Part 2: Ted Baehr/ WorldNetDaily
Several days ago World Net Daily published an article entitled "Gay" paradise never found by conservative Christian movie critic Ted Baehr. While the article appeared as an installment of his "Movie Guide" column, it had nothing to with cinema. Instead, it was a religiously-based condemnation of LGBT people. Here's a look at Mr. Baehr's article:
The article opens, "Every day the major newspapers have heartrending stories about attractive homosexual couples who waited years to be deemed married by the state that in reality can't sanctify anything as sacred." Mr. Baehr is correct that the State cannot "sanctify anything as sacred"-- but his statement indicates that he is misconstruing the purpose of civil marriage. Civil marriage legally recognizes a committed relationship, and accords the people involved certain legal rights, including the right to file income taxes jointly, breaks on inheritance taxes, the right not to be forced to testify against each other in court, the automatic assumption that they can visit each other in the hospital and make medical decisions for one another if one of them is incapacitated, etc. The definition of what is "sacred" is entirely left to religious institutions. My cousin and her husband chose to be married by a Justice of the Peace. Their ceremony made no reference to religion, and religious institutions might not recognize it as valid-- particularly the Catholic Church, since it was a second marriage for both parties. However, the State does recognize the validity of their marriage. The opinions of Mr. Baehr and his church, or any other church, have no legal bearing on the matter. They should also have no legal bearing on the marriages of same-gender couples. This is not a theocracy.
Mr. Baehr continues, "At the same time, deep within today's newspapers are tragic stories such as the recent report of women in the Gay Pride Parade in Boston who had cut their own bodies to become more like men and the continuing Los Angeles Times story about the two lesbians in California who tortured their young son in unmentionable ways." I will not address Mr. Baehr's comment on top surgery for FtMs now, because I intend to publish another post on Massachusetts-based anti-LGBT organization MassResistance's sensationalist and inaccurate "coverage" of the Boston Pride Parade later this week. As for Mr. Baehr's reference to Starkeisha Brown and Krystal Matthews' abuse of Brown's five-year-old son-- it is horrific. The LGBT community is in agreement with him on that. Child abuse by heterosexual parents, such as the recent high-profile case of Josef Fritzl, the Austrian father who locked his daughter in a basement for 24 years and repeatedly raped her, fathering seven children by her, is equally horrific. There is no evidence that child abuse is more common in LGBT-headed households. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association, "A recent study of 256 lesbian and gay parent families found that, in contrast to patterns characterizing the majority of American parents, very few lesbian and gay parents reported any use of physical punishment (such as spanking) as a disciplinary technique; instead, they were likely to report use of positive techniques such as reasoning (Johnson & O'Connor, 2002)." Mr. Baehr's attempt to use two women's abuse of a child to tarnish all LGBT parents is just as inaccurate, if not more so, as using Mr. Fritzl's abuse of his daughter to tarnish all heterosexual parents (or all Austrian parents) would be.
Reading a bit further in "'Gay' paradise never found", we find Baehr implying that most if not all LGBT people are mentally ill. I quote: "...a study by D. M. Fergusson and other researchers, published in "Archives of General Psychiatry in 1999, found that 78.6 percent of homosexuals compared to only 38.2 percent of heterosexuals had two or more mental disorders. Also, 71.4 percent of homosexuals experience major depression compared to 38.2 percent of heterosexuals. Sixty-seven percent of homosexuals reported suicidal ideation compared to 28 percent of heterosexuals. And, 32.1 percent of homosexuals actually reported a suicide attempt compared to 7.1 percent of heterosexuals." The study is real-- it was a conducted in New Zealand-- and you can read Fergusson's article here. The subjects were 1,007 people born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1977. (The original "birth cohort" consisted of 1,265 people, but data on sexual orientation was available for only 1,007.) Roughly half of the subjects were male and half were female. They were tracked from birth to age 21, and Fergusson's study was conducted when they were 21 years of age. Only 20 subjects of the 1,265 reported an LGB sexual orientation. Of these, nine were men and eleven were women.
