The American Psychological Association scored a Pyrrhic victory in 1973 when it embarked on a successful lobby that saw the removal of being gay as part of mental health cases.

Fast forward more than four decades later, have the suicide rates among the gay community reduced?

A survey published in FS Magazine surveyed over 600 men to learn more about poor mental health and depression among the gay community, and the finding was published in Pink News, ironically, one of the most read LGBT magazines in the world. The findings were frightening and damning on the whole wild idea of being LGBT: 24 per cent of the gay men admitted to attempting to commit suicide; the other 54 per cent admitted to having suicidal thoughts, while 70 per cent said that extremely low self-esteem and depression were the chief causes of their being suicidal. Other causes of suicide were from ‘relationship issues’ which 56 per cent of them said was their major challenge, 53 per cent complained that isolation was responsible for their attempts to take their own lives and 49 per cent said not feeling attractive was responsible for their wanting to end it all. The survey further revealed that gay men diagnosed with HIV had higher rates of suicidal thoughts and depression, while 66 per cent said that living with HIV was the remote cause of their low self-esteem, as they had absolutely nothing to live for and had a deep feeling of worthlessness. “Rates of depression among gay men with HIV are twice as high as they are among other gay men, affecting one in every four gay men.”

Nigerians were stunned with the suicide of Dr Allwell Orji, a young and promising medical doctor who took his own life this month by jumping into the Lagos Lagoon, ‘after receiving a phone call.’ I was shocked to my bone-marrow when a medical doctor friend revealed to me that they were classmates at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, where he cut the picture of someone who couldn’t hurt a fly let alone indulge in irreparable self-harm. Many more Nigerians have been saved from killing themselves, especially at the Lagos Lagoon, but an area much ignored which will definitely exacerbate the suicide rates is among the LGBT community in the country. They have been brainwashed - by Western liberals and their local African media stooges - that being gay is normal and they have tragically bought into the scam that you are born gay. On the Twitter handle of Nigeria’s most prominent LGBT activist and the first Nigerian to come out as gay on national television in 2004 on the defunct New Dawn show, Bisi Alimi, is the inscription ‘I was gay by the first time I cried as a baby.’ This nature argument is used to hoodwink many gay men which drives them insane to misuse their bodies for the purpose for which it was created- which only increases the mental agony and pain they go through on a daily basis – invariably leading them on the suicidal path. They, then, turn around to blame heterosexuals for being homophobic, as the cause of the suicides of the gay community. How sad!

For those who read literature in secondary or high school as it is called in the United States, Richard Cory is a popular poem that showed the tragedy of an apparently successful man committing suicide for no reason as he failed to leave a note. The poet, Edwin Arlington Robinson, was visionary to see how a society steeped in materialism could still leave a void that no amount of material possessions can fill. Many gay men have to have their anuses stitched because of the anus that flows uncontrollably, many can’t sit down properly anymore. Imagine the mental torture that goes on in their minds knowing full well that the purposes of their bodies is being used for self-glorifying purposes.

Ric Weiland was a brilliant computer programmer and was among the first five employees of Microsoft. His brilliance saw him have a meteoric rise in the world’s largest software maker, despite the cloak and dagger politics that is part and parcel of the corporate world. He resigned with generous stock options in 1988 to go into full philanthropy and was a ‘role model’ for some, as he appeared in several high-profiles with his gay partner. On June 24, 2006 he shot himself in the head. He reportedly left $65 million to some gay rights and HIV organisations.

As concerned citizens interested in stemming the tide of suicides, our attention should expand from policing the Lagos Lagoon to helping our gay brothers and lesbian sisters leave that destructive lifestyle, so that they can live more purposeful lives with the society and posterity being its ultimate largest beneficiary.

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