Dad links son's suicide to "The God Delusion"

[Alerik the Fortunate]

Part of the responsibility division between anti-gay and anti-religious books and their effects on a susceptible individual is the professor's knowledge of the student's background. No professor unless he or she were willfully, moronically insular and/or cruel, could not know that an LGBT student would have faced homophobic discrimination from much of society and unsolicited exhortations from Christians. Furthermore, the basis of this unwarranted criticism could only have originated from religious texts, of which the student is certainly aware, and simply citing them to the student could not reasonably be construed as a simple well-intentioned desire to inform the student, but rather as a form of psychological bullying. Even if the motivation is genuine concern for the student's soul, it is still a form of emotional manipulation rather than providing information.

The exception could be of course a professor in an exclusively Christian institution where the combination of doublethink and deliberate isolation from outside thought results in the possibility of living in a parallel world where one is ignorant of the actual treatment of LGBT persons by the Christian majority in general society. One wonders then, what an openly gay student is doing in such an institution, since they offer nothing to those who do not identify to the core with Christianity. Which leaves the only possibility being a closeted student admitting his or her difficulties to the professor, and the professor taking advantage of the relationship to reinforce Christian propaganda and attempt to cut off any chance of the student reaching out to a support group that is separate from the church's teachings. Then if there is no way to accept yourself without losing your soul, and there is no one who will sympathize, and obtaining outside perspective is tantamount to treason, what option is there but suicide?

On the other hand, if a student is a devoted Christian, then he or she has almost certainly not been exposed to genuine criticism of religion, since all his life he would have been only allowed to see strawmen of arguments against the church. You cannot be a professing Christian and really understand the arguments against Christianity because they are correct. The professor is opening up a perspective that the student has not really experienced before, rather than trying to close off any possible avenues of new thought, which is effectively the case in the anti-gay literature scenario. One can simply choose to reject new information, especially if one has a preexisting community to fall back on, much more easily than one can reject the community itself in order to embrace a thought that one is not even permitted to know about fully. That being said, though, perhaps there ought to be more organized support groups for those possibly deconverting from religion, since that tends to be a very emotionally traumatic period for many people, and unstable individuals are probably at high risk for suicide or other harm. The professor ought to take some responsibility in making provisions for this possibility if he sincerely thinks opening up his student's minds to a different worldview has a good chance of succeeding.