Here is how the subjects' mental health was assessed:
To examine the association between sexual orientation and psychopathology, a series of measures of the prevalence of psychiatric disorder observed over the period from age 14 to 21 years was constructed. The decision to assess long-term psychopathologic characteristics rather than current mental state was made on the grounds that stresses related to GLB sexual orientation were likely to have occurred throughout adolescence and into young adulthood and, accordingly, the effects of these stresses on adjustment would be more accurately reflected in the long-term prevalence of disorder rather than in measures of current disorder...
When cohort members were aged 15 and 16 years, subjects and their parents were interviewed using structured interview schedules that examined various aspects of the young person's mental health over the preceding year... Using this information, the parent and self-report symptom data were combined to classify subjects on the following DSM-III-R diagnoses: major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, conduct disorder, nicotine dependence, and alcohol and other illicit substance abuse and/or dependence.
At ages 18 and 21 years, subjects were again interviewed on a structured schedule that examined the young person's mental health over the period from ages 16 to 18 years and 18 to 21 years, respectively... For the purposes of the present analysis, the diagnostic information from these assessments was combined to construct measures of whether the subject had ever met criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, conduct disorder, nicotine dependence, other substance abuse and/or dependence, and multiple (>2) disorders during the period from age 14 to 21 years.
Baehr's representation of the results of the study was accurate, but he failed to note two important disclaimers by the researchers themselves, which appeared in the "Comment" section of the Fergusson article:
...A potential threat to the validity of this study clearly concerns the accuracy with which respondents reported their sexual orientation. In particular, it seems likely that not all subjects would have disclosed their sexual orientation accurately and that this would have been particularly likely for those facing psychological conflict in reconciling their sexuality with social, family, or personal expectations. While the effects of misascertainment of sexual orientation on the results of this study cannot be fully predicted, it seems reasonable to assume that any bias is likely to be in the direction of the underestimation of associations rather than their overestimation. This is because those who were most troubled about their sexual orientation would have also been most likely not to report that they were GLB. In future studies, we hope to examine this issue by reinterviewing the cohort at age 25 years to examine the stability of the reporting of sexual orientation over time and the extent to which associations between GLB sexual orientation and psychiatric risk vary with age...
...While there is an emerging consensus from recent studies that young people who disclose homosexual behaviors or attraction are at increased risk of suicidal behaviors and mental health problems, the processes that lead to these associations remain unclear. Although such findings are frequently interpreted as suggesting the role of homophobic attitudes and social prejudice in provoking mental health problems in GLB youth, alternative explanations are possible. These include (1) the possibility that associations are artifactual as a result of measurement and other research design problems, (2) the possibility of "reverse causality" in which young people prone to psychiatric disorder are more prone to experience homosexual attraction or contact, and (3) the possibility that lifestyle choices made by GLB young people place them at greater risk of adverse life events and stresses that increase risks of mental health problems, independently of GLB sexual orientation. More generally, while recent research has established the presence of consistent and replicable associations between GLB sexual orientation and psychiatric risk, the extent to which these associations reflect the consequences of social discrimination or the extent to which these associations can be explained in other ways remains to be established...[my emphases]
In other words, according to the researchers themselves:
1. The results of the study may have been skewed by underreporting of LGB orientation by the subjects-- in other words, the probability that many or even most of the LGB people surveyed were closeted could render the results inaccurate.
2. While there is a correlation between LGB orientation and an elevated risk of mental illness, the causation remains unclear. So unclear, in fact, that the researchers didn't feel comfortable taking any stand on the causation.
In addition to the potential problems reported by the researchers, I would like to add two others:
3. The subjects were only followed to age 21. It is possible that rates of mental illness between older LGB adults and their heterosexual counterparts do not show such large disparities, or that the risk of mental illness for LGB youths decreases in adulthood. At 21 and under, most study participants would still have been living in their parents' homes. The stress of living with homophobic parents could have elevated the risk factor for depression and suicidal ideation.
