
Same-sex marriage linked to decline in teen suicides - Liriel
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/same-sex-marriage-linked-to-decline-in-teen-suicides/
======
jawns
When I read studies like this, one of the first things I like to do is look
around for critiques.

On conservative commentary website Stream.org, statistician William M. Briggs
(who, take it for what it's worth, opposes same-sex marriage) offers a
critique of the study's methodology and conclusion, as well as the conclusion
that the study expressly does not make, but that the headlines have made:

[https://stream.org/no-a-study-did-not-show-that-same-sex-
mar...](https://stream.org/no-a-study-did-not-show-that-same-sex-marriage-
laws-reduce-teen-suicide-rates/)

A few interesting snippets from his critique:

> A weighted 8.6% to a weighted 8%, they say. This is a 7% reduction, all
> right, but a minor tweak in the actual weighted number. The numbers are
> weighted averages across several states and the result of a statistical
> model called a linear regression. The 0.6 drop is not observed, but is the
> output from a model.

> The numbers within states is anything but straightforward (the authors
> provide graphs). For instance, some states show reported suicide attempts
> increasing after gmarriage (New York, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, for
> example). The graphs also indicate a general decline in rates before
> gmarriage and continuing afterwards (see their Fig. 3).

> putting Ebola in the model works equally well with gmarriage to explain the
> data. So do the disasters of those crashing Malaysian airliners, or the
> fighting in Ukraine and Crimea. So does the 2014 Winter Olympics!

One other point that Briggs makes only indirectly, but bears mentioning, is
that measuring the number of self-reported unsuccessful suicide attempts only
provides us with part of the picture; we can't make any firm conclusions about
what its rise or fall says about suicide prevention unless we also know the
number of _successful_ suicide attempts. For instance, it might be the case
that some suicide prevention factor reduces the likelihood that any given
suicide attempt is successful. Maybe hospitals have gotten better at reducing
the mortality rate of intentional overdoses. In such a case, the rate of
suicide attempts might remain relatively flat, but the rate of unsuccessful
suicide attempts would rise, and the rate of successful suicide attempts would
fall.

~~~
mikeash
This is a bit of a tangent, but I find it really bizarre that a site which
says it's "championing freedom, smaller government" is so stridently against
same-sex marriage.

I can only conclude that some people have a radically different idea of
"freedom" and "smaller government" than I do.

Bringing it back to the original topic a bit, it's sad that people's reactions
are so predictable. People in favor of same-sex marriage think this study is
great. People who oppose it think it sucks. How boring! Show me someone in
favor of same-sex marriage who thinks this study is terrible, or someone
against who thinks the study is really good.

~~~
judah
>> "I can only conclude that some people have a radically different idea of
"freedom" and "smaller government" than I do."

Small government conservative here. It's actually pretty simple:

Small government: the government should stop meddling in marriage altogether.
It's a social and often religious institution.

Freedom: We take seriously the founders' belief that government should not
infringe on religious liberty.

~~~
pc86
Small government conservative here, too! And it's not nearly that simple.

"Religious liberty," especially in the context of the American founders, is
the freedom to practice your faith privately in whatever manner you wish, and
to speak about that faith publicly without fear or persecution. It is _not_
the freedom to impose your religious mores on other people who do not share
your religion, or even those who do. To imply otherwise is to bastardize what
this country was founded on and does a disservice to the founders.

If you want government to stop meddling in marriage, I hope you're fighting
against tax breaks and other marriage incentives just as hard as you are
against allowing two people you'll never meet to enjoy the same recognition
straight people do.

~~~
Mendenhall
I wish all government connections to marriage were removed. No special taxes
etc etc for anyone married or not. That way there is no connection at all to
marriage and government. Such an easy problem to solve, thing is people dont
really want to.

~~~
nommm-nommm
It's not really an easy "problem" to solve though.

Civil (ie. government sanctioned) marriage is a social construct that most
people want to, and eventually will, enter into. People enter into marriages
because they want the legal framework around it. If there were no legal
framework around marriage people would have to run around filling out
paperwork everywhere setting up their partner as their next-of-kin.

There's also currently no non-marriage way to create the same sort of civil
partnership that marriage brings, stuff like spousal privilege and unlimited
inheritance just to name two. And these are things people want. If all people
were interested in was religious marriage or partnership/love/companionship
they either wouldn't bother getting married or wouldn't bother registering
their religious marriage with the state.

Its currently impossible to get government out of marriage without also
fundamentally changing our concept of marriage.

There's arguments that the "family/marriage" concept is benefited too much in
society, and I'd probably agree with that.

------
turc1656
The national conversation on this topic is entirely wrong. The supreme court
has clearly stated a number of times over the the years
([http://afer.org/blog/14-supreme-court-cases-marriage-is-a-
fu...](http://afer.org/blog/14-supreme-court-cases-marriage-is-a-fundamental-
right/)) that marriage is a fundamental right. So what we should be asking the
government is if it's a fundamental right, why do we require a license to get
married? Fundamental rights are not supposed to require anything to exercise
since we derive them not from the government but from our mere existence as
human beings.

I don't require a license to exercise my right to free speech and publish
something online or create a film. I don't have to apply for a license to
practice religion. Why the hell do I need permission from the government to
get married, especially when such a ceremony (for most people) is a religious
one? Sure, some people go to the justice of the peace to get married. But
nearly everyone has a religious ceremony or they hire a neutral officiant (or
have someone they know get ordained).

Historically marriage has always been a religious ceremony. If we want to deem
it something else, I'm fine with that. We can still allow people to get
married and not have the government be involved. Why can't we just decide who
we are going to get married to, and simply fill out some paperwork to declare
(not ask permission) ourselves married and notify the government of our status
change.

Asking permission is obscene and defeats the entire purpose of declaring it a
"fundamental right".

