Study: Religion can help LGBTQ Mormons’ mental health, especially if they’re out of the closet

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

I am proposing that prioritizing some "identities" over others is, or ought to be, a thing.

No doubt.  There is something of a "self-selection" process going on.  If a person publicly "identifies" as gay, wears "gay" regalia, participates in "gay"-themed events and social groups, etc., then the cumulative effect is that the "gay" identity is pretty important to the individual.  Others, however, seem to treat their sexual orientation as one of several facets of their overall person or state of being.

The issue, then, arises when folks make broad declarations about how people with a particular sexual orientation have, categorically speaking, no place in the church.  Or that there is a dichotomy between the sexual identity ("being gay") and being a faithful and observant Latter-day Saint.  That starts to make the "sexual identity" look like it is pretty important.  More important, even, than the individual's "identity" as a "child of God."

You do realize that people who go to Pride events don’t wear what they wear there every day right? The idea that going to Pride or wearing something denoting your sexuality means you are a simpleton that focuses solely on their sexuality is a cheap way of stereotyping.

Wearing an angel Moroni tiepin or a CTR ring does not make one a religious fanatic.

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

In 2023?  I question that.  The corporatization of this stuff is getting old pretty fast.  And it undercuts notions of the movement being organic.  These days it's all about the ESG/DEI stuff:

Per this video, "ESG is now a big business.  It represents, by some estimations, something like $35 trillion dollars' worth of investments.  And in the last two years it's grown by 15%, and that rate of grown doesn't seem to be stopping" (this video is a year old, BTW) :

 

"What we found is that the foundation of this multi-trillion dollar new cash machine for Wall Street is not at all what it appears to be, and that it's really almost exactly the opposite of what people think it is."

Another:

And here:

And here: Inside the CEI system pushing brands to endorse celebs like Dylan Mulvaney

• "Executives at companies like Nike, Anheuser-Busch and Kate Spade ... {are} handing out lucrative deals to what were once considered fringe celebrities because they have to — or risk failing an all-important social credit score that could make or break their businesses."
• "At stake is their Corporate Equality Index — or CEI — score, which is overseen by the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ+ political lobbying group in the world."
• "HRC ... issues report cards for America’s biggest corporations via the CEI: awarding or subtracting points for how well companies adhere to what HRC calls its 'rating criteria.'"
• "A company can lose CEI points if it doesn’t fulfill HRC’s demand for 'integration of intersectionality in professional development, skills-based or other training' or if it doesn’t use a 'supplier diversity program with demonstrated effort to include certified LGBTQ+ suppliers.'"
• "{S}ome American CEOs are more concerned about pleasing BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street Bank — who are among the top shareholders of most American publicly-traded corporations (including Nike, Anheuser-Busch and Kate Spade) — than they are about irritating conservatives, numerous sources told The Post."
• "'The big fund managers like BlackRock all embrace this ESG orthodoxy in how they apply pressure to top corporate management teams and boards and they determine, in many cases, executive compensation and bonuses and who gets re-elected or re-appointed to boards.'"
• "Fink also let it be known that if a company doesn’t engage with the community and have a sense of purpose 'it will ultimately lose the license to operate from key stakeholders.'"

One of the more visible and obvious results of this CEI/DEI/ESG stuff:

Pride has been corporatized.  Big time.  

Ah yes, the myth of the woke corporations. Corporations don’t give a damn about the LGBTQ community beyond wanting to advertise to it. All this means is that there are enough LGBT people and allies out there that catering to them brings in money. If it stopped being profitable it would stop. The idea that corporate America has a left-wing agenda is hilariously stupid.

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

The money quote: "This performance capitalism does two things: 1) it reinforces Wall Street’s commitment to promoting left-wing cultural currents and 2) it antagonizes conservatives, especially religious conservatives, most of whom, at this point, just want to be left alone."

Bovine excrement.

[smac97]

9 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Wearing an angel Moroni tiepin or a CTR ring does not make one a religious fanatic.

I agree.  Strange that you equate that to fanaticism.

9 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Ah yes, the myth of the woke corporations.

That corporations are apparently "going woke" due to coercive ESG/DEI measures orchestrated by the HRC is, I think, worth discussion.

9 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Corporations don’t give a damn about the LGBTQ community beyond wanting to advertise to it.

If left to their own devices, I think you'd have a point.  But the ESG stuff is taking stuff way beyond merely "advertising."

9 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

If it stopped being profitable it would stop.

You aren't paying attention to the pressures involved in the ESG racket.

9 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

The idea that corporate America has a left-wing agenda is hilariously stupid.

They are being coerced into it, it seems.  But the endless array of "Pride"-themed corporate logos belies your scoff.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited June 9, 2023 by smac97

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Because there are enough religions that have and do now condemn the person, not just the behaviour (which can be problematic on its own) as being twisted, perverted, evil, possessed, etc., should be disowned at least, even have thought and some even now think it’s appropriate to kill an individual if they express nontraditional attractions.

Hmm... I see. Those who feel depressed from religion I presumed was because they are religious, by which, they are capable of feeling guilty without help. And the depression can be about a specific aspect of some gay and straight private lives. Retreating from religion may not actually solve the issue.

I'm not a doctor, but there is supposedly a complex link between religion, depression, sex, and increased sexual activity. For instance, where the strength of a person’s religious beliefs and moral condemnation of porn, predicts that they will feel addicted to porn, regardless if they only watched a little. Religious people are at heightened risk of developing sexual disorders and feeling at a loss to deal with them or get help. Creating a feedback loop. I think people can overcome sexual shame in their lives without abandoning their religious values and beliefs.

