When the repressive, antigay policies of the Mormon church were leaked to the media, rates of LGBT teen homelessness and suicide skyrocketed.

BY CHADWICK MOORE
APRIL 29 2016 6:18 AM EDT

"The number-one cause of death for people under the age of 24 in Utah is suicide. Nationally, Utah ranks among the top five states for youth suicides, and by some estimates it has the highest rate of LGBT youth suicides in the country.

Rev. Marian Edmonds-Allen, a United Church of Christ minister who acts as a liaison between LGBT youth and the Mormon church, is heading a state-funded suicide-prevention program. She used to run a youth center in Ogden that served about 700 individuals a month.

“Every single youth I spoke to had a friend or acquaintance who died of suicide. And over 60 percent had attempted suicide themselves,” she tells The Advocate. “The culture of the church has to change. It’s a culture of fear. It’s a culture where if you break the ranks, you can be shunned. There’s a real disconnect between the leaders of the church that I deal with — who say, ‘We tell families to not throw their children out, we tell families to love your children no matter what’ — and the rank-and-file members and the bishops who say, ‘You need to kick your child out if they don’t straighten up.’”

http://www.advocate.com/current-issue/2016/4/29/ghost-children-mormon-country

When the son of Federal Court judge Bybee committed suicide on the grounds of the Las Vegas temple, there were supposed quotes from the Bybee family that the kid, Scott, was in a better place. Also mentioned was 'it was all too much for him...', which is of course contrary to The Plan, because ghawd always sees to it that we are never given more of a challenge than we can handle.

Anyway, I think there is a streak within mormonism that allows for people to feel satisfied about kicking out nonconformist children; better dead than in bed.

I was in a ward with judge Bybee,before he got married and had children, he was a colossal prick. He was a hateful know it all.
I feel very sorry for this child.

it was weird reading comments after the event, how no one ever really defended the judge, as a human being. The best I read was that Scott agreed to all the remedies his dad "suggested". Hard to believe...

Suicide is blood atonement. When you can't measure up and your best shot is at Telestial "glory", spill your blood on the ground. Jesus can't atone for you.

Disgusting beyond words.

My TBM cousin I was speaking to today knows the family of the 15 year old girl who stepped in front of a dump truck to be run over, near Logan last fall.

She told me the girl's brother who is only around 25 just shot and murdered his stepdad the other day, in a pre-meditated case of entrapment. He lured his stepdad to come visit just so he could shoot him in cold blood.

Cousin blames both kids problems on their mother, not the LDS church. And single parenthood. Because the mother is bitter and angry against her ex-husband so the local TBM philosophy goes, is why the daughter became gay, and why the son murdered his stepdad. And what led the daughter to killing herself by walking into the middle of the road just so she'd get run over.

I asked my cousin about the church role in the gay policy actions it has taken and how could that not help but contribute to this girl's suicide, and her brother's actions? I blamed it on the whole culture there that would disenfranchise these kids, and their families so much, that they have nowhere to turn for support within their own communities.

This same cousin who's blaming the suicide and murder on single parenthood, and "that's what people get for not following the prophet" line, lost her own child to suicide. The rationalization of LDS members is so skewered that it just boggles the mind.

Well, there's your communication problem. It's not "the whole culture" that is to blame. (Although, yeah, I agree with you that the whole culture is questionable, at best) It's that specific things (gayness, abortion, disbelief) are completely unforgivable, except through the taking of one's own life.

And in the end, IMO, all of that boils down to: Mormons really don't believe in grace. And that is why "Amazing Grace" is not in the hymnal, and why Mormons really aren't really Christians.

Not that I really care anymore in the least about stupid Mormonism, but please...could people stop killing themselves over this stupidity? Please?