CWN had a link to this BBC piece with some interesting data bits. For a few seconds some reality was peeking out:
"The survey found that 42% of the gay men, 43% of lesbians and 49% of bisexual men and women had a clinically recognised mental health problem."
Which makes sense: one mental health problem may well be correlated with the presence of others.
However, the story and the researchers seem to cover this with spin and speculation, pretending that this level of mental illness is caused by "anti-gay prejudice". Considering how much mental illness is biological in nature, it seems awfully strained to claim that. Here's the sort of evidence the story presents:
"Eighty-three per cent of respondents said they had experienced either damage to property, personal attacks or verbal insults in the last five years, or insults and bullying at school, with many attributing these experiences to their sexuality."
I'm surprised: only 83%?
Did you notice how broad that list of offenses is? I'd expect virtually everybody, normal or not, gets a verbal insult at least once in a five-year period. But only 83% of gays do: what makes them so lucky?
Really. Anybody (other than a hermit) who hasn't been called names in the past five years just isn't trying hard enough. Even I got called a bleepin' bleepbleep by a dear friend a couple of weeks ago.
So I'm willing to read the study if it's published somewhere, but call me skeptical.
My son the other day called me a "saint." Does that count as name calling in this day and age? But seriously, I think you touched on something. Maybe gays have thicker skin than heteros? Sorry, that wasn´t nice of me, and no intent to harm!