COLUMBUS, Ohio – When a 13-year-old hangs himself from a tree in his backyard or an 18-year-old throws himself off a bridge, people invariably ask, “How could something like this happen? Why, God?”

The answers don’t come easily. But tragedies unfolding across the country recently — youth after youth taking his own life after enduring anti-gay bullying — have prompted introspection among religious leaders.

Additional Photos

Near Hamilton Middle School in Cypress, Texas, demonstrators protest the treatment of student Asher Brown, who killed himself. Some wonder if anti-gay preaching gives homophobics ‘permission’ to bully. The Associated Press

A conversation has begun, online and in congregations, about whether religion contributes to the harassment of gay youths and what churches should be doing to help these kids.

“There are churches in the United States that teach that homosexuality is a sin, and by their false teaching, create a world where many people feel they’re given permission to harass, judge, criticize and in fact do violence against young people and adults who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender,” said the Rev. David Meredith, pastor of Broad Street United Methodist Church Downtown in Columbus.

The church led a downtown Columbus march against bullying on Oct. 3, inspired by the stories of people such as Seth Walsh, 13, of California, and Tyler Clementi, 18, a Rutgers University freshman — two of several suicide victims who have made national news in recent weeks.

The grim roster of suicide victims who were bullied for their sexuality — or perceived sexuality — also includes 13-year-old Asher Brown in Texas, 15-year-old Billy Lucas in Indiana and as many as half of the six suicides in one Minnesota school district in the past year. A lesbian and a boy perceived as gay were among four people who killed themselves over the past two years at Mentor High School in suburban Cleveland.

Broad Street United Methodist is, like other churches, already open to gays but trying to figure out how to do more for young people struggling with sexuality.

Conservative Christians, on the other hand, challenge the suggestion that preaching against homosexuality contributes to tragedy.

“There are other contributing factors behind these suicides,” said the Rev. Paul Hamilton, pastor of Westerville Bible Church in Westerville, Ohio. “I think depression goes with seeking a life that is bound by what God calls sin.”

Some pastors do focus too much on homosexuality, he acknowledged, saying it should be considered similar to other forms of sexual immorality and not singled out.

“God’s word is to be proclaimed without apology and without vindictiveness,” Hamilton said. “God did not tell his followers to bully nonbelievers.”

The suicides have added pressure on Congress to pass a bill, the Safe Schools Improvement Act, that would require schools that receive federal money to implement anti-bullying programs that address gay harassment. Some conservatives are worried that such legislation gives gay-rights activists a foot in the schoolroom door.

Conservative activist group Focus on the Family opposes legislation that codifies sexual orientation or gender identity as protected classes. It says those categories give gay-rights activists the freedom to push their agenda in public schools, even against parental wishes.

On the website www.true tolerance.org, Focus on the Family tells parents to “beware of deceptive ‘safe school’ initiatives.” It cites a California district where, according to Focus on the Family, elementary schoolchildren heard stories featuring same-sex couples, including one about two male penguins who fall in love and hatch a chick.

All bullying, without regard to the motive, should be prevented and punished, said Candi Cushman, education analyst for the group.

Research has found that being gay, or thought of as gay, is a common precursor for being the victim of cruelty. About half of bullying in schools is homophobic, and it’s especially bad in middle schools, said Dorothy Espelage, an educational psychology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has studied bullying for 17 years.

Anti-gay preaching can help establish a climate in a community where being gay is considered different or bad, she said, and that can spread into schools. But academics haven’t proved a link between preaching and bullying.

Churches that are willing can help gay kids by providing support groups and avoiding efforts to “convert” them to heterosexuality, Espelage said. But she acknowledged that traditional churches have the right to stick to their doctrines, too.

Even the liberal, accepting churches need to do more to address the despair of young gay people, said John Caron, 52, of Clintonville, Ohio. He’s a gay man who attends Redeemer Lutheran Church in Columbus, where he and his partner, Chad Eberle, 37, had a “covenant ceremony” five years ago.

When it comes to the suicides, “the church was complicit in creating an atmosphere where these people lost so much hope and so much sense of self-worth that they felt that this was their only option,” Caron said.

Churches need to get creative to reach kids, Caron said. They could start peer ministries and support groups and publish online resources. Supporters might not be able to enter schools, but they can use YouTube and other websites, he said.

He’s impressed by a nonreligious effort — the YouTube It Gets Better project — in which gay adults share messages about how life improves with age.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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