I'll stress my original point: Incidence of suicide amongst High School students is uncommon.

Approximately 150 per year over 3000 plus high schools - assuming the majority of people in that age demographic were actually at school. Some would not.

Even accepting Brian Greigs assertion that "Some 30 per cent of all youth suicides are from LGBTI kids who didn’t or couldn’t get the care and support they really needed." that equates to 45 unfortunate young people Australia wide over some 3000+ High Schools. I would like to know how Greig collated his figures though.

I don't have numbers to support or disprove suggestion rates of student suicide have fallen since introduction of the chaplaincy program. I do know, despite National campaigns in Suicide Awareness and much money invested in "Prevention" - there is still a sizeable number of people taking their own lives.

This despite numerous SECULAR Trained Professionals available in the Community to whom troubled souls can turn for help. Likewise - look at other services presided over by similarly Trained Professionals - like Childrens Services. If you are not shuddering yet, you should be.

Chaplains offer a sympathetic ear for starters (Christianity teaches "Judge not") and beyond - referral to specific services if the young persons issues are out of the Chaplains league. Though I don't know any personally, I have several relatives and friends working in schools - in teaching and administrative positions who have nothing but praise for the job their "Chappies" do.

One theme I've heard repeated: Chaplains are predominately male. Troubled kids are more common in single parent (mother) homes. Boys in particular get a great deal of satisfaction being able to sit and talk to a upright man (as opposed to some alcohol/drug addled aggro fool who is likely Mum's new BF) who will listen to their problems and talk with them.

This whole argument is basically much ado about nothing. If a Chaplain was found using his or her position to push a religious viewpoint first and foremost I'm sure there would be a mechanism available to have them replaced

Divine msn - good points you have made and thanks for the stats you cited, which I am assuming are correct.

As you say it would be interesting to see how many student suicides actually were LGBT- related and how those stats have changed since the chaplains have been in schools.

I think its a bit rich of Brian to insinuate that these suicides have actually got worse because of chaplains when in fact the reverse may well be true.

I doubt that there would be any right wing evangelical school chaplains doing their extreme stuff in state or orthodox Christian(e.g Catholic, Anglican, Uniting Church)schools. Such people would surely be vetted out in the employment process or weeded out through performance reviews. Pushing any views such as or homophobia or for that matter creationism would of course be entirely inappropriate and I can't see them lasting long working with students.

However there would be a few 'right wing evangelical' schools where parents send their kids to be taught these views; maybe it would be worth looking more closely at suicide statistics in these schools?

Suggesting that young people commit suicide because they do not receive appropriate support for their sexual behaviour and attitudes is a baseless argument.

How do we know why anyone commits suicide? Suicide is not a rational act. It does not follow a cause and effect scenario. The instinct to live is the most basic instinct we have and we will do extraordinary things to make sure we stay alive. Everyone wants to live and no one wants to die. It is not a logical thing to do to commit suicide. If it is totally irrational then why do people look for reasons unless they are trying to project their own agenda on to the situation?

Someone who suggests that a young person commits suicide because they received no support for their homosexual lifestyle is trying to make society feel guilty where no guilt is appropriate. It is a very manipulative thing to do and it takes advantage of a very sad event to selfishly suggest that the two things are linked. Unless you have absolute proof of that connection then you expose your own desperation in trying to change society’s attitudes. If society needs to change its attitudes to homosexuality then it should do so because it is reasonable to do so. It should respond to good arguments as to why homosexuality is appropriate. Trying to emotionally manipulate society into changing is a sign that the author is not secure in his arguments. We should not indulge his dramatics and only listen to him when he is prepared to present logical arguments.

Let's be evidence-based and blunt: religiosity is strongly correlated with immorality and religious supremacy which in turn are used to prop up cultural, ethnic and racial supremacy. Religion is about taking on prescribed morality in neat comfortable recipes and finger-pointing exercises, rather than learning from evidence to discern event by event what is the best thing to do.

It might seem nice that Roses1 has reconciled his Christianity with his science but it remains that his god did order us GLBT to be put to death for thousands of years, ordered children from other tribes to be raped and taken as captive brides and even his son the christ who was at the right of his god at 'creation' though mental illness was the result of infection with evil spirits. And Roses1's 'christ' proved this was so by casting the devils into a herd of pigs that then suicided by drowning. Bet he wishes he could have such concrete evidence for his research as that.

It is damning that people can suspend so much of their religion but still claim to believe and still claim that their beliefs are a better way of living for other people. The presence of GLBTI, our genetics and our biology are a great threat to this allusion, hence they are here like flies around road-kill.

' Religion is about taking on prescribed morality in neat comfortable recipes and finger-pointing exercises, rather than learning from evidence to discern event by event what is the best thing to do. '

Describes the gw religion perfectly Eric G. Oh that's right the science is settled.

I've also read (and observed) that the most healthy and safe environment for teenage homosexuals is among heterosexual peers and that they need to be kept away from predatory older homosexuals until they're in they are emotionally mature enough to handle the situations they find themselves in.
According to Professor R.O.Lopez the real reason so many homosexual teenagers and young men kill themselves is that they are being abused by much older homosexual men before they have developed intimate relationships with other boys their own age:
http://englishmanif.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/la-joie-de-vivre-16-unbearable.html
This documentary is also very interesting, I believe it's from the mid 1990's and unlike a lot of films exploring the issue of older homosexuals taking advantage of boys and young men the alleged perpetrators and the boys they were having sex with both go into detail about their motivations and the effects the relationships had upon them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGAUWw6s6r4