4. The entire self-reported LGB sample consisted of only 20 people. Using such a small population to make broad assumptions about the health of LGB people seems a bit dubious.
Baehr glossed over all of this-- in fact, all of the information from the Fergusson article that he included appeared in the abstract, which suggests that he may not have bothered to read the article itself.
After his brief and somewhat misleading discussion of the Fergusson study, Baehr makes reference to a study by Theodorus G. M. Sandford: "Contrary to the propaganda of most homosexual activists, a Dutch study by Theodorus G. M. Sandfort in the February 2003 issue of "Archives of Sexual Behavior" found that these mental health problems are not caused by the allegedly "homophobic" culture in which homosexuals often say they live. In fact, homosexual men in the Netherlands, arguably the most pro-homosexual nation in the Western world, reported to Sandfort that their general level of health and mental stability was less positive than heterosexuals, that emotional problems more often interfered with work or other daily activities, that physical health or emotional problems interfered with normal social activities, and that they felt less energetic."
The Sandfort article in its entirety is not available for free online, so I don't feel comfortable characterizing his work in detail-- it is worth noting, however, that his research appears to be frequently cited by Far Right organizations, including the discredited NARTH. I was able to glean the following bits of information on the Sandfort study from two abstracts, one available at SpringerLink, the other from AccessMyLibrary.
The short abstracts suggest that Sandfort's conclusions may not have been as black and white as Baehr presented them:
This study assessed differences in quality of life (QL) between homosexual and heterosexual people and attempted to identify factors accounting for observed differences... Homosexual men, but not women, differed from their heterosexual counterparts on various dimensions of QL. Lesser QL in homosexual men was predominantly explained by self-esteem and mastery. Same-sex sexuality contributed independently to some of the observed differences. Although same-sex sexuality is related to QL in men, the lack of association in women suggests that the link is mediated by other factors, indicating the need to explore in what respect the situation of homosexual men and women differs. This study also suggests the importance of finding out how lower sense of self-esteem and of mastery come about in homosexual men... [emphases mine]
In other words, lesbians' quality of life didn't differ from those of heterosexual women, which suggests that the lower quality of life reported by gay men may not be due to their sexual orientation, but to other factors that affect gay men's self-esteem, but not that of lesbians.
Furthermore, one of the abstracts suggests that Sandfort and his colleagues' definition of which subjects were "homosexual" was seriously misleading and may have skewed their findings:
Respondents were asked whether they had had sexual contact in the preceding year and what the gender of their sexual partner(s) was. If one had had sex with someone of the same gender (exclusively or not), one was categorized as homosexual. Other sexually active people were categorized as heterosexual. Homosexually active participants and exclusively heterosexually active participants are subsequently referred to in this paper as homosexual and heterosexual persons, respectively. Sexual orientation itself was not assessed.
The participants were identified by sexual behavior, not sexual orientation. Anyone who had slept with a person of the same sex, regardless of whether their romantic attractions were to men, women, or both, was classified as "homosexual" for the purposes of the study. A straight person who had a one-night, experimental, emotionally meaningless encounter with someone of the same sex was considered just as gay as someone in a fifteen-year committed same-sex relationship. Lumping bisexual and experimenting respondents with those who actually identify as gay or lesbian probably rendered the results of the Sandfort study inaccurate, and possibly even meaningless.
While he selectively quotes Fergusson and Sandfort, Baehr does not mention that many, if not most, researchers exploring mental illness in the LGBT population, believe that there is likely to be a link between the additional stresses our population faces and higher rates of depression, suicide, and substance abuse.
