Researcher: Homosexual Activist Perpetuates 'Urban Legend' on O'Reilly

by Jim Brown
January 6, 2005

(AgapePress) - A sexual orientation researcher is accusing a homosexual activist of making misleading statements regarding the incidence of suicide among homosexual teens.

On a recent Fox News program, Human Rights Campaign political director Winnie Stachelberg said "gay teens are six times more likely to consider and contemplate suicide than their straight teen peers, and three times as likely to be the victim of suicide." But Dr. Warren Throckmorton, director of college counseling at Grove City College says Stachelberg is perpetuating a myth.

Dr. Warren Throckmorton

"This claim of gay teens being three time more likely to commit suicide ... is a fabrication," Throckmorton says. "This is an urban legend, really, first made in a 1989 government report -- and it's sheer speculation without any research support." The researcher also notes that Stachelberg's assertion went unchallenged by program host Tony Snow.

Throckmorton believes Stachelberg's rationale for quoting the false numbers is to silence people who object to homosexuality on religious or philosophical grounds. In fact, he calls her citation of the information a "thinly veiled attack" on people who have such objections.

"We do know that homosexuals who have committed to that identity do have higher rates of depression, and that could lead to somewhat higher rates of suicidal thinking," he acknowledges. "But the key factor in leading to suicide is clinical depression, not homophobia or expressions of religious conviction."

In a column about Strachelberg's appearance and statements on The O'Reilly Factor, Throckmorton says research conducted by Cornell University professor Ritch Savin-Williams found that sexual attraction does not have a robust relationship with suicide.