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Joseph Nicolosi of Encino, Calif. has been practicing sexual orientation change therapy for 25 years.
They’ve been dismissed as quacks, homophobes and in denial, but therapists who counsel patients on shedding their gay feelings insist that their work is needed.
“If a person wants to be gay, and thinks he is gay, then that’s perfectly fine,” said Joseph Nicolosi, who founded a so-called "reparative" therapy practice in Encino, Calif. “I want to be available for those who want to change.”
In recent months, Nicolosi and his colleagues have come under fire for their position that people can diminish gay feelings through therapy, a process referred to as "sexual orientation change effort" by the American Psychological Association.
- Last week, four men who underwent conversion therapy sued their New Jersey provider, saying they were shamed and falsely led to believe they could be “cured” of being gay.
- In California, Governor Jerry Brown signed a law that bans the use of sexual orientation change effort on minors. The ban, supposed to take effect on Jan. 1, was put on hold by a judge Monday, but only for three California therapists who challenged the law.
- Psychiatrist Robert Spitzer, a leader in psychiatry in the 20th century, apologized in May for publishing an article saying that conversion therapy was possible for motivated patients. Exodus International, a nonprofit for ex-gay Christians, came out weeks later saying they don’t recommend “therapies that make changing sexual orientation a main focus.”
But Nicolosi, who has been in practice for 25 years and who coined the term "reparative," stands firm: “We need to understand there’s a lot of mystery about human sexuality. You can’t say gay once, gay always.”
Conversion therapy draws on Sigmund Freud’s theory that all people are born bisexual and that some become gay because of their upbringing, which he wrote about in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Many therapists offered some form of sexual orientation change therapy until around 1973, when homosexuality was removed from the psychiatric guide to mental disorders, according to the American Psychological Association.
In a 2009 resolution, the association stated that therapists who persist with such therapies appeared to be part of the broader “conservative political movements that have supported the stigmatization of homosexuality on political or religious grounds.”
Psychology can acknowledge different viewpoints, the resolution says, but such therapies contradict rigorous studies. “Belief in the hope of sexual orientation change followed by the failure of the treatment was identified as a significant cause of distress and negative self-image.”
Related: Four men sue New Jersey organization over ‘gay conversion therapy’
David Pickup, a licensed therapist in Glendale, Calif. who trained with Nicolosi, went through sexual orientation change therapy in his early 30s. Pickup, 56, believes he was attracted to men because he was molested several times by a high school student when he was five. He describes himself as a “typically religious, conservative guy."
Rich Pedroncelli / AP file
David Pickup, a "reparative" therapist in California, urged state lawmakers to reject a bill banning the controversial form of psychotherapy for minors.
“I had challenges with homosexual feelings but never identified being gay for me was innate or inborn,” he said. “I never lived the gay lifestyle. I just had sexual experiences.”
Pickup is quick to differentiate himself from those who practice aversion therapy, which tries to eliminate a behavior or desire by associating it with pain. Those who were sued in New Jersey were accused of shaming patients and forcing them to strip off their clothes in group sessions.
“I can say this: I don’t do oranges therapy, and I don’t do naked therapy,” Pickup said. (In the New Jersey lawsuit, one of the young men said oranges were used to represent testicles.) Rather, he said, his practice is focused on talk therapy and working through a client's issues.
Pickup is not married. “I’m still looking,” he said. His friends are straight, for the most part, he said, although he remains close to a gay man from his past. He said they are like brothers, even though they disagree on matters of sexuality.
Both Nicolosi and Pickup belong to NARTH -- National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality -- which includes about 350 therapists, according to its vice president, David Pruden. Unlike Nicolosi and Pickup, Pruden said most of those therapists have just a few gay clients within a larger practice.
“People get the idea that someone comes in and we say, ‘How do you feel about that?’ and then, ‘We’re going to fix that,’” Pruden said. “You really don’t. What you really do is treat them like any other client that is distressed about anything, and you work on distress.”
Through talk therapy, he said, some clients say their same-sex attractions are diminished.
Most of Nicolosi's clients are men from conservative, religious backgrounds, he said. About 40 percent are teens, and about half of them, sent by their parents, say they don’t want to change or are confused.
“We say, fine, you want to be gay, but are you curious in understanding why you’re gay?” Nicolosi said.
Nicolosi's theory is that men are attracted to other men because of how they were raised. He bases this notion on conversations he had early in his career with gay men.
