Gallagher Isn't Killing Gay Teens

National Organization for Marriage president Maggie Gallagher says she
and other anti–marriage equality activists are not responsible for the
recently reported suicides among LGBT teens.

“Do I have blood on my hands?” she asks as she kicks off her guest column in the New York Post.

Gallagher calls the deaths “terrible” and “tragic” and says each teen is a “child of God.” But she also says that, according to marriage equality supporters, “either we all agree that gay marriage is good or gay children will die.”

Speaking to the statistic that “LGBT teens are four times as likely as other students to attempt suicide,” Gallagher says the “it’s homophobia pulling the trigger” narrative isn’t quite accurate.

She writes, “Gay students are also more than twice as likely to report having had sexual intercourse before age 13 — that is, to be sexually abused as children. They are three times as likely to report being the victims of dating violence, and nearly four times as likely to report forced sexual contact. A majority of LGBT teens in Massachusetts reported using illegal drugs in the last month. (Perhaps most oddly, gay teens are also three times as likely as non-gay teens to report either becoming pregnant or getting someone else pregnant.)”

Read the full column here.