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The title of his article in the referred scientific journal Psychological Reports is: Gay obituaries closely track officially reported deaths from AIDS. What that tells me is homosexuals die about the same age as anybody with AIDS.

My thought on that is that the gay obituaries are going to be heavily weighted by deaths from AIDs. We're still just looking at an average. It still doesn't tell us much about life expectancy of gay men who do not have AIDS.

The second sentence in the article says: This study provides additional evidence that the practice of homosexuality, with its attendant lifestyle, shortens the life of practitioners by about 20 years.. That doesn't say anything about AIDS.

Gay men, as a group, most certainly have a shorter average lifespan than the general population. However, this average is heavily influenced by the preponderance of AIDS among gay men.

This is analogous to how we measure average lifespan in the population as a whole. The average is actually a bit shorter than how long people can expect to live in actuality because of the statistical effect of infant mortality. Every kid who dies before age one throws the average off.

I understand what you're saying but I don't see how it has anything to do with your comments about the article being misleading.

My thought on that is that the gay obituaries are going to be heavily weighted by deaths from AIDs.

I'm sure they are. From the article:

In 1994 the CDC put the average age of death by AIDS for homosexuals at 39, the Blade at 40. By 2000, the CDC reported the median age of death at 43 and the Blade at 42.

According to the CDC, the average death from AIDS is much lower than the 60 year average for all homosexuals, both male and female.