A few years ago when we were living in Virginia, a gay student attending a high school less than a mile from our home committed suicide because of bullying. Later on a former classmate of one of my kids also committed suicide; rumors suggested it was for the same reason. From where I sit, there sure appears to be an epidemic of LGBT suicide. What’s the reality?

A report just released by the Centers for Disease Control provides more accurate information regarding lesbian, gay, and bisexual students. (Transgendered students were not included in the study.)

Bullying, Depression, Suicide: The Latest Numbers

LGB students report being bullied on school property at a rate about 1.8 times that of straight students. Similarly, they indicate being electronically bullied at about twice the rate of straight students. They report feeling “sad or helpless” at a rate about 2.3 times that of straight youth, and indicate missing school due recently due to safety concerns at a rate about 2.5 times that of straight youth. They are almost 3 times as likely to have had thoughts of suicide, more than 3 times as likely to have thought about it far enough to make a plan for it, and about 4.5 times as likely to have attempted suicide. (Dustin Siggins has written a helpful summary of the CDC’s numbers for The Stream.)

Bullied for Being LGB, or For Being Different?

While the numbers indicate LGB students have a bullying problem, they do little to demonstrate that it’s specifically an LGB problem. Other studies have shown that obese and gifted students experience higher-than-average rates of bullying, too. In fact, a comparison of reports makes it appear that gifted students may be bullied more than LGB youth.

That would be a dangerous conclusion to lean on, given the two reports’ differing methodologies, but it probably doesn’t matter since the point should be clear anyway: kids aren’t bullied primarily for being LGBT, obese, or bright, they’re bullied for being different. (See another related Stream article for more on that.)

I note in passing that LGBT-related bullying gets an awful lot of press these days in comparison to the rest. Draw your own conclusions.

Bullying Isn’t Entirely to Blame

The CDC’s report invites further questions. If bullying is entirely to blame, then rates of sadness and suicidal behaviors should track closely with rates of bullying. The CDC’s numbers, however, seem to show that LGB students experience a greater rate of these forms (or indicators) of distress per incidence of bullying than straight students.

I want to be cautious here, because a proper evaluation would require multiple regression and/or crosstab analysis of a sort not reported here. Still, one has to wonder why, if bullying is the one direct cause of sadness and suicidal behaviors, LGB students plan and attempt suicide at rates 3 and 4.5 times higher, respectively, than straight students, while experiencing bullying at a rate just 1.8 times higher. Assuming that apparent difference is real, possible explanations include:

1. LGB bullying is qualitatively worse than other students’ bullying.
2. Factors outside of school contribute significantly to LGB distress (the CDC study did not report on family structures or support).
3. There is something intrinsic to or closely associated with being LGB that causes or contributes to distress; that is, being LGB is either emotionally unhealthy in itself, or else it is, in itself, a contributing cause or result of emotional unhealthiness.

Evaluating the Alternatives

The first seems unlikely on the face of it. The second is very likely to be true for some; I do not know for how many. While popular culture, media, law and education have all become extremely supportive of LGBT behaviors, many families still fail to provide love and support for children who come out as gay, lesbian or bisexual.

For families in that situation I want to recommend the Pure Passion documentary — in which I participated — How Do You Like Me Now? (see the trailer here). This video would also be helpful for churches wondering whether and how to welcome and accept LGBT persons as members in their midst.

The third option is hardly open to discussion in today’s pro-gay climate, but it should be. Gay men in particular report having far, far more lifetime sexual partners on average than straight men. This strongly suggests the presence of emotional factors interfering with relational fulfillment. Stream editor Dustin Siggins further reports (emphasis added),

Professor Robert Lopez, President of the International Children’s Rights Institute and a self-described bisexual, told The Stream that blame might fall on sexual minorities themselves as well as the schools. “It seems that the youths tagged as gay, lesbian, and bi have high incidents of many misbehaviors, like carrying weapons to school, cocaine use, steroids, getting in fights and starting marijuana before they are 13,” he said in an email interview.

“For instance, gay teens report high rates of being beaten up by their significant others, of being forced to have sex against their will by people they are dating — which would imply that in the gay dating pool there are just a lot more uncharitable behaviors in general. It is simply impossible that all these outcomes are the result of homophobia.”

Avoid Thoughtless Extremes, and Always Stand Against Oppression

So again, what do we do with this information? Two things come immediately to mind.

First, avoid one-dimensional interpretations — for example, that it’s all about homophobia on the one hand, or that it has nothing to do with anti-LGBT attitudes on the other. Both extremes are equally thoughtless.

Second, take a stand against mistreating people. No one should be bullied. We don’t need a sociological study to show it’s wrong. It just is. Bullying is always a case of the strong (physically or socially) using their power against those who are disadvantaged in one or both of those ways. Read the biblical prophets and their outcries against the strong oppressing the weak. The Bible stands for the bullied. Christian students should have the strongest reputation of anyone in their schools for standing up against any kind of bullying, including the anti-LGBT variety.

A Final Word on the Subtext

And then there’s one more comment I want to add on the report’s subtext. Along with what I’ve already mentioned here, the CDC study measured correlations between sexual orientation and a host of unhealthful/unhelpful behaviors, everything from using ecstasy and amphetamines to skipping breakfast to getting sunburned. Sociology as science has no business concluding that a behavior is morally wrong — that’s not in its field of competence to judge — but the topics selected for study here nevertheless indicate researchers’ prior opinions on what’s good or bad.

Obviously the category of LGBT itself has dropped off that good/bad radarscope: it’s assumed to be okay. A scientifically formulated report treating LGBT behaviors in a generally neutral or positive light, as this one does, could lead readers to the impression that there’s science behind the view that LGBT is morally neutral or positive. There isn’t. It’s the researchers’ prior opinion, for which their scientific training gives them no moral advantage.

Originally published at ThinkingChristian.net. Used by permission.