Mental Health and Same Sex Marriage Again

I just got around to seeing Lucia's post on mental health and same-sex marriage, including the response by Moira Clunie of the Mental Health Foundation. Well, Moira, I think that questions around the issue might perhaps be given some clarity when the issue is looked at in countries where same sex marriage has been legalized. One of these is Canada, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2005.

So, how have they been doing, as regards mental health? Not too well it seems. This is taken from gay magazine Xtra in 2009 -

Over the past 10 years [Government] have contracted with experts on gay, lesbian, bisexual health to produce studies ... issues affecting queer Canadians includes lower life expectancy than the average Canadian, suicide, higher rates of substance abuse, depression, inadequate access to care and HIV/AIDS... all kinds of health issues that are endemic to our community... higher rates of anal cancer in the gay male community, lesbians have higher rates of breast cancer ... more GLBT people in this country who die of suicide each year than die from AIDS, there are more who die early deaths from substance abuse than die of HIV/AIDS... now that we can get married everyone assumes that we don't have any issues ... A lot of the deaths that occur in our community are hidden ... Those of us who are working on the front lines see them and I'm tired of watching my community die"~ Julia Garro, Xtra Tuesday, February 17, 2009.

 So, substance abuse, depression, and suicide. Doesn't sound to me like legalizing same-sex marriage is having a positive effect on mental health there. And the stats seem to be worse in places like San Francisco, Holland, and Canada, where same-sex marriage has been legalized the longest.

Some more stats -

• Life expectancy of gay/bisexual men in Canada is 20 years less than the average; that is 55 years.
• GLB people commit suicide at rates from 2 to 13.9 times more often than average.
• GLB people have smoking rates 1.3 to 3 times higher than average.
• GLB people have rates of alcoholism 1.4 to 7 times higher than average.
• GLB people have rates of illicit drug use 1.6 to 19 times higher than average.
• GLB people show rates of depression 1.8 to 3 times higher than average.
• Gay and bisexual men (MSM) comprise 76.1% of AIDS cases.
• Gay and bisexual men (MSM) comprise 54% of new HIV infections each year.
• If one uses Statistics Canada figure of 1.7% of GLB becoming infected, that is 26 times higher than average.
• GLB people are at a higher risk for anal cancers.

For the exact quotes, please see pages 3 and 4 of the HRC complaint.

So, forgive us for being "bigoted" enough to question a lifestyle marked by higher rates of depression, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse and disease; and all this in a country where same-sex marriage has been legal for 4 years (at the time of writing). I'd rather not subject our children to this kind of lifestyle.

How's that for mental health?