Peace, and apologies to those who I've offended today. I may have been brash. For a lame excuse; I busted my knee and it's been killing me.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Strange that you equate that to fanaticism.

Didn’t he just do the opposite?

[Calm]

50 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

Those who feel depressed from religion I presumed was because they are religious, by which, they are capable of feeling guilty without help. And the depression can be about a specific aspect of some gay and straight private lives. Retreating from religion may not actually solve the issue.

I am not understanding what you are saying here.

 

50 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

For a lame excuse; I busted my knee and it's been killing me.

Intentional pun?  👍

If you are on a prescription pain med and it is useless, not all are created equal.  There are several I don’t bother using as Ibuprofen works tons better for me than they do, so complain to your doctor rather than grit your teeth.

Hope the pain subsides very quickly and you feel better soon.  Be proactive where you can (ice it or whatever the doctor recommends) because just ignoring it does not make the pain go away. (Pep talk, not thinking you don’t know already…I hate icing, stretching, etc after injuries….just give me a pile of books and a comfy chair and I will just be happy staying there till life rights itself again…if only it would).

Edited June 10, 2023 by Calm

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

I didn't make up the idea of the "Pride" movement being corporatized, nor did I fabricate the ESG/DEI racket (or that it is run by the HRC), nor did I have anything to do with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink bragging about "forc{ing} behaviors," or that all this as been aptly described as "{a} Chinese-like social credit system {} creep{ing} into American business."

No, someone else made it up. You are repeating it.

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

That corporations are apparently "going woke" due to coercive ESG/DEI measures orchestrated by the HRC is, I think, worth discussion.

If left to their own devices, I think you'd have a point.  But the ESG stuff is taking stuff way beyond merely "advertising."

You aren't paying attention to the pressures involved in the ESG racket.

They are being coerced into it, it seems.  But the endless array of "Pride"-themed corporate logos belies your scoff.

This is conspiracy nonsense. Corporations are not getting pushed around. They see an opportunity for profit. They took it. They aren’t “woke” (which is now a meaningless term anyways). People buy the stuff. They sell it. You and the people whose propaganda you are reading are just shocked that support for LGBT rights is popular enough that catering to it is profitable so instead they invent bizarre conspiracy theories where organizations are pushing around corporations that are hundreds of times bigger than they are which is patently ridiculous.

The Pride themed corporate logos are only used during pride month to drum up business. When June ends it will all go away again. Your nightmare will be over. It happens every year.

[InCognitus]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

3 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

For a lame excuse; I busted my knee and it's been killing me.

Intentional pun?  👍

Intentional or not, it's a good one   

Not good for his knee, however.  I'm sorry to hear about that @Pyreaux

[MustardSeed]

12 hours ago, Calm said:

Didn’t he just do the opposite?

Thanks, was going to say the exact same thing 🤷‍♀️

[Pyreaux]

13 hours ago, InCognitus said:

Intentional or not, it's a good one   

Not good for his knee, however.  I'm sorry to hear about that @Pyreaux

Yeah, I didn't actually expect sympathy, I half expected california boy to come back and say something like, "funny, I didn't know a symptom of knee pain was bigotry".

[The Nehor]

23 hours ago, Calm said:

Didn’t he just do the opposite?

Yeah, pretty much.

[smac97]

An update (?) :

Quote

Tyler Lefevor is an associate professor of psychology at Utah State University. He grew up as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but also as a queer man. 

The church’s official policies state that people who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual are welcome in the church—so long as they don’t “violate the law of chastity,” and reserve sexual relations for “a man and a woman who are married.” 

When Lefevor was growing up, he said, there really wasn’t any research looking into the mental health of people who identify as both LGBTQ+ and as members of the LDS church, so he embarked on studying the topic himself. 

He is nearly four years into a 10-year study following hundreds of current and former LDS church members who also identify as LGBTQ+. Lefevor and USU doctoral student Sam Skidmore hope to better inform ministry practices and public policy with the data, they said, which is collected through surveys. 

The next, and third, wave of data will be collected in January 2024. The idea is to track how mental health changes over time—how does a person’s mental health change if they lean more into one identity over the other? How does that balance fluctuate? How can LGBTQ+ LDS church members be happiest and healthiest? 

“I think that Sam and I, and most LGBTQ+ Latter-day Saints, know that LGBTQ+ Latter-day Saints leave the church,” Lefevor said. “It’s really important to me to map that trajectory and document that that is what happens, and the rate at which it happens. I think that’s something church leaders need to see.” 

What Lefevor and Skidmore have found so far, they said, is that when or if participants left the church, they felt they had less meaning in life: Lefevor said he’s interested to see how those participants find meaning again in the next six years of the study. Religion, he said, both helps and harms peoples’ mental health, but in different ways. 

“We found that the prime drivers of becoming less religious were identity uncertainty—so, the more uncertain people felt about their sexual or gender identity, the more likely they were to step away from the church—and personal religious struggles, like conflict with other religious people,” Lefevor said. “But people who became more religious reported less identity affirmation in their sexual identity, and ironically, more doubt in life.” 

The research has been published in a number of different papers using the two previous waves of survey data from 2020 and 2022. Recently, Lefevor and Skidmore have focused on how religious people can support those who identify as LGBTQ+: “the goal is to create this nuanced, deeper understanding of peoples’ lived experiences,” Lefevor said. “Once we have that, it’s hard not to be helpful.” 

“If the day to day person wants to make the mental health of LGBTQ+ people better, the answer is just to learn how to support, learn how to help people accept themselves for who they are, and embrace them,” Skidmore said. “People often ask, what’s the thing we can do to help? And it really is just, treat them like a person, and allow them to be who they are.” 

Interesting and valuable stuff.

Thanks,

-Smac