Presumed Problem
People are choosing to become homosexual when they should choose heterosexuality.
Solution
Religious and secular programs of Conversion Therapy (aka Reparative Therapy) aim to turn homosexuals into heterosexuals.
Narrative
Homosexuality has been viewed variously in different societies and at different times in history, but it has been viewed negatively through most of American history. That negative view has been accompanied by a variety of punishments. In colonial Virginia, death was a possible punishment for being gay. Thomas Jefferson sought to replace that punishment with castration, but he was unsuccessful.
By comparison, Conversion Therapy or Reparative Therapy might seem a gentler solution: help gays switch to being straight. A variety of religious
and secular programs were popular during the second half of the 20th century and into the beginning of the 21st. In some cases. individuals voluntarily sought conversion as an escape from the stigma of being gay. And in other cases the impetus came from the parents of gays.
The methods used in the attempt to change sexual orientations included “pray away the gay,” the use of prostitutes, electric shocks, hormones, and a long list of psychotherapeutic and psychoanalytic techniques. During much of this period, homosexuality was officially regarded as a mental illness by many medical and psychological associations.
Was the Problem Real?
In 2001, the U. S. Surgeon General reported that there was no evidence supporting the possibility that sexual orientation can be changed, but that conclusion was contradicted by a psychoanalytic study by Dr. Robert Spitzer. The latter study was based on interviews with some 200 participants in conversion therapy programs, and Spitzer took their comments as evidence that sexual conversion was, in fact, possible. Ten years later, however, Dr. Spitzer retracted his conclusions and apologized to any gay people who had been hurt by his earlier, widely publicized, study. He acknowledged problems in his methodology and rejected his earlier findings.
It is now almost universally agreed within the medical and psychological communities that sexual orientation is no more a matter of choice than being right-handed or left-handed.( Interestingly, some lefties recall their parents trying to force them to switch to being right-handed. And that was about as successful as converting gays to straights.)
The Human Rights Campaign has compiled a list of some of the professional associations who have denied the efficacy of conversion therapy.
- American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy
- American College of Physicians
- American Counseling Association
- American Medical Association
- American Psychiatric Association
- American Psychoanalytic Association
- American Psychological Association
- American School Counselor Association
- American School Health Association
- National Association of Social Workers
- Pan American Health Organization (PAHO): Regional Office of the World Health Organization
- Just the Facts Coalition
At the same time, former leaders of conversion therapy programs have publicly renounced such attempts to get the gay out. Nine such ex-leaders prepared a formal apology to the gay community. Time Magazine described the experience of one of the former leaders.
Yvette Schneider spent a little over a decade as an active participant and a leader in the gay conversion therapy movement. In other words, she spent years working to convince men and women that they could stop being gay, lesbian, or bisexual through suppression and therapy.
But in 2010 she began to see things differently. At the time, Schneider did not share her feelings with her colleagues, but that same year, she was let go from her position as the director of the women’s ministry at Exodus International— a leading sexual orientation conversion organization that closed in 2013.
“I realized that no one was actually saying, ‘I’m straight,” she explains, referring to the post-treatment disposition of the Exodus clients she saw. “You can go through years of therapy and what are you left with—shame?”
Here’s the bottom line. If you are secular in such matters, biology makes some people heterosexual and others homosexual. If you are religious, then God made that choice. Conversion therapy is a solution without a problem.
Negative Consequences
In their letter apology, the nine former conversion therapy leaders nicely summed up the kind of damage done by this unnecessary “solution.”
Conversion therapy reinforces internalized homophobia, anxiety, guilt and depression. It leads to self-loathing and emotional and psychological harm when change doesn’t happen,” the letter reads. “We now stand united in our conviction that conversion therapy is not “therapy,” but is instead both ineffective and harmful.
Not only has conversion therapy damage those who were subjected to it, but it perpetuates the view that homosexuality is wrong, evil, sinful, and unnatural. That is the view supports actions like those of the thugs who murdered Matthew Shephard, the Orlando 49, or countless others who have been shamed, beaten, or killed for the sexual orientation they were dealt at birth.
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our freedoms to allow the authorities to fight terrorists here in America.
Terror, since there is no Terror Republic or Union of Terror. So the War of Terror initially identified Iraq as the enemy even though they had no involvement in the 9/11 attacks, nor were they planning to make war on the USA.
crush.” It is intended as an insult and a denial of the nationhood suggested by the the term Islamic State in the abbreviations, ISIS or ISIL. Ironically, whenever we use the terms ISIS or ISIL, we are granting statehood to the terrorist movement known as Daesh by those more directly confronting it.
