I came across these statistics some years back regarding suicide rates for gay youths.
It is very sad how our society have degenerated so badly and have not much tolerance at all for diversity nor in a nutshell, value human lives!! What contributed towards this? Did religion have a hand in it, when religion's role is to make us better people?!
Looking at our situation, Buddhist teachings gives me so much hope and strength that things can change for all of us.
Here's some information which may be of interest to you.
1. Extracted from
Stopping Gay Teen SuicideSource :
http://www.healthyplace.com/gender/gay-is-ok/stopping-gay-teen-suicide/menu-id-1420/For a number of years, researchers have known that one-third of all teenagers who commit suicide are gay. In one sense, this statistic is incredibly shocking because, according to the Kinsey Report, gay teens only comprise one-tenth of the teen population. This means that they are
300 percent more likely to kill themselves than heterosexual youth. In another sense, it is predictable that gay teens kill themselves more often than other young people simply because
their life chances are so limited by social and legal discrimination. Only when this discrimination is eliminated will these shocking statistics change.....
Thus young gay individuals realize that they must hide their identity for fear of social and legal consequences which can destroy their lives. Homosexuals can be fired, evicted, kept from their own biological children, restricted from adopting children, and imprisoned for sodomy. The homosexuality of historical figures has been systematically left out of education in the public schools, giving gay youth the false impression that gays have never affected history in a positive way.
2. Buddhist perspective
Extracted from
Buddhism and HomosexualitySource :
http://www.enabling.org/ia/vipassana/Archive/T/Trembath/buddhismAndHomosexualityTrembath.htmlHOMOSEXUALITY AND SEXUAL MISCONDUCTThe third of the five precepts refers to sexual behaviour. In the Theravada tradition of Buddhism, with which I am most familiar, the third precept is perhaps more precisely rendered as "I undertake the rule of training not to go the wrong way for sexual pleasure". What then would constitute "going the wrong way" and would this include homosexual acts? To determine this, we need to consider the criteria which Buddhists are advised to use in making ethical judgements. From the Buddha's discourses, there can be discerned three bases on which we can make judgements about our behaviour:-
- we should consider the consequences of our actions, their effects on ourselves and others
- we should consider how we would feel if others did the same thing to us
- we should consider whether the behaviour is instrumental to our goal of Nirvana.
Using these criteria, Buddhist commentators have usually construed sexual misconduct to include rape, sexual harassment, molestation of children, and unfaithfulness to one's spouse. Clearly, these manifestations of sexual misconduct can apply equally to homosexual and heterosexual behaviour. The third precept is not a blanket prohibition, nor a simplistic depiction of some behaviours as wrong and other behaviours as right.
In fact, Buddhist ethics have been described as utilitarian, in that they are concerned less with "good" and "evil" and more with whether an action is "skilful", ie conducive to a good end in relation to the criteria mentioned above and whether it is motivated by good intentions (based upon generosity, love and understanding) 2.
The sayings of the Buddha, as recorded in the Pali Canon, do not I believe include any explicit reference to homosexuality or to homosexual acts. This has been taken to mean that the Buddha did not consider that one's sexual orientation was relevant to his message, which was how to escape from suffering and achieve enlightenment. If it was not important enough to mention, homosexuality could not have been considered a barrier to one's moral and spiritual development.
On the other hand, the Buddha's teachings in no way exhort us to a life of hedonistic pursuit of pleasure, sexual or otherwise. While the Buddha did not deny the existence of enjoyment in this world, he pointed out that all worldly pleasure is bound up with suffering, and enslavement to our cravings will keep us spinning in a vortex of disappointment and satiation. The Buddhist's objective is not to eliminate sensual pleasures but to see them as they are through the systematic practice of mindfulness.
One feature of Buddhism which may interest gays and lesbians is that the teachings place no particular value on procreation. Marriage and the raising of children are seen as positive but are by no means compulsory. On the contrary, celibacy is in most traditions considered to be a requirement for those seeking higher levels of development as Buddhists. Monks and nuns take vows of strict celibacy, and even pious lay people undertake to be celibate at certain times in order to pursue their mental and spiritual development. This means that from the religious perspective there is no stigma which is necessarily attached to being unmarried and childless, although there may of course be social and cultural pressures which override this.
