Beg a gay Christian n be hurtful and gellg. But I refe to lose fah | Lucy Knight | The Guardian

Contents:

• LONELS AND THE CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIAN
• BEG A GAY CHRISTIAN N BE HURTFUL AND GELLG. BUT I REFE TO LOSE FAH
• BEG CHRISTIAN AND GAY
• THE E OF A SCENE: WHY GAY CHRISTIANS ARE AAID TO E OUT TO THEIR PASTORS
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
• GENEVA COLLEGE ALLEGEDLY FIR GAY SOCCER ACH AFTER INSTAGRAM POSTS ABOUT CLIVENS

LONELS AND THE CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIAN

I don't believe there's a one-size-fs-all liftyle for every gay/lbian Christian, but for myself personally, I feel that I may be lled to celibacy.

For that reason, I felt pelled to share this post by the thor of the dissertatn “Lonels and the Celibate, Gay Christian. ” TL;DR: Though many gay/lbian/same-sex attracted Christians are enuraged to pursue lifelong celibacy by the Church, many of their church don't have the same support for the celibate liftyle as they do for married upl. In the words of one of the study's participants: “…we have got the theologil reasong down pat, terms of the fact that gay people shouldn’t be gettg married and havg sex.

” Asi om a lack of stutnal stctur of support, a general lack of social belongg was also monly reported, as celibate gay Christians felt held at a distance not only due to their sexualy but also due to their sglens/celibacy. It got me thkg: what do you thk would look like for church to support their celibate gay/lbian members?

BEG A GAY CHRISTIAN N BE HURTFUL AND GELLG. BUT I REFE TO LOSE FAH

It seems like a lot of church will tell gay people, "We don't hate you, we're jt sayg that unls you rema celibate your entire life, you aren't wele here! What else uld be done by the church to make celibacy a more viable choice for gay and lbian Christians, rather than the onero punishment n feel like now?

In our lifetime, the gay muny has ma more progrs on legal and social acceptance than any other mographic group history. As recently as my own adolcence, gay marriage was a distant aspiratn, somethg newspapers still put sre quot. Public support for gay marriage has climbed om 27 percent 1996 to 61 percent 2016.

Still, even as we celebrate the sle and speed of this change, the rat of prsn, lonels and substance abe the gay muny rema stuck the same place they’ve been for s. Gay people are now, pendg on the study, between 2 and 10 tim more likely than straight people to take their own liv.

BEG CHRISTIAN AND GAY

In a survey of gay men who recently arrived New York Cy, three-quarters suffered om anxiety or prsn, abed dgs or alhol or were havg risky sex—or some batn of the three. Dpe all the talk of our “chosen fai, ” gay men have fewer close iends than straight people or gay women. “Marriage equaly and the chang legal stat were an improvement for some gay men, ” says Christopher Stults, a rearcher at New York Universy who studi the differenc mental health between gay and straight men.

In the Netherlands, where gay marriage has been legal sce 2001, gay men rema three tim more likely to suffer om a mood disorr than straight men, and 10 tim more likely to engage “suicidal self-harm. TTravis Salway, a rearcher wh the BC Centre for Disease Control Vanuver, has spent the last five years tryg to figure out why gay men keep killg themselv.

“But now you’ve got lns of gay men who have e out of the closet and they still feel the same isolatn.

THE E OF A SCENE: WHY GAY CHRISTIANS ARE AAID TO E OUT TO THEIR PASTORS

By the late 2000s, he was a social worker and epimlogist and, like me, was stck by the growg distance between his straight and gay iends. He started to wonr if the story he had always heard about gay men and mental health was plete. When the dispary first me to light the ’50s and ’60s, doctors thought was a symptom of homosexualy self, jt one of many maniftatns of what was, at the time, known as “sexual versn.

” As the gay rights movement gaed steam, though, homosexualy disappeared om the DSM and the explanatn shifted to trma. “That was the ia I had, too, ” Salway says, “that gay suici was a product of a bygone era, or was ncentrated among adolcents who didn’t see any other way out. The problem wasn’t jt suici, wasn’t jt afflictg teenagers and wasn’t jt happeng areas staed by homophobia.

A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.

He found that gay men everywhere, at every age, have higher rat of rdvascular disease, ncer, ntence, erectile dysfunctn, ⁠ allergi and asthma—you name , we got . In Canada, Salway eventually disvered, more gay men were dyg om suici than om AIDS, and had been for years.

“We see gay men who have never been sexually or physilly asslted wh siar post-trmatic strs symptoms to people who have been bat suatns or who have been raped, ” says Alex Kroghlian, a psychiatrist at the Fenway Instute’s Center for Populatn Rearch LGBT Health. Sce he looked to the data, Salway has started terviewg gay men who attempted suici and survived.

“When you ask them why they tried to kill themselv, ” he says, “most of them don’t mentn anythg at all about beg gay.

GENEVA COLLEGE ALLEGEDLY FIR GAY SOCCER ACH AFTER INSTAGRAM POSTS ABOUT CLIVENS

“The trma for gay men is the prolonged nature of , ” says William Elr, a sexual trma rearcher and psychologist.

Growg up gay, seems, is bad for you many of the same ways as growg up extreme poverty. A 2015 study found that gay people produce ls rtisol, the hormone that regulat strs. They found that the gay kids didn’t have a greater number of “strsful life events” (i.