The oldest I’m familiar with supports the concept of inalienable rights and other formative ideas behind our system of government, and can be secular. The problems start when religious ideologues and those pandering to the religious right use the phrase in a way that suggests that old meaning, while actually referring to a bunch of rightwing moralism and an implicit false claim that the “Founding Fathers” intended a Christian nation, rather than the one we got, which has protections built in to prevent a repeat of the theocratic craziness of the 17th century.

As best I can tell, Natural Law is supposed to be something along the lines of ‘Nature reveals God’s intent’ but it seems in practice to be ‘Natural Law is what I say it is’.

Natural law concepts do not logically lead to Catholic conclusions. Which is precisely why they smuggle in so-called revelation halfway through the process.

Natural law concepts are based on the facts of nature, hence the term “natural law.” What they are making are claims of a supernatural law, the very opposite of natural law. The facts of the nature of sexuality are now what the Pope says. We see the facts daily around us and they don’t jive with Catholic moralistic teaching. In truth Christians are at war with reality, not in conformity with it.

On the other hand, if we compare the suicide rates for males and females from all countries of the world for which figures are available, we find some very interesting figures. It is only in selected rural and urban areas of China (no figures for China as a whole being available for some reason) that the suicide rate for males is slightly lower than that for females (the male rate being 0.87 of the female rate), and only in Kuwait are the male and female rates equal. In every other country of the world the male rate is higher. In seven countries the male rate is under twice the female rate: Hong Kong (X 1.7), El Salvador (X 1.89), India (X 1.34), Peru (X 1.5), the Philippines (X 1.47), Saint Lucia (X 1.6) and Singapore (X 1.95). All others boast a male rate of AT LEAST DOUBLE that for females, ranging from X 2 (Albania) to an amazing X 9.8 (Bahrain). The UK and the USA are comparatively low down the list, their male suicide rates being respectively X 3.57 and X 4.29 the female rate.

So what are we to conclude from these figures? That being male is pathological?

It’s abundantly clear that some of the higher rate of depression among the LGBT community is caused by intolerance of LGBT people. But it could also be the case, even if everyone treated LGBT people equally and with respect, that the rate would still be somewhat higher. The question that this would raise would be “So what?”

The anti-gay presentation and interpretation of these depression statistics could only make sense if they demonstrated, with studies, that people who deny their homosexual orientation and on the surface live a heterosexual lifestyle are overall less depressed than the LGBT people who live out the LGBT lifestyle. Methinks such studies will not be forthcoming.

Exactly. They suffer from religious schizophrenia which some people call Christ-Psychosis. And if any Christians out there who would rather believe “truth” from a bronze and iron age book written by sheep herders and cult leaders than established real-world facts and findings, then the label “Christ-Psychotic” fits them perfectly and they have to wear it.