Has the Church’s stance on homosexuality caused a recent rash of suicides?

You may have seen this claim of late.

It’s evidence, or so we’re told, that the Church is wrong on the matter of homosexuality.  And that the Church’s position is not only mistaken but, to some degree or another, evil.  Callous.  Hateful.

But is the factual claim true in the first place?

Maybe.  Maybe not.

http://www.millennialstar.org/about-that-claim-of-suicides-by-lds-teens-with-same-sex-attraction/

Any suicide is deeply sad, of course.  (Need I say this?  Yes.  I, in particular, need to say this, lest I be accused of celebrating the suicides of unhappy people or of people of whom I disapprove.  I am, you see, apparently that sort of person.)

But people should be very, very careful about using suicides as a polemical lever.  And they should be sure of their facts.

If the claim isn’t true, by the way, it won’t be the first time that some have attempted to use trumped-up statistics as weapons in a war to manipulate public attitudes and ecclesiastical or public policy.  There is, for example, the notorious myth of increased wife-abuse on Super Bowl Sunday:

http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/superbowl.asp

(Thanks to Nathaniel Hancock for alerting me to the piece from Millennial Star.)