Brody's Notes... Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson: Religion Is Killing LGBT Youth

Bishop Gene Robinson
Photo By The Episcopal Diocese Of New Hampshire  

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) OCT 19 | The Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson, in a strongly worded column published today in the Huffington Post, decried the recent spate of Gay youth suicides and placed the blame squarely at the feet of religious conservatives and fundamentalists. Bishop Robinson quoted a senior pastor of an Episcopal parish church in Pasadena, California;

"Thirteen and fifteen year olds are not 'adopting a lifestyle,' they're trying to have a life! They're trying to figure out who they are, who God created them to be and what on earth to do with this confusing bunch of sexual feelings that they're trying to get a handle on. They need role models for healthy relationships -- not judgment and the message that they're condemned to a life of loneliness, isolation and despair."

The Reverend Susan Russell was reacting to published statements made by the Minnesota Family Council's Tom Prichard, recently saying that the real cause of the suicides is "homosexual indoctrination," not antigay bullying, and that the students died because they adopted an "unhealthy lifestyle.

Bishop Robinson writes:

"Despite the progress we're making on achieving equality under the law and acceptance in society for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, why this rash of bullying, paired with self-loathing, ending in suicide? With humility and heartfelt repentance I assert that religion -- and its general rejection of homosexuality -- plays a crucial role in this crisis.

On the one hand, Religious Right hatemongers and crazies are spewing all sorts of venom and condemnation, all in the name of a loving God. The second-highest-ranking Mormon leader, Boyd K. Packer, recently called same-sex attraction "impure and unnatural" in an act of unspeakable insensitivity at the height of this rash of teen suicides. He declared that it can be cured, and that same-sex unions are morally repugnant and "against God's law and nature."

Just as many gay kids grow up in these conservative denominations as any other. They are told day in and day out that they are an abomination before God. Just consider the sheer numbers of LGBT kids growing up right now in Roman Catholic, Mormon, and other conservative religious households. The pain and self-loathing caused by such a distortion of God's will is undeniable and tragic, causing scars and indescribable self-alienation in these young victims."

Robinson called for "tolerant" religious people to acknowledge the straight line between the official anti-gay theologies of their denominations and the deaths of these young people.  He said that; "Nothing short of changing our theology of human sexuality will save these young and precious lives."