Sara Gilbert: Kirk Cameron's Remarks Might Impact LGBT Teen Suicide Rate

During today's episode of CBS's The Talk, Sara Gilbert suggests that the antigay remarks made by Kirk Cameron could have a negative effect on kids who are confused about their sexual orientation, while La Toya Jackson says people who love each other should be respected.

Cameron, the star of the '80s sitcom Growing Pains, expressed his opinion of same-sex marriage and homosexuality when he appeared on Piers Morgan's CNN talk show Friday. "I think that it's unnatural," he said. "I think that it's detrimental and ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization."

Gilbert, herself a teen actress on the sitcom Roseanne, first jokes that "the tragedy of this is that Growing Pains will never be the same to me."

The actress then drives home the potentially serious consequences of Cameron's antigay rhetoric. "You really have to think about who you are hurting ... the kids out there who aren't OK with who they are," Gilbert says. "In lesbian, gay, and transgender youth, the suicide attempt rate is 30 to 40 percent, and those kids hearing that message. ... He just needs to think about that. And when he's saying we're taking apart foundations in society, I would argue that there is no one who fights for marriage more than gay people."

La Toya Jackson says that, although she was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, her eyes were opened when she left the religion, which disapproves of homosexuality, in her late 20s. "[Cameron] is sending the wrong message to children," Jackson says. "We need to try to get along as much as possible."

Gilbert's former sitcom mother Roseanne Barr, a longtime equality activist, has also spoken out against Cameron. Barr tweeted, "Kirk or Kurt or whatever Cameron is an accomplice to murder with his hate speech. so is Rick Warren. Their peers r killing gays in Uganda."