In "Rates and predictors of mental illness in gay men, lesbians, and bisexual men and women" (The British Journal of Psychiatry, 2004, 185: 479-480;) Warner, McKeown, Griffin, Johnson, Ramsay, Cort, and King state:
...Of the 1249 respondents to questions on experience of acts of hostility or discrimination, 1039 (83%) reported having experienced at least one of the following: damage to property, personal attacks or verbal insults in the past 5 years or insults or bullying at school (Table 3). Six hundred and ninety (66%) respondents who had experienced discrimination attributed this to their sexuality... We found high levels of perceived discrimination in the form of physical attacks, verbal abuse, property damage and bullying at school in our sample, and found a strong relationship between these variables and scoring above the threshold on the CIS-R and suicidal ideation. Although it is not possible to infer causality, because reverse causality, unidentified confounders and reporting bias may operate here, many respondents linked attacks with their sexuality... This suggests that schools, the police and health professionals should take harassment due to sexuality seriously... Our findings support the need for strategies that raise awareness of the vulnerability of gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals to psychological distress and self-harm...
CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS
Subsequent studies have shown no difference between heterosexual and homosexual groups on measures of cognitive abilities (Tuttle & Pillard, 1991) and psychological well-being and self-esteem (Coyle, 1993; Herek, 1990; Savin-Williams, 1990). Fox (1996) found no evidence of psychopathology in nonclinical studies of bisexual men and women. Further, an extensive body of literature has emerged that identifies few significant differences between heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual people on a wide range of variables associated with overall psychological functioning (Pillard, 1988; Rothblum, 1994; Gonsiorek, 1991). When studies have noted differences between homosexual and heterosexual subjects with regard to psychological functioning (DiPlacido, 1998; Ross, 1990; Rotheram-Borus, Hunter, & Rosario, 1994; Savin-Williams, 1994), these differences have been attributed to the effects of stress related to stigmatization based on sexual orientation. This stress may lead to increased risk for suicide attempts, substance abuse, and emotional distress...
Many lesbian, gay, and bisexual people face social stigmatization, violence, and discrimination (Herek, 1991). Living in a heterosexist society may precipitate a significant degree of stress for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, many of whom may be tolerated only when they are "closeted" (DiPlacido, 1998). Sexual minority status increases risk for stress related to "chronic daily hassles (e.g., hearing anti-gay jokes, always being on guard)" to more serious "negative life events, especially gay-relevant events (e.g., loss of employment, home, custody of children, anti-gay violence and discrimination due to sexual orientation)" (DiPlacido, 1998, p. 140)...
In addition to external stressors, Gonsiorek (1993) described the process by which many lesbian, gay, and bisexual people internalize negative societal attitudes. This internalization may result in self-image problems ranging from a lack of self-confidence to overt self-hatred (Gonsiorek, 1993), depression (Meyer, 1995; Shidlo, 1994), and/or alcoholism and other substance abuse (Glaus, 1988). Meyer and Dean (1998) showed that gay men scoring high on a measure of internalized homophobia were significantly more likely than less homophobic gay men to experience sexual dysfunction, relationship instability, and to blame themselves for anti-gay victimization. [all emphases mine]
To summarize, the stance of the APA is that any elevated risk of depression in LGB people is due to experiences of prejudice and discrimination, and that people who internalize the negative messages they receive from society are more likely to be mentally ill than the general LGB population.
Contrary to Baehr's opinion, not all LGBT people are unhappy. While many of us experience depression at some time in our lives, this certainly does not mean that all, or even most, of us are depressed at any given time. We are not doomed to "stew in the juice of [our] own incapacity for happiness". We have the same capacity for happiness that anyone else does, and the fact that so many of us lead productive lives and have fulfilling relationships despite persistent negative messages from people like Baehr we have received our entire lives is testament to that fact.
Why is Baehr convinced that all LGBT people are unhappy? I do not doubt that it is because the LGBT people he knows personally struggle with depression, alienation, and self-hatred. The LGBT people he knows, he likely knows through his church or through conservative Christian organizations and "ministries" he is affiliated with. They are isolated from other LGBT people and thus have probably never met a well-adjusted LGBT person themselves, and they are subjected to destructive messages like Baehr's continuously. They believe the Religious Right's message that they are sick and broken, and that unless they change their sexual orientation-- something that mainstream psychological and medical associations agree is not possible-- they will be miserable until they die, and then they'll go to hell. These are the people "scoring high on a measure of internalized homophobia" mentioned in the APA statement.
Like the studies he cited, Baehr's sample is skewed.
