On James Dobson’s “Family Talk” radio program earlier this week, Religious Right pundit Alex McFarland disputed claims that high rates of depression, suicide, and self-abuse among gay people are connected to internalized homophobia.
“Here in America, we’re told ad infinitum that depression and psychiatric illness among professed homosexuals is due to our culture of homophobia,” he said. “It’s our fault when homosexual people have mental stress.”
Furious that anyone could possibly link anti-gay activism to anti-gay bigotry, McFarland concluded that, once again, the problems lie within gays themselves: “Along with what I believe is spiritually destructive behavior and physically destructive behavior, homosexuality is psychologically destructive behavior.”
Thankfully, ex-gay activist Anne Paulk was also on the air to supplement McFarland’s wisdom with an “unscientific survey” she conducted among gay women on the causes of their own depression and poor mental health: “They didn’t even mention homophobia, their family of origin’s point of view, none of that. It was the breakup of a same-sex relationship that precipitated this sense of, ‘Oh, my life’s not worth living anymore.’”
Paulk lamented that the media routinely points the finger at anti-gay intolerance for issues many LGBT people face, yet failed to conduct their own research proving that homophobia is actually a manufactured problem. Clearly, these four accredited studies just can’t stand up to the solidity of Paulk’s “unscientific survey.”
