BYU confuses LGBT discussion by offering data

[Just_A_Guy]

Story here.

[NeuroTypical]

This is fascinating.

[Ironhold]

Summary?

[mikbone]

Survey study

[Grunt]

Well, that is going to make a few people sad.

[LDSGator]

No matter what your politics are, I’m 100% confident that almost no one wants people to commit suicide. So there’s that. This study makes me very happy for that reason. However, it’s just one study. It also says something that all of us want to believe, so confirmation bias kicks in for us too. I’d like to see more than one study, maybe from a non-church institution, but this is, obviously a good thing. 
 

No one is sad about this. 

[person0]

25 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

maybe from a non-church institution

I agree that I would love to see more studies.  Unless I misread, the article seemed to mention that a non-church entity at least reviewed the data and came to the same assessment.  Obviously not another independent study, but very likely the next best thing.

[LDSGator]

1 minute ago, person0 said:

Obviously not another independent study, but very likely the next best thing.

Oh agree. 
 

But, like we all know, we love studies when we agree with the outcome. We dismiss them when we disagree with the outcome, even if the outcome is probably correct. Yes, I include myself. 
 

Again though, this is a very good thing and I hope and pray it’s accurate. 

[Fether]

3 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

we love studies when we agree with the outcome. We dismiss them when we disagree with the outcome, even if the outcome is probably correct.

Read the comments on the original article and that shows just how true this is

[LDSGator]

8 minutes ago, Fether said:

Read the comments on the original article and that shows just how true this is

It’s human nature. I think it’s an ego thing. “What? How dare someone disagree with me? How dare someone challenge my beliefs?” Liberals and conservatives both do this, but 99% of the time they lack the self awareness to notice it. 
 

Again, for the second time I am also guilty of it. 

Edited October 18, 2021 by LDSGator

[Just_A_Guy]

2 hours ago, LDSGator said:

No matter what your politics are, I’m 100% confident that almost no one wants people to commit suicide. So there’s that. This study makes me very happy for that reason. However, it’s just one study. It also says something that all of us want to believe, so confirmation bias kicks in for us too. I’d like to see more than one study, maybe from a non-church institution, but this is, obviously a good thing. 
 

No one is sad about this. 

“Just one study”?  You talk as if this is a lone voice in the wilderness, bucking some presupposed mountain of evidence that suggests that there is a causal link between LDS observance and LGBTQ suicide.  But in fact there is no such evidence, as Michael Staley himself has said so (repeatedly).

I’d love to agree that “no one is sad about this”; but the fact is that humans have been willing to let other humans die in furtherance of their pet political objectives for literally millennia.  For folks who claim to get the sadz when gay Mormon kids off themselves, LGBTQ advocates sure have fine-tuned the art of making those deaths politically useful.  The Mama Dragons have even been caught with their hands in the statistical cookie jar—claiming more LGBTQ LDS youth suicides for a given region in a given time frame, than the total youth suicides reported to the legal authorities in those jurisdictions for that same time frame.

To use a slightly dated analogy that still light to be recognizable to most of our LGBTQ-“ally” friends:  If you’re determined to implement regime change in Iraq, Saddam not having WMDs is a very bad thing; and the number of human lives actually at stake matters not at all.

[LDSGator]

8 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

“Just one study”?  You talk as if this is a lone voice in the wilderness, bucking some presupposed mountain of evidence that suggests that there is a causal link between LDS observance and LGBTQ suicide.  But in fact there is no such evidence, as Michael Staley himself has said so (repeatedly).

I’d love to agree that “no one is sad about this”; but the fact is that humans have been willing to let other humans die in furtherance of their pet political objectives for literally millennia.  For folks who claim to get the sadz when gay Mormon kids off themselves, LGBTQ advocates sure have fine-tuned the art of making those deaths politically useful.  The Mama Dragons have even been caught with their hands in the statistical cookie jar—claiming more LGBTQ LDS youth suicides for a given region in a given time frame, than the total youth suicides reported to the legal authorities in those jurisdictions for that same time frame.