The article opens, "Every day the major newspapers have heartrending stories about attractive homosexual couples who waited years to be deemed married by the state that in reality can't sanctify anything as sacred." Mr. Baehr is correct that the State cannot "sanctify anything as sacred"-- but his statement indicates that he is misconstruing the purpose of civil marriage. Civil marriage legally recognizes a committed relationship, and accords the people involved certain legal rights, including the right to file income taxes jointly, breaks on inheritance taxes, the right not to be forced to testify against each other in court, the automatic assumption that they can visit each other in the hospital and make medical decisions for one another if one of them is incapacitated, etc. The definition of what is "sacred" is entirely left to religious institutions. My cousin and her husband chose to be married by a Justice of the Peace. Their ceremony made no reference to religion, and religious institutions might not recognize it as valid-- particularly the Catholic Church, since it was a second marriage for both parties. However, the State does recognize the validity of their marriage. The opinions of Mr. Baehr and his church, or any other church, have no legal bearing on the matter. They should also have no legal bearing on the marriages of same-gender couples. This is not a theocracy.
Mr. Baehr continues, "At the same time, deep within today's newspapers are tragic stories such as the recent report of women in the Gay Pride Parade in Boston who had cut their own bodies to become more like men and the continuing Los Angeles Times story about the two lesbians in California who tortured their young son in unmentionable ways." I will not address Mr. Baehr's comment on top surgery for FtMs now, because I intend to publish another post on Massachusetts-based anti-LGBT organization MassResistance's sensationalist and inaccurate "coverage" of the Boston Pride Parade later this week. As for Mr. Baehr's reference to Starkeisha Brown and Krystal Matthews' abuse of Brown's five-year-old son-- it is horrific. The LGBT community is in agreement with him on that. Child abuse by heterosexual parents, such as the recent high-profile case of Josef Fritzl, the Austrian father who locked his daughter in a basement for 24 years and repeatedly raped her, fathering seven children by her, is equally horrific. There is no evidence that child abuse is more common in LGBT-headed households. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association, "A recent study of 256 lesbian and gay parent families found that, in contrast to patterns characterizing the majority of American parents, very few lesbian and gay parents reported any use of physical punishment (such as spanking) as a disciplinary technique; instead, they were likely to report use of positive techniques such as reasoning (Johnson & O'Connor, 2002)." Mr. Baehr's attempt to use two women's abuse of a child to tarnish all LGBT parents is just as inaccurate, if not more so, as using Mr. Fritzl's abuse of his daughter to tarnish all heterosexual parents (or all Austrian parents) would be.
Reading a bit further in "'Gay' paradise never found", we find Baehr implying that most if not all LGBT people are mentally ill. I quote: "...a study by D. M. Fergusson and other researchers, published in "Archives of General Psychiatry in 1999, found that 78.6 percent of homosexuals compared to only 38.2 percent of heterosexuals had two or more mental disorders. Also, 71.4 percent of homosexuals experience major depression compared to 38.2 percent of heterosexuals. Sixty-seven percent of homosexuals reported suicidal ideation compared to 28 percent of heterosexuals. And, 32.1 percent of homosexuals actually reported a suicide attempt compared to 7.1 percent of heterosexuals." The study is real-- it was a conducted in New Zealand-- and you can read Fergusson's article here. The subjects were 1,007 people born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1977. (The original "birth cohort" consisted of 1,265 people, but data on sexual orientation was available for only 1,007.) Roughly half of the subjects were male and half were female. They were tracked from birth to age 21, and Fergusson's study was conducted when they were 21 years of age. Only 20 subjects of the 1,265 reported an LGB sexual orientation. Of these, nine were men and eleven were women.
Here is how the subjects' mental health was assessed:
To examine the association between sexual orientation and psychopathology, a series of measures of the prevalence of psychiatric disorder observed over the period from age 14 to 21 years was constructed. The decision to assess long-term psychopathologic characteristics rather than current mental state was made on the grounds that stresses related to GLB sexual orientation were likely to have occurred throughout adolescence and into young adulthood and, accordingly, the effects of these stresses on adjustment would be more accurately reflected in the long-term prevalence of disorder rather than in measures of current disorder...
