A speech by a homosexual activist in 1995 revealed that he had used "safety" to delude Gov. Weld and the state legislature into adopting the homosexual agenda for the schools of Massachusetts. The speech was titled Winning the Culture War and was given by Kevin Jennings, Executive Director of the "Gay and Lesbian and Straight Teachers’ Network," at the "Human Rights Campaign Fund Leadership Conference" on March 5, 1995.

"In Massachusetts the effective reframing of this issue was the key to the success of the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. We immediately seized upon the opponent’s calling card – safety – and explained how homophobia represents a threat to students’ safety by creating a climate where violence, name-calling, health problems, and suicide are common. Titling our report "Making Schools Safe for Gay and Lesbian Youth," we automatically threw our opponents onto the defensive and stole their best line of attack. This framing short-circuited their arguments and left them back-pedaling from day one.

"Finding the effective frame for your community is the key to victory. It must be linked to universal values that everyone in the community has in common. In Massachusetts, no one could speak up against our frame and say, ‘Why, yes, I do think students should kill themselves’: this allowed us to set the terms for the debate.

"In Massachusetts, we made creating an environment where youth could speak out our number one priority. We know that, confronted with real-live stories of youth who had suffered from homophobia, our opponents would have to attack people who had been victimized once, which put them in a bully position from which it would be hard to emerge looking good. More importantly, we made sure these youth met with elected officials so that, the next time these officials had to vote on something, there would be a specific face and story attached to the issue. We wanted them to have an actual kid in mind when they had to cast their votes. We won the vote in the Senate 33-7 as a result."

"It’s a ‘statistic’ that’s been repeated innumerable times: A gay teenager is some three times more likely to commit suicide."

That was the lead paragraph in an article in the Boston Herald in 1997 by the Newhouse News Service. It pointed out that nearly ten years after the original publication of the widely discredited statistic by Paul Gibson, a social worker in Chicago, the figures were still being used even though many organizations had stated that there is no evidence that they are true.

Those organizations include The Center for Disease Control, The National Institute of Mental Health, the American Association of Suicidology, the American Psychological Association, and some gay advocacy groups. 

Even Joyce Hunter, the one time president of the National Lesbian and Gay Health Association, has said it is unknown if there is a connection between homosexuality and teen suicide.

Peter Muehrer, chief of the Youth Mental Health program in the Prevention and Behavioral Medicine Research branch of the National Institute of Mental Health and recent winner of the Secretary of Health and Human Services Award for Distinguished Service, has analyzed the original studies on which the Gibson review was based and determined that the conclusions can not be supported by the data. 

He wrote, "There is no scientific evidence to support this data." Joyce Hunter said she agrees with mental-health researchers that most gay and lesbian teens, like teens overall, are emotionally resilient people who "go on to develop a positive sense of self and go on with their lives." 

Nevertheless, the scientifically baseless claim was the catalyst for the creation of the Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth and the Gay/Straight Alliances in the schools. William Weld claimed that this suicide figure was a clear indication that our schools are unsafe for homosexual youth. Since the creation of the Commission, schools have been encouraged to start Gay Straight Alliances, again under the presumption that schools are currently unsafe for homosexual students.

Approximately 5,000 teens commit suicide in a year. There is no evidence to link those suicides to homosexuality.