I’m happy to see so many positive comments about Mormons here. I usually don’t mention that I’m Mormon in online forums since I see mostly negativity about the church. (It’s just me being self-conscious) We’re certainly not perfect but we do try to look out our neighbors, I’m glad that’s recognized on the outside as well.

(As an Atheist) It bothers me to no end the amount of negativity that gets heaped on Mormons. From their immense early persecution[0] to being regularly ridiculed today, as a people they remain some of the kindest, most open-hearted, hard working people I know. And the sense of community that is stoked by them is tremendous. Sure, we all have issues, but as a group they are darn supportive of both each other and their communities. I, for one, admire that.

[0] read No Man Knows My History, for an historical perspective.

As another atheist/naturalist, I always find interesting how members of one religion found the mythology of another religion "ridiculous" and worth making fun of, but want the mythology of their own religion to be taken seriously and as a truth.

People live so much of their life in virtual worlds of media & thought that they confuse them with reality. So people will decide that they dislike Mormons (because everyone knows theism is dumb and antiscientific) or Muslims (because they're all terrorists), despite never having truly met any, having zero knowledge of their history, etc. The negative reactions you speak of aren't about Mormons or the church, they're about figments of sequestered imaginations, unconstrained by reality.

It's a shame. Real life is so much richer. In my real life I've often come across Mormon missionaries (in the past knocking at my door - not sure if they still do this?), and despite radical differences in view, have mostly had warm & engaging interactions.

Very well said, thank you; and of course it applies to almost every prejudice. It is indeed a shame.

As a someone who is not a Mormon (not even religious) I find the U.S.'s anti-Mormon bias to be very disappointing. My wife an I are planning a move to Salt Lake City while a lot of people talk about cities about the amenities and conveniences, the people are far more important and the people of Utah are a big part of why it's the place we want to raise a family.

Thanks for writing this -- I'm in the same boat. I'm not obvious about it (except maybe a mention in my Twitter bio or an occasional tweet) because I feel like mentioning my faith will taint people's perspective of me or my work. I am hopeful that there are quite a few people who can respect Mormons even if they don't agree with the tenets of the LDS church.

We certainly have our strengths, but also our own unique mix of sins.

> Mormons are the kindest

There is nothing kind about their treatment of the LGBT population in general, and LGBT youth in particular.

And if they were really that good at taking care of each other, I don't think that Utah would rank 5th in the nation for adolescent suicides (children 15 - 19 years) with a per capita suicide rate more than double the national average.*

They really do like to put on a good face, but their actions and the data says something rather different.

* https://www.statista.com/statistics/666791/states-with-highe...

I won’t disagree that Mormons still have a ways to go regarding relations with the LGBT community, but if you have follow the Mormon church at all you’ve seen lots of progress in the last 10 years which continues to be made.

As for the suicide rate, you are making very careless and dangerous assumptions. Yes, it’s higher than most other areas. The reason for why is still very much unknown, and could be attributed in part to a wide variety of factors, ranging anywhere from demographics to the high altitude. Assuming it’s high because Mormons are awful people is baseless and clearly an instance of someone who has looking to confirm their biases.

If you are going to bring data into the conversation you should try and be more empirically minded about it.

The religion of suicide victims and their parents aren't tracked officially, but over 50% of the population of Utah identify as Mormon.

I am perfectly willing to accept that more rural areas tend to have higher suicide rates, and that is not necessarily going to be correlated with religion, but at the same time, 1/3 of the population lives in the SLC metro area, which should be a moderating influence on the state's suicide rate if this is the primary cause.

The only other statistic I know of regarding Utah that is an outlier over the US in general is the percentage of individuals who identify as Mormon. As such, a hypothesis that the higher adolescent suicide rate has something to do with religion is perfectly valid, although still only a hypothesis.

Handwavy dismissals from Mormons about the high suicide rate all have one thing in common: they may explain higher than average baselibe levels, but they don't explain the growth. It is certainly plausible, and as empirical understandings improve, Mormonism is certainly being honed in on as a significant factor.

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/10798286

From the same publication, teen suicide rates are rising across the US:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/suicide-rates-teen-girl...

And while the rate of child and teen suicide has risen by 23.5 percent nationally during the years covered by the study, it "more than doubled" (a 136 percent rise) in Utah, according to researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

https://health.usnews.com/health-care/articles/2018-03-22/cd...

So some possible hypotheses (in what I would consider most to least plausible):

1) Whatever causes the higher overall rates in Utah (altitude and/or other variables) that interacts in a non-linear way with whatever is causing the national increase.

2) Whatever factor that is driving the national increase is more influential in Utah for whatever reason. (e.g. maybe social networks are more harmful to more-judgmental Mormon communities)

3) There is some recent change in Mormon culture that has driven a change in teen suicide rates.

4) Mormon culture has caused a change in suicide rates despite not changing.

Do you have any support that would make (3) or (4) sound more reasonable? Or do you have another hypothesis?

