Anti-gay One News Now distorts study on gay mental health counseling

Lately, the phony news service One News Now was so focused on denigrating President Obama and spreading lies about his health care reform that I, as a member of the lgbt community, was beginning to feel left out.

It usually makes us the subject of its one-sided messes masquerading as news articles.

Well I no longer feel omitted, thanks to an article published today:

A new study shows that homosexuals and lesbians seek mental health counseling far more than heterosexuals.

The UCLA School of Public Health found that to be true in California, but there have been other studies with similar results. Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality says homosexuals usually respond that they would not have so many problems if society would simply accept their behavior as normal.

"You can't just keep going back to homophobia and societal stigma to account for this huge difference between straights and homosexuals with regard to various pathologies," he contends. "First of all, we're talking about California, where there's a much greater tolerance for homosexuality -- so you can't keep pointing to the stigma."

That's basically the gist of the article. A lead in talking about the UCLA study and then Peter LaBarbera rambling on as he does about us "nasty, evil, sinful homosexuals."

Now a credible news service would give more information about the study.

But then again we are talking about One News Now, the supposed Christian news service which used to be a sounding board for Paul Cameron's discredited studies when it was known as Agape Press.

But speaking of the UCLA study, I found some facts which were omitted from the One News Now article. This is from a UCLA press release:

Researchers collected data on 2,074 people, who were first interviewed in the California Health Interview Survey, in a new survey known as the California Quality of Life Survey. They found that 48.5 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals reported receiving treatment in the past year, compared with 22.5 percent of heterosexuals. Overall, lesbians and bisexual women were most likely to receive treatment, and heterosexual men were least likely.

While men and women, regardless of sexual orientation, who had an alcohol and/or drug disorder showed no significant differences in treatment rates, the study found that lesbian and bisexual women who had not been diagnosed with mental and drug disorders were more likely to seek mental health counseling than heterosexual women. This is consistent with emerging findings from national surveys showing that many individuals who receive mental health treatment do not have a diagnosable disorder but may have other symptoms, such as psychological distress or impairments in functioning, that lead them to seek care.

The researchers considered several factors that may explain these findings. Discrimination, violence and other stressful life events may be greater among sexual and gender minorities, they said, and homosexuality and issues associated with it may be construed as mental health problems — particularly among racial and ethnic minorities — which may encourage people to seek treatment. Further, in gay and lesbian communities, therapeutic services are considered appropriate places for coping with the stresses associated with being a sexual minority.(Editor's note - I highlighted that part to show what One News Now omitted.)

So three things to remember:

1. The study never said that homosexuality is a mental disorder (but watch how some folks will misconstrue this point).

2. The researchers did say that discrimination (i.e. stress caused from discrimination) may play a part in their findings, and One News Now omitted this part.

3. You would have better luck with trying to get Rush Limbaugh and Hilary Clinton together as a couple than finding truth in a One News Now article.

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Dissecting a One News Now article