To use a slightly dated analogy that still light to be recognizable to most of our LGBTQ-“ally” friends:  If you’re determined to implement regime change in Iraq, Saddam not having WMDs is a very bad thing; and the number of human lives actually at stake matters not at all.

Eh, if I’m wrong, fine. I don’t care.
 

I look at the big picture here. Fewer people are committing suicide. That’s a wonderful thing. A very wonderful thing. Thank God. I pray it’s true. 

Edited October 18, 2021 by LDSGator

[JohnsonJones]

On 10/17/2021 at 7:39 AM, Ironhold said:

Summary?

Very briefly...

Basically, it found that those who are LGBT and are part of the Faith have lower suicide rates than their counterparts.

[Traveler]

I will approach this with a very general observation.  An intelligent being has the ability to make choices that will effectively alter their projected outcome.  This means that when it comes down to an intelligent being; being alive - they have power to make choices and change outcomes.  It has been my observation that whenever someone makes a choice and discovers that the outcome is unexpected there is concern - if the outcome is not perceived as beneficial - then the individual making the choice will suffer from increased realization of misery.   I think misery can be defined as factors in depression and suicide.

It is my understanding that the LDS concept and recommendations in relationship the the LGBTQ+ community as for all LDS members is to express and show love for one another.  Then, specific to those in the LGBTQ+ community to have an eternal perspective on their choices (this is true for members as well) such that when choices are made that self sacrifices are necessary when making choices that are in line with the eternal concept of G-d, his laws, commandments and ordinances. 

It is also my observation that those willing to make self sacrifices based in the long term concepts of eternity - are much less inclined to be unhappy and discouraged with life.  I think the whole concept of depression and suicide applies to much more than the demographic of LGBTQ+.

 

The Traveler

[MrShorty]

Fascinating! I'm sure there is much more to do to further understand how religion impacts suicidal ideation and such, but this certainly looks like one entry level piece on the subject. Almost certainly not the last word (I think the authors themselves say as much) on the subject. A few non-expert reactions to the opinion piece and the BYU paper:

1) The BYU authors emphasize early on that "significance" in the paper means that they were able to conclude "statistically significant" from their statistical tests. "Significant" does not necessarily say anything about the real world "size" of the effect. In other contexts, I have seen some criticize "high n studies" (where the conclusions are based on a large number of participants -- I don't know if n=86k is considered large n for this kind of work). Because of the large n, the criticism goes, the study has strong statistical power to "see" small differences between groups, but the perceived differences are still very small. At some level, even if the difference between LDS and other religion or no religion is statistically significant, is the difference large enough to have practical meaning?

2) As with anything like this, there is always the "correlation does not mean causation" thing going on. The authors find a statistically significant correlation between checking the LDS box on a form and less suicidal ideation/attempts, but that does not mean that being LDS prevents suicide. I expect that a large part of the future work that wants/needs to be done is trying to understand what factors drive the correlation.

3) I appreciated their attempts to address how disaffiliation might confound the conclusions. I can't say that I understood everything they did, but it does seem like an important thing to include in this analysis. It was somewhat gratifying that, even using their best guesses at disaffiliation numbers, the final conclusion did not change. However, in their discussion of disaffiliation, they also note that, assumptions along the extreme end of their alleged uncertainty limits, could change the conclusions, so their appears to be just enough overall uncertainty to claim, at the outside, that maybe some of the paper's conclusions are because the SHARP data do not include any indication on disaffiliation. On a personal note, perhaps just because of where some of my own thoughts are on the topic, if identifying as LDS is somehow correlated with lower suicide rates, is there some way we as a Church can do something more to discourage disaffiliation?

I do not have the expertise to provide any expert opinions, but it seems like a good entry into the discussion. I look forward to more data to help clarify the relationships between the Church and its LGBQ members.