Search Results: suicide
We desperately need an Affirmation that is united across the Church/faith divide, but just saying that we need it is not enough. If we really want it, we need to work at it. The tensions between folks on the opposite sides of that divide are very real.
Jorge Valencia, former President of The Trevor Project (the LGBTQ youth suicide prevention organization) and current Executive Director and CEO of the Point Foundation (LGBTQ scholarship program), shares from his two decades of experience serving LGBTQ young people, how to support and empower them to living strong and meaningful lives.
In order for us to have a healthy relationship with the Church, we have to have a strong relationship with God…. If it is difficult for us to believe in God, at the very least we need to trust ourselves.
Social media response to an article published on Affirmation.org on January 20, 2016 has resulted, in recent weeks, in heightened mainstream media interest in the potential impact, in terms of mental health and well-being of LGBT Mormons, of the LDS Church’s new policy on gay families.
Rather than attempting to discredit anecdotal reports of recent suicides, the Deseret News, the Salt Lake Tribune and KUER each ran stories that acknowledged the seriousness and the complexity of the issue. The Deseret News led the story by publishing, on Thursday, January 28, 2016, two articles addressing the issue of suicide among LGBT Mormons. Other online and visual media outlets followed. Find the links to these articles and videos in the full article.
Our LGBT elders must not end their lives fading into loneliness. They deserve to be surrounded and buoyed up by family and friends and community. Our LGBT youth must not see only a future they feel too weak to face. Those of us in between youth and old age must not live our lives paralyzed with uncertainty, unable to believe in our ability to discern the right path, to choose the good.
My son Jonathan told us he was gay about ten years ago. I didn’t react well. I tried to convince him he could be straight. I tried to convince him that even if he was “a little gay” that he could marry a woman. I couldn’t believe that “this” happened in my family. The first time my son brought home another young man and introduced him as his boyfriend, I nearly became sick to my stomach and I treated them both like lepers and didn’t want them to come into the house. Affirmation healed my relationship with my son. He knows now that my former homophobia is totally gone and that I love him unconditionally.
It is only then when we touch the pain that we are in a position to be able to mourn. To be able to enter that second covenant. To mourn with that person. It is only then that we can truly comfort. That we can be good friends… Only then, when we understand the pain, can we offer words of comfort that reach deeply. And only then can we take upon ourselves the name of Christ.
For decades, the book has been handed out “by well-meaning bishops,” Munson says, “but has caused a lot of pain on the part of LGBT Mormons, their families and allies.”
Kimball’s instruction that “if you pray hard enough, fast hard enough, and are a good enough Mormon, your sexual orientation will change or go away,” she says, “has caused incredible pain and has even cost lives.”
The Bishop finished reading the letter. Placing it to the side…he wept. Humbly he began to bear his testimony. He spoke of his lack of understanding. He didn’t understand why things happened the way they did. He didn’t know what God eventually had planned for all of us. But what he did know…was that God asked us to love each other. Unconditionally. He bore his testimony of his children…two of which are gay. He said he looked forward to the day when his family could be together at Church. When his gay children could feel welcome to bring their partners with them and feel the love surround them. He spoke of how unfair it is to expect someone who is attracted to someone of the same sex to spend their lives alone. After his sweet testimony he opened up to everyone else to discuss.