When cohort members were aged 15 and 16 years, subjects and their parents were interviewed using structured interview schedules that examined various aspects of the young person's mental health over the preceding year... Using this information, the parent and self-report symptom data were combined to classify subjects on the following DSM-III-R diagnoses: major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, conduct disorder, nicotine dependence, and alcohol and other illicit substance abuse and/or dependence.
At ages 18 and 21 years, subjects were again interviewed on a structured schedule that examined the young person's mental health over the period from ages 16 to 18 years and 18 to 21 years, respectively... For the purposes of the present analysis, the diagnostic information from these assessments was combined to construct measures of whether the subject had ever met criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, conduct disorder, nicotine dependence, other substance abuse and/or dependence, and multiple (>2) disorders during the period from age 14 to 21 years.
Baehr's representation of the results of the study was accurate, but he failed to note two important disclaimers by the researchers themselves, which appeared in the "Comment" section of the Fergusson article:
...A potential threat to the validity of this study clearly concerns the accuracy with which respondents reported their sexual orientation. In particular, it seems likely that not all subjects would have disclosed their sexual orientation accurately and that this would have been particularly likely for those facing psychological conflict in reconciling their sexuality with social, family, or personal expectations. While the effects of misascertainment of sexual orientation on the results of this study cannot be fully predicted, it seems reasonable to assume that any bias is likely to be in the direction of the underestimation of associations rather than their overestimation. This is because those who were most troubled about their sexual orientation would have also been most likely not to report that they were GLB. In future studies, we hope to examine this issue by reinterviewing the cohort at age 25 years to examine the stability of the reporting of sexual orientation over time and the extent to which associations between GLB sexual orientation and psychiatric risk vary with age...
...While there is an emerging consensus from recent studies that young people who disclose homosexual behaviors or attraction are at increased risk of suicidal behaviors and mental health problems, the processes that lead to these associations remain unclear. Although such findings are frequently interpreted as suggesting the role of homophobic attitudes and social prejudice in provoking mental health problems in GLB youth, alternative explanations are possible. These include (1) the possibility that associations are artifactual as a result of measurement and other research design problems, (2) the possibility of "reverse causality" in which young people prone to psychiatric disorder are more prone to experience homosexual attraction or contact, and (3) the possibility that lifestyle choices made by GLB young people place them at greater risk of adverse life events and stresses that increase risks of mental health problems, independently of GLB sexual orientation. More generally, while recent research has established the presence of consistent and replicable associations between GLB sexual orientation and psychiatric risk, the extent to which these associations reflect the consequences of social discrimination or the extent to which these associations can be explained in other ways remains to be established...[my emphases]
In other words, according to the researchers themselves:
1. The results of the study may have been skewed by underreporting of LGB orientation by the subjects-- in other words, the probability that many or even most of the LGB people surveyed were closeted could render the results inaccurate.
2. While there is a correlation between LGB orientation and an elevated risk of mental illness, the causation remains unclear. So unclear, in fact, that the researchers didn't feel comfortable taking any stand on the causation.
In addition to the potential problems reported by the researchers, I would like to add two others:
3. The subjects were only followed to age 21. It is possible that rates of mental illness between older LGB adults and their heterosexual counterparts do not show such large disparities, or that the risk of mental illness for LGB youths decreases in adulthood. At 21 and under, most study participants would still have been living in their parents' homes. The stress of living with homophobic parents could have elevated the risk factor for depression and suicidal ideation.
4. The entire self-reported LGB sample consisted of only 20 people. Using such a small population to make broad assumptions about the health of LGB people seems a bit dubious.
Baehr glossed over all of this-- in fact, all of the information from the Fergusson article that he included appeared in the abstract, which suggests that he may not have bothered to read the article itself.
