The Week in Mormonism, 7/10/16: Youth Suicide in Utah
A new rash of LGBT suicides this week has KUTV and other outlets reporting that suicide is now the leading cause of death for Utah youth, passing car accidents. State suicide specialist Andrea Hood says that determining why Utah has experienced such a shocking rise while rates are nearly flat nationally is “complicated,” in part because “the health department can’t track sexual identity as a variable.” Still, it’s a known factor that “youth who feel they are highly rejected by their family members or community when they come out as LGBT, are at 8 times higher risk of suicide.”
Given the lack of direct data, Dan Peterson is skeptical that Church doctrine plays a role in these deaths. But Benjamin Knoll offers an analysis of the indirect data that is hard to dismiss:
My coauthors Daniel Parkinson, Michael Barker, and I have attempted to address this dearth of evidence in two forthcoming articles in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. (Earlier versions of the forthcoming articles can be found here and here.)
Some of our findings include:
In 2014 (the year the most recent data is available), the % Mormon in a U.S. state is associated with a higher level of youth suicides in that state. This relationship holds even after statistically controlling for other potential causal factors of suicide such as elevation (altitude), rates of gun ownership, rates of serious mental illness, rural vs. urban, state spending on mental health, and a variety of demographic and socioeconomic factors.
None of these factors are associated with an increase in levels of youth suicides in a state between 2009 and 2014 except for % Mormon in a state. Further analysis finds that this relationship is due solely to the increase in youth suicides in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming — the three states with the largest Mormon population in the country.
While “correlation is not causation,” analysts have yet to identify any other plausible factor that simultaneously 1) causes youth suicides, 2) substantially increased over the last five years, and 3) happened in predominantly Mormon communities. In the absence of a compelling alternative explanation, we argue that the link between Mormon religious context and the rise of youth LGBT suicides over the last several years is the most likely causal explanation. While this link has not yet been conclusively proven, a quickly-growing body of direct, indirect, and anecdotal evidence is all pointing to the same conclusion.
We therefore urge health officials, religious leaders, concerned citizens, and especially friends and family of LGBT youth not to overlook or discount the obvious effect of religious context on the rise of youth suicides in Utah and other states with large Mormon communities.
Finally, Tyler Glenn recorded a more personal commentary on the exclusion policy’s role in week’s deaths. An excerpt:
Some find it hard to believe or exaggerated. But I make this live video right now to help you. To help you put a face to this policy that bans same sex couples and their kids, to see that this is actually happening, and it’s real, and it’s right now… My name is Tyler. I’m a singer in a band and I make my own music. I’m gay, I’m 32, and I struggle weekly to find my place in this world because for so long I struggled to find my place in God’s plan.
Dear Russell Nelson,
You spearheaded this policy in November, and you and your colleagues claimed to speak directly to and for God. As his mouthpieces on this earth today, you have yet to respond to the confusion, destruction, and chaos you’ve caused so many current and former members of your church, both queer and straight alike. You’ve had months, and a public conference, satellite broadcast to the world in April, and you’ve yet to give light to the actual darkness that so many of your members are living in currently.
Russell Nelson, … you have a responsibility to speak to us. Since you speak to [God], and claim that He gives you revelation, I beg of you, and plead with you, to change this doctrine. This should be your biggest concern. Your church is literally bleeding.
KUTV reports that “In response to Glenn’s video and recent suicide numbers, the LDS church released the following statement through spokeswoman Kristen Howey:”
Suicide is tragic, no matter the explanation or circumstance. Our hearts ache for those who face such tragedy among those they love. The Church is actively pursuing ways to help, including online resources and local leader training, and we encourage communities to continue to partner on prevention and intervention. Every soul is precious.
The new Doctrinal Mastery manual for Seminary students is generating some comments, particularly the lesson about Prophets and Revelation, which to a large degree endorses a move back towards a “fourteen fundamentals” style of prophetic infallibility.
[According to the manual,] the priesthood ban was a “law of priesthood administration and Church management” — which isn’t obviously offensive as a description, since there’s no denying the reality that it WAS a church rule for many years — except we know from the definitions and descriptions given earlier in the chapter that it was therefore “revealed”, something that God Himself must have originated.
There’s a lot more to say about the content of this chapter, but there’s no denying that it UNAMBIGUOUSLY claims that THE PRIESTHOOD AND TEMPLE BAN WAS OF DIVINE ORIGIN. The ban fits in the category of policies-and-practices-that-can-be-changed, rather than eternal, unchanging laws (of course), but that category is unambiguously described as containing teachings whose author is God.
I believe in continuing revelation, which means not just the adding of new truth but the correction of past error. It’s hard to believe in the necessity for continuing revelation if you’re absolutely certain that everything you think you know is in fact true, and that everything you do is in fact just as God would have it done.
But apparently not everybody takes that view of matters. Instead of strengthening our understanding of revelation, instead of recognizing that “a prophet is only a prophet when he speaks as a prophet” and learning to distinguish those times from the times when he speaks as a man, it has become apparently essential to some members’ faith to double down on the infallibility of prophets, to pull Brigham Young back from under the bus they feel he has been thrown under, and to justify the priesthood restriction by laying it at the feet of God.
On a related note, the June 2016 Ensign reiterated that “Heavenly Father will not allow [prophets and apostles] to lead us astray.”
Books and Reviews
- Shelah Miner discusses her experience teaching Mormon literature at BYU-Salt Lake.
- The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young is now available on Kindle.
- A review of Joseph Smith Papers Documents, Volume 4: April 1834–September 1835.
- This Month in Mormon Studies, June 2016.
Other Links
- Steve Otteson comments on the Marriage and Family Doctrinal Mastery lesson.
- The Church’s chief lawyer says not all religious freedoms should be defended the same. And Dialogue author Sam Brunson asks if there should be an upper limit to the exceptions churches and other religious organizations seek from the law.
- The church responds to a law limiting missionary work in Russia.
- Digitizing the Lost Mormon Cinema.
- An interview with President-Emeritus Wallace B. Smith of the Community of Christ. “Listen to what led up to the ordination of women, the fallout that brought, building the temple, the revelatory process for him, and the decision to name a successor outside of the Smith family.”
- Pseudepigrapha and the Book of Mormon. “Note that [an all-or-nothing stance on Book of Mormon historicity] is exactly the stance anti-Mormons want the Church to take, because it makes their job incredibly easy. On this stance all it takes is one problem, one counterexample, one bauble that turns out on examination not to be as shiny as it seemed at first blush, to bring the entire house of cards down.”
- Is discussing masturbation becoming acceptable? Posts from Feminist Mormon Housewives and Sam Young’s high priest group.
