
In history we have accounts of different approaches, in ancient China and in the Greek/ Roman empire for just two examples. And we have the complexity of bisexuality confusing the picture where some people appear to be hard wired one way or another and some people seem to not be hard wired. This creates the potential, (to the degree it is not hard-wired) for gay and straight people to influence the development of other people either way and the moral implications of that. All of this is confused and layered with much emotionalism by politicians and a media that is anything but truthful and is very expert at making mountains out of mole hills. And this conflict is tearing the fabric of society apart to the point kids are killing themselves over it. Even the peace-loving non-violent Mennonites are fighting over this issue.
Is it possible for both sides to admit that they might not have absolute certainty at this point and to look for ways to increase and share understanding on an individual level? Probably not- was the conclusion of the discussion last night. We will fight until one side wins and plummets the other into submission. The tide turned in the US during the Obama administration. Recall he was against gay marriage (although privately understanding) when he ran in 2008 and ended his term firmly on the other side and he was not alone. Hence, I think Elder R. can be expected to bend over and endure a good ass-whooping, allegorically at least from his conservative perspective.
It is a curious innumerate irrationality that tries to tie the suicide rate of a general population to a small segment of the population. What portion of suicides among Utah teens do activists imagine are completed by homosexuals? It’s almost disrespectful to the wide range of teenage pathos. The suicide rate among Utah youth has risen drastically from an already high level. Understanding why that has happened will not come from examining a small subset of the population unless suicide among that subset is an order of magnitude more common than for the general population. If 4% of youth are homosexual, then for half of the suicides to be homosexual, then homosexual youth would have to kill themselves 24 times more frequently than heterosexuals. Offhand, I would guess the rise in Utah youth suicides has more to do with drugs, perhaps the famed opioid crisis, or complications with antidepressant medication.
John Mansfield: It would seem that is the purpose of the task force. I don’t see why your guesses are any better than the guesses you attribute to others.
I applaud the appointment of Rasband to this role.
I had an interesting conversation with another woman from church about this just last week. She shared that she has a niece who is gay, and that she treats her and her partner with love, but also makes it clear how “we” feel about things like gay marriage. I am not part of that “we,” which I hastened to point out. The common ground we quickly found is that encouraging gay people to marry straight people is a terrible strategy (and the only one left when you bar gay couples from legitimacy and governmental protections as couples), often resulting in broken hearts and ruined lives. So while we don’t have a satisfactory answer for what to do with these gay children being born into Mormon families, we have to figure out something better than the terrible PoX, and soon. This issue isn’t going away. Being on the wrong side of science is untenable.
“Being on the wrong side of science is untenable.”
I wish people wouldn’t use the whole “wrong side” argument. Science doesn’t have a “wrong side” any more than history does. Science has no opinion on the eternal status of lgbt people. Science doesn’t even have an opinion on the strength of it’s own authority. People were on the “wrong side of science” when they didn’t believe in racism and eugenics.
Sorry. It’s frustrating when we don’t have any good answers for such important, eternal things. I’m glad they’re trying with this task force, but the cynical side of me (which appears to be out in force this morning) thinks they’ll not be able to come to any good conclusions but only recommending more love and psychological support for people who are depressed. It’s like investigating the causes of school shootings; people can’t agree on the causes and the big solution people want would require digging out a centuries old taproot, but we have to try (or at least be seen to be trying) to do something.
More resources are needed. Certainly more love toward those who are closest to us when we find that our understanding of them is jarringly different than we thought it was. The only thing more jarring would be to find out your father didn’t actually sire you but was a visitor from a planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.
Yeah, weird mood this morning.
Angela C., my guesses are better because:
1. I label them as guesses and I’m not particularly committed to them.
2. My guesses involve wider swathes of the population which are already identified as unhealthy.
3. I’ve spent time with the WISQARS database, various CDC reports, and a couple biostat journal articles.
4. I’m not trying to hijack the deaths of hundreds of heterosexual youth to serve a cause they had no connection with.
5. I can do math.
The Utah suicide counts in the 15- to 19-year-old bracket for the years 1999 through 2014 were 27, 27, 26, 27, 28, 27, 18, 22, 23, 25, 26, 26, 24, 37, 36, and 55; a total of 428 over those 16 years. How many of those 428 are thought to have been homosexuals? It is hard to understand the model that people are using when they look at a statistic involving an entire population and try to tease out matters involving a small subset of that population, but it is one that is being gestured at repeatedly. Why was there a large increase in youth suicide in Utah in 2012? Whatever it was wouldn’t be something stressing only a few percent of youth, unless the response to that stress multiplied suicides among that subgroup by a couple orders of magnitude.
Okay, let’s get some numbers straight. In the CDC report, with 150 kids (over 2011-2015) who committed suicide, only 40 could have sexual orientation identified. 6 of those were sexual minorities. So, yes, only 4% of that group was identified as LGBT, but recognize that only 23% were identified as heterosexual. That leaves 73% unknown on the sexual orientation. We DON’T HAVE ENOUGH INFO on these kids to state definitively whether or not LGBT stuff played a role, but at the very least we know it *could’ve* played a role with those 6 kids.
The CDC recognized there were many factors at play, which is why it recommended a widespread approach. One interesting thing they found was that 12.6% of the kids had experienced technology restrictions prior to death. Regardless, you don’t get 1 out of 5 kids thinking about suicide (according to the statewide survey) without having problems across multiple groups.
Yes, Mary Ann, that particular stat does little to constrain the homo/hetero suicide split. How much more frequent do you think suicide among homosexual youth is compared with heterosexual youth? Twenty times more frequent before 2015, and fifty times after 2015?
