Internalized homophobia only accounts for portions of this conflict. LGBT young adults who mature in religious contexts are at higher odds for suicidal thoughts, and more specifically chronic suicidal thoughts, as well as suicide attempt compared to other LGBT young adults. Two indicators were associated with twice the odds of a suicide attempt. Internalized homophobia also fully mediates the relationship between one conflict indicator and chronic suicidal thoughts. Internalized homophobia fully mediates one conflict indicator and partially mediates the other two indicators' relationship with suicidal thoughts. Three indicators of identity conflict and an internalized-homophobia scale (mediator), were included in logistic regressions with three different suicide variable outcomes. This is the first known study to explore how religious identity conflict impacts suicidal behaviors among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) young adults and to test internalized homophobia as a mediator.Ī secondary analysis of 2,949 youth was conducted using a national dataset collected by OutProud in 2000. The analysis shows how different rhetorical strategies employed in these ads might differentially influence readers who are either `value protective' or `value affirmative' in their processing goals.
This study draws on quantitative social psychological research on antigay attitudes and Slater's extension of the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion to establish the cognitive context for this discourse and to link the argumentative features of the advertisements to potential persuasive effects on different audiences. These ads, part of an effort to make `ex-gay' discourse more central to the public communication strategies of conservative, anti-gay political groups, feature both narrative and statistical arguments that gay men and lesbians can be converted to heterosexuality.
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This article reports a critical discourse analysis of a series of newspaper advertisements advocating `ex-gay' ministries and `reparative therapy' for homosexuality - interventions designed to `treat' homosexuality through prayer or psychoanalysis. Findings indicate that all youths, including nonreligious youths, use cognitive strategies to manage negative messages and that these strategies relate to current religious identification. Three primary strategies to manage antihomosexual messages emerged. A quarter of the sample reported religious identity dissonance. Messages came from multiple sources (e.g., parents, pastors) and contained three types of content (i.e., creation, sin, and afterlife). Ninety-one percent of the sample reported hearing antihomosexual religious messages. Youths were prompted to discuss experiences with religion, antihomosexual messages, and their strategies for managing these messages. In 2014, 46 adolescents were interviewed in Los Angeles, CA.
This study investigated the cognitive strategies used to manage antihomosexual religious messages and resolve religious identity dissonance among sexual minority adolescents.
Sexual minority adolescents from religious contexts may be at high risk of mental health issues due to religious identity dissonance. Although recent interactionist research has convincingly demonstrated some ways gay and ex-gay Christian men (Wolkomir 2001), Evangelical college students (Wilkins 2008), prison chaplains (Hicks 2008), and belly dancers (Kraus 2009) adjust dominant religious meanings in order to fashion desirable selves, our analysis reveals there may also be much to learn from the interactional processes whereby elites construct and sustain the dominant religious ideologies these and their millions of followers draw upon in the course of their ongoing social interactions. Although religious traditions rest upon the assertion of eternal truths, interactionists have long recognized religious institutions, like all other social institutions, rely upon patterns of joint action, collective meaning making, and ongoing processes of interaction and interpretation tied to shifting cultural and historical social patterns (i.e., "going concerns" see e.g., Blumer 1969 Gubrium and Holstein 2000 Mead 1938 Snow and Machalek 1983).