~~~
LordKano
_So what we should be asking the government is if it 's a fundamental right,
why do we require a license to get married?_

What you're asking for isn't permission to get married. You're asking for
government recognition of your marriage.

 _Historically marriage has always been a religious ceremony._

No. Historically, weddings have been religious ceremony.

Marriage is bigger than the wedding. Marriage means legal changes. Being
married means that someone can hold you accountable for your spouse's debts.
Being married means the joint ownership of property. Being married means next
of kin status. Being married means legal presumption of paternity. Being
married means survivor's benefits when one spouse dies.

These are all things what are enforced by the government and THAT is why
marriage licenses exist.

Want to declare your undying love for your partner and become religiously,
spiritually or culturally married? Go ahead. Want the legal protections of the
secular institution of marriage? You need a license.

~~~
zeveb
> Marriage means legal changes. Being married means that someone can hold you
> accountable for your spouse's debts. Being married means the joint ownership
> of property. Being married means next of kin status. Being married means
> legal presumption of paternity. Being married means survivor's benefits when
> one spouse dies.

Why do we tie those to sexual relationship status, though? The only one of
those for which that makes any sense is a legal presumption of paternity,
which we _don 't need_ now that we have accurate genetic tests (save for
identical twins).

Why _shouldn 't_ my brother, or my best friend, or members of my yacht club,
be able to hold joint ownership, or be my next of kin, or get benefits through
me?

Secular marriage is just the husk of religious marriage, sapped of what
actually makes a marriage _marriage_.

~~~
zeta0134
Disclaimer: I am a gay man, and my support of gay marriage has always been a
gray area.

The elephant in the room that must be established here is a biological one. As
much as we can hold hands and sing about the beauty of love, it remains that
biologically, only a man and a woman can have _children._

Historically, it is this dependency, this social contract to promise to stay
together to raise one's children, that has given rise to many of the legal
protections that a marriage license provides.

Now, there have been lots of heterosexual couples who marry on paper, never
have kids, and for them it's largely a financial commitment (legally) and less
of a social contract. I don't think same sex marriage is different in a
financial regard than these examples, so I support it. But the situation gets
somewhat more hairy when you consider that same sex couples may still want to
raise children, and then the issue of surrogate mothers, adoption, same sex
households, and all sorts of other potential legal complications come into
play. How would a custody case play out with two fathers, for example?

I'm not arguing for or against same sex marriage, and I'm personally in a
polyamorous relationship that's unlikely to be recognized legally in any way
shape or form, so there's that as well. I just want to draw attention to some
of the hidden complexities that it introduces.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Historically, it is this dependency, this social contract to promise to stay
> together to raise one's children, that has given rise to many of the legal
> protections that a marriage license provides.

Not really. Most of the legal effects of marriage amount to legal privileges
of the parties to the marriage with respect to each other, both with property
and in some power-of-attorney like ways.

The big exception is the presumption (rebuttable or absolute, depending on the
jurisdiction) of paternity, which may be irrelevant to same sex [0] marriages
(though, in principle, even ignoring the issues under the previous footnote
the _absolute_ form and it's stability-over-biology related motivations is
equally applicable to same-sex female unions as it is to opposite-sex unions.)

[0] Though given that _legal_ sex is really a form of socially-ascribed gender
and may not align with biological sex, it's also arguable that presumption of
paternity is just as applicable to same (legal) sex unions as opposite sex
unions as a class, though statistically less likely to be relevant to any
particular same sex union, given the loose correlation between biological and
legal sex.

------
vivekd
I just want to write quickly to say - "sample size." You can't make
conclusions like the one in the title because we don't have a large enough
sample size of nations that legalized same sex marriage to reliably make
conclusions about how it affects suicide rates, especially when you consider
other variables such as growing acceptance of homosexuality and growing
awareness of things like depression.

This "comparison methodology" that the researchers presume to get around that
- does not get around the problem of small sample sizes nor does it eliminate
other variables such as social attitudes because the legalization of gay
marriage itself is linked to changing social attitudes towards homosexuality.

I am glad that gay suicides are down, but to say it's definitely linked to gay
marriage is premature and unfounded. This research seems to be pseudo science
in the service of a political agenda.

------
misja111
See also: [http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-
correlations](http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations)

------
Brockenstein
It is interesting that the study showed a drop across all teens. I mean a drop
among lgbtq teens seems pretty predictable, so I'm not surprised that the
effect seems to be much greater for them.

For a lot of lgbtq teens who are having a rough time because the sliver of the
world that they live in is against them at every turn, the hope that the wider
world is more accepting and that they'll have equal rights and protections,
that they'll just be able to live, has to provide hope to some. Same-sex
marriage is just another rung in the ladder of progress and every step up that
ladder is going to be the tipping point for someone to decide to live instead
of checking out.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I have heard that suicide is 'contagious' in that it has 'copycat' outbreaks
so if an LGBT teen doesn't attempt it, then perhaps a near suicidal non-LGBT
teen in their community will also not attempt.

------
helthanatos
Didn't people already say this study was worthless because they couldn't
actually find causation?

------
rocky1138
Previous HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13702202](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13702202)

------
lngnmn
That could be linked to cheaper and better smartphones, better and more
available video-games, raise of streaming and shitty TV shows or increase of
traffic to 4chan.

------
b4xt3em4n
When I saw studies like this, i guess a student of statistics is died
somewhere.

------
mcrowson
[http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-
correlations](http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations)

------
jlebrech
can the same correlation be made from grindr?

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Wonder if, by the same token, teen suicides increase in states introducing new
anti-LGBT laws. (Probably.)

------
matthewmorgan
The fields of psychology and sociology have been churning out fake science for
decades

