So when did the Washington Post partner with WorldNetDaily? I must be confused, because how is it possible that a mainstream national newspaper could run an op-ed in its Religion section about homosexuality by a man who bases his arguments on junk science by Paul Cameron?

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, under the WaPo “On Faith” banner headed up by Jon Meacham and Sally Quinn, penned “Christian compassion requires the truth about harms of homosexuality.” In essence, he says it is the LGBT civil rights movement that causes these gay teens to take their lives.

Reading the following may cause you to want to hurl.

[H]omosexual activist groups like GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) are exploiting these tragedies to push their agenda of demanding not only tolerance of homosexual individuals, but active affirmation of homosexual conduct and their efforts to redefine the family.

There is an abundance of evidence that homosexuals experience higher rates of mental health problems in general, including depression. However, there is no empirical evidence to link this with society’s general disapproval of homosexual conduct. In fact, evidence from the Netherlands would seem to suggest the opposite, because even in that most “gay-friendly” country on earth, research has shown homosexuals to have much higher mental health problems.

Within the homosexual population, such mental health problems are higher among those who “come out of the closet” at an earlier age. Yet GLSEN’s approach is to encourage teens to “come out” when younger and younger–thus likely exacerbating the very problem they claim they want to solve.

Some homosexuals may recognize intuitively that their same-sex attractions are abnormal–yet they have been told by the homosexual movement, and their allies in the media and the educational establishment, that they are “born gay” and can never change. This–and not society’s disapproval–may create a sense of despair that can lead to suicide.

Jim Burroway destroys the “facts” Perkins is attempting to foist on readers and puts the studies he refers to into context.

I guess Perkins doesn’t actually intend for people to click on those hyperlinks. Apparently, he intended them for decoration, the same way FRC people regularly sprinkle their publications with footnotes to make them look more scholarly. But I would invite you to go ahead and click on the first one, which points to a 2002 article from the Monitor On Psychology, the American Psychological Association’s official magazine. Among the studies discussed in that article was one by Susan Cochran (“Emerging issues in research on lesbians’ and gay men’s mental health: Does sexual orientation really matter?” American Psychologist, 56, no. 11 (Nov 2001): 931-947). Her study did find elevated levels of psychological distress among gay people. However,

For one thing, she says, “these are certainly not levels of morbidity consistent with models that say homosexuality is inherently pathological.” For another, the data simply don’t prove either pro- or anti-gay arguments on the subject, whether it’s that the inherent biology of homosexuality causes mental illness or that social stigma provokes mental illness in LGB people, she says.

Cochran also predicted that her study would, no doubt, be misused by anti-gay people like Perkins “to falsely promulgate the argument that gay people are by nature mentally ill.” She was right.

Over at Americablog, John recounts the epic FAIL of the research Tony’s “facts” are drawn from. A tidbit:

Paul Cameron is an infamous anti-gay propagandist whose one-man statistical chop shop, the Family Research Institute, churns out hate literature masquerading as legitimate science. Cameron dresses up his “studies” with copious footnotes, graphs and charts, and then pays to publish them in certain journals. Cameron’s work has been rejected by both the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association, yet his ludicrous statistics are frequently referenced in sermons, news broadcasts, politicians’ speeches and even court decisions.

FRI has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. This information has been out there for ages, and surely Meacham and Quinn know how to use TEH GOOGLE to see whether the WaPo’s reputation (such that it is) wants to be seen providing outlet for opinion — or flat-out fometing hate and disinformation in the name of “balance.”

At MetroWeekly, Chris Geidner had this to say:

What Perkins is writing — and the Post is publishing — is that he believes homosexuals should “intuitively” see same-sex attractions as “abnormal” — and yet he sees no connection to be drawn between his statements and the despair that leads LGBT teens to suicidal thoughts and believes no blame is to be placed on him for the bullying borne of such attitudes.

Both the Post and Perkins should be embarrassed.