Arizona Elected Official Thinks Gay Men Die at 42

A Republican politician in Arizona says gay men die young thanks to a "harmful" lifestyle. "That's why they die," said Mohave County Supervisor Ron Gould.

He tossed out an average lifespan, 42 years, in an interview with the Kingman Daily Miner.

"We all have our sins, but we should try to suppress them," he told the outlet. "Alcoholism is harmful too, but we don't see groups promoting alcoholism."

The Daily Miner ran the interview under the headline "Supervisor Gould Calls Them as He Sees Them."

Gould served in the Arizona Senate previously and sponsored a ban on same-sex marriage at the time, notes Metro Weekly.

Gould offered no citation for his estimate of the average life expectancy of LGBTQ individuals. The Phoenix New Timesnotes the number falls very close to one promoted by the Family Research Institute in 1994.

Besides that statistic coming out in the midst of the AIDS crisis and well before modern medications greatly increased the life expectancy for HIV-positive people, the number was also criticized at the time as likely inaccurate because it was based on obituary notices that made the sexuality of the deceased clear.