“Christian terrorists,” drive-by shootings, drunk drivers, lightning, or prescription-drug overdoses. While the risk is above zero, it is tiny.
businesses without the knowledge, let alone permission, or those who live or work there. Libraries can be forced to tell government agents what books you have taken from the library–and they are prohibited for letting you know that happened. The Act provides for sophisticated monitoring of telephones and emails.
in secret military tribunals. There is no guarantee of a trial by jury, no right to examine evidence, and an absense of other rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
position to verify or deny such claims, but I would point out that criminal acts, even acts of terrorism, have been dealt with effectively prior to the Patriot Act. In an earlier post on the US Invasion of Iraq in 2003, I reminded us of the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. In that instance, President Clinton chose to frame the attack as a crime, and the existing law enforcement agents went into action. Eventually, the attackers were identified, arrested, tried, and punished. No Constitutional rights were set aside in that instance.
population has more than doubled from 3.5 billion to 7.4 billion. The UN now predicts world population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050. The population of the USA has increased by more than half since 1968 from 207 million to 32o million).
generated the term, “birth dearth,” suggesting there are too few babies being born, with the fear there will be too few young people entering the labor force to provide for the needs of growing elderly populations.
Utah. Some 1200 Green Berets and Navy Seals would participate in Jade Helm 15: some playing the part of an invading force and others playing the part of the resistance. Most of the action would occur in unoccupied, arid terrain, but where some small towns were involved, residents were briefed in advance. The purpose was to train the military in how to avoid an invasion of the USA by hostile forces.
engaging the National Guard and the disruption of Guardsmen’s lives. In addition, the reaction put Texas on the plate of humorists and comedians across the country. One T-shirt read: “I went to Texas to fight Jade Helm 15 and all I got was this tinfoil hat.” In addition to making the state look silly, the widespread conspiracy theory and the public officials who seemed to take it seriously fueled the existing political paranoia in Texas and across the nation. We seem to have survived Jade Helm 15.
Marijuana is officially classified as a Schedule 1 drug, along with opium, LSD, morphine, heroin, and others. Cocaine, by contrast, is classified as a less dangerous drug: Schedule 2.
So far, there has still never been a recorded death due to marijuana: excluding someone getting stoned and falling off a cliff. There is ample evidence of deaths due to alcohol, tobacco, heroin, and other drugs, but none from marijuana.
Amendment to the U. S. Constitution heralded a violently colorful saga in American history, with Carrie Nation, the Anti-saloon League, and the Women’s Christian Temperance League, on the one hand, and the bootleggers such as Al Capone, on the other hand. In between were millions of ordinary citizens who managed to keep drinking anyway.
Valentine’s Day Massacre. Perhaps the biggest difference between the drive-by shootings of the Prohibition era and the current war on drugs is that the cars of the 1930s had running boards where machine-gunners could stand.
600,000 Americans were arrested for possession of marijuana. It has been estimated that more than 200,000 students have lost their federal financial aid eligibility due to drug convictions.
research and experimentation of Edward Jenner and Louis Pasteur in their developing the idea and procedures for immunization against diseases through vaccination. When people contract a disease like smallpox or influenza, their bodies set to work creating anti-bodies to counteract the disease. If they are lucky enough to survive the disease, they are subsequently immune to it. Vaccination involves infecting the patient with a very small dose of the disease, leading the patient’s body to create those anti-bodies that will protect against the real thing should the patient later be exposed to it.
annual flu shot and a periodic pneumonia shot. These have become standard fixtures in modern life. (I haven’t had the flu in years.)
Two years earlier, Governor Rick Perry of Texas, another Republican candidate for President, had ordered that sixth-grade girls be vaccinated against human papilloma virus, or HPV, which can cause cervical cancer. As the primary campaign heated up, Bachmann had an issue that distinguished her from Perry.
themselves. Senator Rand Paul, M.D., went a step further, reporting that in the Swine Flu scare of 2009, more people died of the shot than of the flu. However, he offered no numbers to flesh out that claim.
behavior and take your medication, you get by. However, the flu could very well push you over the edge and into cardiac arrest. The cause of death, then would probably be recorded as heart attack, even though the flu was what prompted your demise. For several years following the pandemic, it was commonly reported that the number of deaths was between 151,700 and 579,000—quite a range.
California. Not only were schoolchildren suffering the preventable disease but vulnerable populations, such as the very elderly and very young were put at risk.
sky” might be Islamic terrorists about to establish Sharia Law in the Sooner State.
traditions from Islamic culture over time. There is no single Sharia Law, and variations exist from country to country. Topics covered include religion, family, food, finances, crime and punishment, war and peace among others.
Amendment, that did not prevent Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Tennessee from following suit. In their defense it must be said that none of those states has been forced to submit to Sharia Law. Dodged the bullet on that one.
Palin revealed that her mother never taught her to tell time. “I know it’s something about the big hand and the little hand. That’s as far as we got.” Another story proclaims, “ISIS Leaders Praise Kim Davis – First Female to Win ISIS Courage Award.”
of anti-Muslim hysteria among low-information citizens. Americans have long suffered from a takeover mentality. Only the culprits supposedly taking over has varied: Jews, Irish, Italians, Catholics, atheists, African-Americans, Mexicans, and others.