John, in a widespread study across the nation, the CDC says “Nearly one-third (29%) of LGB youth had attempted suicide at least once in the prior year compared to 6% of heterosexual youth.” The important thing to look at would be LGBT kids in Utah, but we don’t have that data that I’m aware of. https://www.cdc.gov/lgbthealth/youth.htm
The study referred to is a good starting point, “Sexual Identity, Sex of Sexual Contacts, and Health-Related Behaviors Among Students in Grades 9–12 — United States and Selected Sites, 2015.” That report has no data regarding suicide. It only deals with self-reported thoughts, plans and atttempts. Suicide attempt is an unhealthy behavior in its own right, but the connection between suicide attempts and actual deaths is weak.The suicide rate for 15- to 19-year-olds in 2015 was 9.76 per 100,000 in the WISQARS database, but the report CDC sexual identity report says 8.6% of youth attempted suicide during the 12 months before the survey. That’s 880 youth who attempted suicide for every one that died. Suicide attempts are a common phenomenon; suicides are rare and not even usefully predicted by attempts.
The CDC report has 29.4% of homosexual youth attempting suicide compared to 6.4% of heterosexual youth, as you wrote. Does that 5:1 ratio also extend to completed suicides? Maybe, maybe not. The same tables indicate that the percentage of girls who attempted is almost twice the percentage for boys, yet boys who killed themselves outnumbered girls 3 to 1.
Supposing that the suicide rate among homosexual youth is five times the heterosexual rate, in line with the reported ratio for attempts, and supposing that homosexual youth are 3% of all youth, they would still be only 13% of all suicides among their age group. No one could look at statewide suicide counts and discern anything from them about homosexuals. Or suppose the ratio was 10 time instead of five times and that the homosexuals are 5% of all youth. In that case, they would account of 34% of all suicides. In that case, which seems to me at the limits of possibility, changes of the suicide among homosexual youth but not heterosexual youth would leave some mark in the overall statistics for the state, but it would only be a fraction of whatever was going on to more than double the incidence of suicide.
You are not going to get the data in Utah. See, a big bunch of us moved away from Utah. How are you going to measure the suicide rate of the kids in the “mission field” who might be the only Mormon in their high school? Do you think they don’t listen to the prophets? Do you think they are more isolated or less isolated socially compared to their Utah cousins? And a big bunch of us or our parents went inactive in Utah. Practicing orthodox Mormons in Utah only make up something like 25% of the population. Too late for the latter day use of Utah as a surrogate Mormon statistical marker. So, I will see your 73% of the 150 with unknown hetero/homo sexual orientation, and I will raise you, 75% of the Utah population are not “true” Mormons. And I will blame the gentiles in Utah for the high suicide rate and everything else wrong with the place including the lack of snow this year..
Campfire story warning: Now, I got curious about that series of 16 numbers John Mansfield trotted out. I have not taken any math class since Coach Sweathog pretended to teach us Calculus in 1875 and the only thing we learned was he didn’t know what he was doing on or off the field. For you youngins 1975 was before hand-held calculators hit rural Utah, although not that long in perspective after Newton. I typed Mansfield’s series into an excel file. I summed them up and the total is 454 not 428. Oops; although there are 16 of them so we got half of that correct, close enough for Georgia public schools.
Then I looked up the population of Utah in 2001 and in 2017 and extrapolated the population increase in direct proportion for each year.(If I used data specific for each year the variance would be even higher and the the result would be even less significant.) Then I simply divided the Manfield number of annual teen suicides by the total population of that year to get a crude teen suicide rate, not age adjusted or other wise adjusted. They range from 7 to 18+ per million population.
Finally, since I never took any class on statistics and the only statistical test I know how to do on excel or anywhere else is the chi test. I set the expected suicide rate to be the average for these 16 years for every year and compared that to my crude rate. The p value was 0.8392. Not 0.08392.Not less than 0.05 for statistical significance or 0.005 for what my physicist son claims should be the p value for biological and psychological studies in order to rein in and to cut out some of the junk science dominating those fields. I interpret that 55 at the end of the Mansfield series to be not statistically significant, at least an 80% chance of being due to random variation.
If I just do a chi test on the Mansfield series and set the expected at 28.375 for each year which is the average, the p value is 0.000952 which is better than 0.05 the usual standard, or 0.005, the suggested standard by one cranky young physicist I happen to know. If I do the same thing for only the first 15 years, with the expected to be 26.6 which is the average without the 55, the p value is 0.611 which means those years are not statistically significant and not far off from my 0.8392..If I add the last year into the calculation and keep the expected as the average for only the first 15 years at 26.6, the p value is 0.000127, even better. Would that be Baynesian? I wouldn’t know.
This is a great example of how you can lie with statistics. Except I don’t know who is lying and I didn’t intentionally lie. Don’t blame me if I am wrong, blame Coach Sweathog. He lied about a lot of things. At least they never made him an apostle, he only made it to stake president.
***
The important thing I see in the discussion is that people are at least open to considering more information as being useful in the discussion and not digging too deeply into one position or another.
It will be educational for Elder R. Zach above says there is no way gays can be exalted. I don’t understand why if gay marriage is treated the same as straight marriage, they won’t be exalted just the same. The definition of chastity in the endowment just says no sex except with the person you are legally and lawfully married to.
If the perceived problem is the production of spirit children, my wife tells me it better be different than it is on earth because she doesn’t want to be eternally pregnant,so?
https://www.out.com/interviews/2018/1/21/mormon-superstar-dan-reynolds-new-film-shows-why-church-must-embrace-its-lgbt-members Dan Reynolds says he speaks to Apostles, so it
looks like the pressure for the Prophet to actually ask God what he wants is building. I hope so.