Do Same-Sex Marriage Laws Really Improve Youth Mental Health?
LGBT ADVOCATES PUSHED THIS LIE TO JUSTIFY HOMOSEXUAL ACCEPTANCE INTO THE COMMUNITY - IT WAS A LIE!
A recent study by Raifman et al. (2017) finds that same-sex marriage (SSM) laws generate substantial mental health benefits for high school students, particularly those that identify as sexual minorities. We re-examine this finding using data drawn from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveys from 1993 to 2017.
Our results show little evidence that SSM laws reduce suicide attempts, suicide planning, suicide ideation or depressive symptomatology among high school students.
LGBT POTENTIAL YOUTH SUICIDE - WAS USED AS A WEAPONAGAINST THOSE OPPOSING IMMORAL HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE
Prior evidence for mental health benefits of SSM laws appears to be driven by underestimated standard errors, lack of sufficient post-treatment data, and use of a theoretically tenuous specification that restricts the mental health effects of all covariates — which include other state LGBT policies — to be identical for sexual minorities and heterosexuals. Moreover, the addition of data from the post-Obergefell v. Hodges decision changes the sign.
We also show that SSM laws had no effect on tobacco use, binge drinking, illicit drug use, or bullying victimization among LGB-identifying teens. We conclude that while SSM laws appear to generate important benefits for adult same-sex couples, it is too soon to conclude that the benefits of these laws extend to adolescent psychological wellbeing.
The embrace of SSM remains one of the most dramatic social changes in ANY
nation’s history. While there is evidence that SSM laws have generated important financial and health-related benefits for same-sex couples, whether these benefits extend to LGB youth remains an open question.
Our results suggest that their findings can be explained by a combination of (i)
insufficiently adjusted standard errors and improper weighting, (ii) failure to allow the effects of covariates to differ for self-identified sexual minorities and heterosexuals, (iii) insufficient accounting for pre-treatment differences in suicide attempts among SSM and non-SSM states, (iv) focus on one measure of suicidal behavior, and (v) insufficient post-treatment data on SSM states.
Our results provide compelling evidence that SSM laws have little effect on suicide behaviors of self-identifying sexual minorities. Moreover, in expanded data, we even uncover some evidence of worsening mental health outcomes for vulnerable LGB youth.
We find no evidence that SSM laws affect other risky behaviors such as tobacco use, alcohol consumption, marijuana consumption, or bullying victimization. We conclude that while there may be important benefits of SSM for adults, there is insufficient evidence to yet suggest that there are important short-run mental health benefits for LGB youths
The embrace of SSM remains one of the most dramatic social changes in ANY
nation’s history. While there is evidence that SSM laws have generated important financial and health-related benefits for same-sex couples, whether these benefits extend to LGB youth remains an open question.
This study reviews the high profile evidence of Raifman et al. (2018), who find that SSM laws reduced suicide attempts by over 14 percent among self-identified sexual minorities.
Our results suggest that their findings can be explained by a combination of (i)
insufficiently adjusted standard errors and improper weighting, (ii) failure to allow the effects of covariates to differ for self-identified sexual minorities and heterosexuals, (iii) insufficient accounting for pre-treatment differences in suicide attempts among SSM and non-SSM states, (iv) focus on one measure of suicidal behavior, and (v) insufficient post-treatment data on SSM states.
Our results provide compelling evidence that SSM laws have little effect on suicide behaviors of self-identifying sexual minorities. Moreover, in expanded data, we even uncover some evidence of worsening mental health outcomes for vulnerable LGB youth.
We find no evidence that SSM laws affect other risky behaviors such as tobacco use, alcohol consumption, marijuana consumption, or bullying victimization. We conclude that while there may be important benefits of SSM for adults, there is insufficient evidence to yet suggest that there are important short-run mental health benefits for LGB youths