One particularly strong datum in favor of 3/4 is the "November policy". On November 5th 2015 the church released a new policy:

* Claimed it is from God

* If you are gay then you are declared apostate and excommunicated (the strongest punishment that can be applied by the church, with extreme social repercussions)

* If your parents are gay, you're not allowed to be baptized at age 8 like other children, even given parent permission. Instead you must wait until age 21 and submit a signed affidavit disavowing your parents' relationship

* If your parents are gay you cannot get a baby blessing

Along with this policy came a strong increase in the anti-gay rhetoric from the prophets and apostles at the bi-annual general conference that all members attend.

Try putting that data point on a chart that shows the suicide rate and the correlation gets eerie.

That sounds horrible, but I'm not sure that explains the numbers. A quick internet search suggests that LGBT youth have 3x the suicide attempt rate.

https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/preventing-suicid...

Given that LGBT is maybe 4-10% of the population of the population, it's not likely to be driving such a big spike in the total numbers. I'd be interested in a more careful breakdown if anyone has it.

Additionally, my interactions with Mormons suggests them (and pretty much everyone else) becoming more tolerant of LGBT, not less. However, that's anecdotes, not data.

I 100% agree that everyday interactions with Mormons suggests they are becoming more tolerant, and most of them struggle with the policies that are set by the church.

The issue is that the uppermost echelon of church leadership is a lifetime calling, they aren't replaced until one of them dies. This leads to the prophets and apostles all being the _oldest_ members of the church, and usually the most regressive. Combine that with the fact that obedience to leadership is tantamount to even personal revelation, and you get lots of hate speech over the pulpit even while the members in the pews are actually rather tolerant.

Let me run the numbers here though - if we have 100,000 youth then in 2015 there were 11 (0.011%) that committed suicide. If 4% of them are gay, that is 4,000 gay youth, and if their suicide rate is 3x the average then we'd expect 0.033% or 1-2 LGBT youth suicides.

If that were the end of it, I'd agree with you that it can't explain the near doubling. But would we expect LGBT youth to commit suicide more often, less often, or the same in a community with the above "November policy" kind of standards? I'd wager that LGBT youth suicides in Utah account for closer to 30% of all youth suicides.

I agree it doesn't completely explain the rise, but it seems a significant enough factor to be including in discussion.

Your assumption is that these factors could not be intertwined.

I would submit the following hypothesis:

As the nation moves in a direction where religion plays a smaller and smaller role culturally and legally, many follows of religion double down and attempt to prevent their children from moving in that direction. In places with a lower percentages of people who consider themselves religious - or at least very religious, this crackdown happens less, but when it does adolescents have other friends or family they can turn to for support. More insular communities - such as Mormons - do not offer the external support structure to young people, leaving them fewer options they see as viable.

So while this is not necessarily a problem only in the Mormon community, it certainly is exacerbating the problem.

> 1) Whatever causes the higher overall rates in Utah (altitude and/or other variables) that interacts in a non-linear way with whatever is causing the national increase.

Any proponent of this hypothesis will face quite the uphill battle explaining why suicide rates are growing nowhere near as fast in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona, or Nevada.

> 2) Whatever factor that is driving the national increase is more influential in Utah for whatever reason. (e.g. maybe social networks are more harmful to more-judgmental Mormon communities)

Certainly possible. There are plenty of judgmental religious clusters in the US, but it's the state with all the Mormons that seems to be the outlier, which would need explanation.

> 3) There is some recent change in Mormon culture that has driven a change in teen suicide rates.

There certainly is a lot of recent changes in mormon culture as well as mormon teachings as of late, and ramping up quite dramatically for a good 20 years now. Before prop 8, there was almost no focus on homosexuality, now it is a regular topic. There have been some major policy changes, such as disallowing baptism of children of gay parents.

There has been a huge growth in focus on pornography and modesty over the last two decades. For example, you can find plenty of strapless and sleeveless dresses in the BYU homecoming archives, but none recently. You can read conference archives from 20 years ago and find few, if any, references to pornography or modesty...whereas every conference now will focus a large amount of time on the subjects.

> 4) Mormon culture has caused a change in suicide rates despite not changing.

It demonstrably has changed, so this one is out.

> Do you have any support that would make (3) or (4) sound more reasonable? Or do you have another hypothesis?

It's a combination of 2 and 3. For example, pornography is drastically more available now than 20 years ago, but that wouldn't be much of a problem if not coupled with the shame and judgment of mormon teachings combined with the drastic growth in focus on the subject. Same goes for everything related to sexuality: modesty and social media, homosexuality and the various legal/policy actions that the church has taken, etc. The combination of of social change, technological change, mormon shame/guilt/judgment, mormon obsession with perfection and social image, and recent mormon heel-digging behavior is precisely what I would think is the most plausible hypothesis.

As mentioned in another reply, I don't think LGBT is big enough portion of the population to really drive a huge change, despite having high suicide rates.

I'd be interested to see gender breakdown to see if modesty is an issue. I find it implausible, but would love to see data showing me wrong. Especially because when I grew up Mormon (I'm now atheist), a bikini was pretty risque but now I see conservative Mormons wearing bikinis as often as not. A priori, I would also expect modesty to decrease, not increase suicide rates (especially among the overweight or otherwise less-attractive). I'm not rooting for sexual modesty. I think it's probably good for society, but I don't care for it.

Pornography is interesting. I don't know how much Mormons have focused on it, but I'd be fascinated to see if that was a factor.