After his brief and somewhat misleading discussion of the Fergusson study, Baehr makes reference to a study by Theodorus G. M. Sandford: "Contrary to the propaganda of most homosexual activists, a Dutch study by Theodorus G. M. Sandfort in the February 2003 issue of "Archives of Sexual Behavior" found that these mental health problems are not caused by the allegedly "homophobic" culture in which homosexuals often say they live. In fact, homosexual men in the Netherlands, arguably the most pro-homosexual nation in the Western world, reported to Sandfort that their general level of health and mental stability was less positive than heterosexuals, that emotional problems more often interfered with work or other daily activities, that physical health or emotional problems interfered with normal social activities, and that they felt less energetic."
The Sandfort article in its entirety is not available for free online, so I don't feel comfortable characterizing his work in detail-- it is worth noting, however, that his research appears to be frequently cited by Far Right organizations, including the discredited NARTH. I was able to glean the following bits of information on the Sandfort study from two abstracts, one available at SpringerLink, the other from AccessMyLibrary.
The short abstracts suggest that Sandfort's conclusions may not have been as black and white as Baehr presented them:
This study assessed differences in quality of life (QL) between homosexual and heterosexual people and attempted to identify factors accounting for observed differences... Homosexual men, but not women, differed from their heterosexual counterparts on various dimensions of QL. Lesser QL in homosexual men was predominantly explained by self-esteem and mastery. Same-sex sexuality contributed independently to some of the observed differences. Although same-sex sexuality is related to QL in men, the lack of association in women suggests that the link is mediated by other factors, indicating the need to explore in what respect the situation of homosexual men and women differs. This study also suggests the importance of finding out how lower sense of self-esteem and of mastery come about in homosexual men... [emphases mine]
In other words, lesbians' quality of life didn't differ from those of heterosexual women, which suggests that the lower quality of life reported by gay men may not be due to their sexual orientation, but to other factors that affect gay men's self-esteem, but not that of lesbians.
Furthermore, one of the abstracts suggests that Sandfort and his colleagues' definition of which subjects were "homosexual" was seriously misleading and may have skewed their findings:
Respondents were asked whether they had had sexual contact in the preceding year and what the gender of their sexual partner(s) was. If one had had sex with someone of the same gender (exclusively or not), one was categorized as homosexual. Other sexually active people were categorized as heterosexual. Homosexually active participants and exclusively heterosexually active participants are subsequently referred to in this paper as homosexual and heterosexual persons, respectively. Sexual orientation itself was not assessed.
The participants were identified by sexual behavior, not sexual orientation. Anyone who had slept with a person of the same sex, regardless of whether their romantic attractions were to men, women, or both, was classified as "homosexual" for the purposes of the study. A straight person who had a one-night, experimental, emotionally meaningless encounter with someone of the same sex was considered just as gay as someone in a fifteen-year committed same-sex relationship. Lumping bisexual and experimenting respondents with those who actually identify as gay or lesbian probably rendered the results of the Sandfort study inaccurate, and possibly even meaningless.
While he selectively quotes Fergusson and Sandfort, Baehr does not mention that many, if not most, researchers exploring mental illness in the LGBT population, believe that there is likely to be a link between the additional stresses our population faces and higher rates of depression, suicide, and substance abuse.
In "Rates and predictors of mental illness in gay men, lesbians, and bisexual men and women" (The British Journal of Psychiatry, 2004, 185: 479-480;) Warner, McKeown, Griffin, Johnson, Ramsay, Cort, and King state:
...Of the 1249 respondents to questions on experience of acts of hostility or discrimination, 1039 (83%) reported having experienced at least one of the following: damage to property, personal attacks or verbal insults in the past 5 years or insults or bullying at school (Table 3). Six hundred and ninety (66%) respondents who had experienced discrimination attributed this to their sexuality... We found high levels of perceived discrimination in the form of physical attacks, verbal abuse, property damage and bullying at school in our sample, and found a strong relationship between these variables and scoring above the threshold on the CIS-R and suicidal ideation. Although it is not possible to infer causality, because reverse causality, unidentified confounders and reporting bias may operate here, many respondents linked attacks with their sexuality... This suggests that schools, the police and health professionals should take harassment due to sexuality seriously... Our findings support the need for strategies that raise awareness of the vulnerability of gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals to psychological distress and self-harm...
CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS
- Individuals defining themselves as bisexual appear to be a distinct group meriting further research.
- Most respondents reported experience of discrimination, with a high proportion attributing it to their sexuality. These factors appear to be linked with higher rates of mental disorder.
- Considered and attempted suicide is common in gay, lesbian and bisexual people. [all emphases mine]
Subsequent studies have shown no difference between heterosexual and homosexual groups on measures of cognitive abilities (Tuttle & Pillard, 1991) and psychological well-being and self-esteem (Coyle, 1993; Herek, 1990; Savin-Williams, 1990). Fox (1996) found no evidence of psychopathology in nonclinical studies of bisexual men and women. Further, an extensive body of literature has emerged that identifies few significant differences between heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual people on a wide range of variables associated with overall psychological functioning (Pillard, 1988; Rothblum, 1994; Gonsiorek, 1991). When studies have noted differences between homosexual and heterosexual subjects with regard to psychological functioning (DiPlacido, 1998; Ross, 1990; Rotheram-Borus, Hunter, & Rosario, 1994; Savin-Williams, 1994), these differences have been attributed to the effects of stress related to stigmatization based on sexual orientation. This stress may lead to increased risk for suicide attempts, substance abuse, and emotional distress...
Many lesbian, gay, and bisexual people face social stigmatization, violence, and discrimination (Herek, 1991). Living in a heterosexist society may precipitate a significant degree of stress for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, many of whom may be tolerated only when they are "closeted" (DiPlacido, 1998). Sexual minority status increases risk for stress related to "chronic daily hassles (e.g., hearing anti-gay jokes, always being on guard)" to more serious "negative life events, especially gay-relevant events (e.g., loss of employment, home, custody of children, anti-gay violence and discrimination due to sexual orientation)" (DiPlacido, 1998, p. 140)...
In addition to external stressors, Gonsiorek (1993) described the process by which many lesbian, gay, and bisexual people internalize negative societal attitudes. This internalization may result in self-image problems ranging from a lack of self-confidence to overt self-hatred (Gonsiorek, 1993), depression (Meyer, 1995; Shidlo, 1994), and/or alcoholism and other substance abuse (Glaus, 1988). Meyer and Dean (1998) showed that gay men scoring high on a measure of internalized homophobia were significantly more likely than less homophobic gay men to experience sexual dysfunction, relationship instability, and to blame themselves for anti-gay victimization. [all emphases mine]
To summarize, the stance of the APA is that any elevated risk of depression in LGB people is due to experiences of prejudice and discrimination, and that people who internalize the negative messages they receive from society are more likely to be mentally ill than the general LGB population.
Contrary to Baehr's opinion, not all LGBT people are unhappy. While many of us experience depression at some time in our lives, this certainly does not mean that all, or even most, of us are depressed at any given time. We are not doomed to "stew in the juice of [our] own incapacity for happiness". We have the same capacity for happiness that anyone else does, and the fact that so many of us lead productive lives and have fulfilling relationships despite persistent negative messages from people like Baehr we have received our entire lives is testament to that fact.
Why is Baehr convinced that all LGBT people are unhappy? I do not doubt that it is because the LGBT people he knows personally struggle with depression, alienation, and self-hatred. The LGBT people he knows, he likely knows through his church or through conservative Christian organizations and "ministries" he is affiliated with. They are isolated from other LGBT people and thus have probably never met a well-adjusted LGBT person themselves, and they are subjected to destructive messages like Baehr's continuously. They believe the Religious Right's message that they are sick and broken, and that unless they change their sexual orientation-- something that mainstream psychological and medical associations agree is not possible-- they will be miserable until they die, and then they'll go to hell. These are the people "scoring high on a measure of internalized homophobia" mentioned in the APA statement.
Like the studies he cited, Baehr's sample is skewed.