The Wisconsin State Journal reports on a study conducted by Dr. Maurice Gattis of UW Madison that shows gay youth involved in gay-affirming religious communities have fewer “depressive symptoms” from discrimination than other gay youth:
pecifically, gay college students in the study who were affiliated with gay-affirming religious denominations suffered fewer “depressive symptoms” related to discrimination than their gay counterparts who are secular or who were affiliated with denominations opposed to same-sex marriage.
Remarkably, this was true for all groups; that is to say, gays in “gay-affirming” denominations scored better on the survey than did secular gays.
For the Episcopal Church, one caveat: for the purposes of this study “gay-affirming” was defined by the denomination’s stand on same-sex marriage.