“As I listened to these men, I started to hear common themes of their childhood,” Nicolosi said. “Overinvolved, intrusive mother, distanced, detached or hostile father, so that the boy did not bond with the father. That became the foundation of the understanding. I looked into the literature. I saw that there was an entire tradition of psychoanalytic understanding.”
So why not accept that his patients might be gay?
Knowing the reason for their same-sex attraction is consoling to patients, Nicolosi said. “They’re no longer weirdos or perverts or degenerates or whatever. Now they realize that their same-sex attraction is an attempt to repair a sense of not belonging to men.”
On his website, Nicolosi has transcribed some of these conversations. In many, the men describe wanting a “normal life.”
One man, married 31 years, told Nicolosi: “I wanted what most everybody wants — I wanted family, security. I wanted to grow old together with somebody that I was committed to. I wanted children, a house, a job, and a picket fence, all of those things — the American dream. And I couldn’t have that with homosexuality.”
In some places, gay couples can enjoy much of what Opp desired: Same-sex marriage is legal in nine states, and same-sex couples can adopt children together in all U.S. states except Mississippi and Utah.
“Gay marriage doesn’t cut it for this clientele,” Nicolosi said. “They want a woman. They want a male-female relationship. They don’t want to be living with a guy in a marriage. That’s too radical for them.”
Some patients take years to feel less gay; others never do, he said.
“Some can walk away and say they have no homosexual attraction, period,” he said. “That’s rather rare. A lot of them say, ‘My homosexuality comes up rarely and not really strongly. It’s something that I can dismiss.’”
NARTH’s Pruden said fewer patients are seeking to change their sexual orientation these days because society has become more accepting.
“Once people felt less shamed – and I think that’s really positive – there was less a feeling that they couldn’t talk about it,” Pruden said. But those who do want to minimize those feelings, Pruden said, “deserve to have their needs met as well.”
“To say to them, we’re not willing to walk alongside you in your journey feels to me as cruel as the other extremes we used to be at, when people were hurt for saying, ‘I’m gay, and I’m OK with that,’” Pruden said. “In a sense it’s a pro-choice movement – people should have the right to deal with this.”
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"Conversion therapy draws on Sigmund Freud’s theory that all people are born bisexual and that some become gay because of their upbringing".
Freud's theories are riddled with a lot of PROBLEMS as anyone that has ever taken a psych 101 class knows. Basing ANYTHING on Freud is perilous to start with; all this quak has proved is that any theory can be made to fit any facts by means of appropriate additional assumptions.
All of these things can be obtained even if someone is gay/lesbian. The American dream is available to everyone.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with therapy. However, its simply wrong to even think that 'talking the gay away' is legitimate. Let's practice tolerance and then proceed with acceptance before we tell our YOUTH, that they are 'wrong' for being who they are.
I have a male friend who wants to be a female. Can you talk his penis and testicles off for him, Joseph Nicolosi? Maybe talk a new vagina on him while you're at it?
Still, it's nice to see a justification that doesn't involve the words "sin" or "unnatural". These aren't religious kooks, they're Freudian kooks. Freudian kooks are harmless. If you look, they disavowed the "aversion" therapy that's been brought up on this website in the past, the stuff that basically qualifies as sadistic abuse. If people want to give them money just to talk to them and listen to psychoanalytical babble, that's fine. It won't work (or it might, but it'll be the placebo effect), but it won't hurt anyone either.
There's no problem with trying to change your orientation. When the "therapy" is abusive, that's a problem, but this? This is nothing.
Can they talk away my blue eyes while they're at it? Or how about talking away somebody's left handedness?
Or what about this... Can you talk me into being gay???
Except fraud.
No Sarah, we cannot talk away your blue eyes, because they look so good on you.
Awwwe, thanks Rad.
(Cue insulting and slightly creepy comments from internet haters, in three, two, one...)
Looking at the picture of Joseph Nicolosi, It looks to me that he needs a conversion of some kind himself... Just like marriage, two people meet, fall in love and the next thing you know one is trying to change the other...
There are all kinds of people in this world and there is room enough for everyone... The hatred in this country needs to stop...
Live and let live!
Changing someone's hand dominance is a good analogy.
They may be able to convince a left handed person that life would be easier if they would use their right hand instead of their left, but I do not believe they can re-wire the brain to make someone feel as comfortable using their non-dominant hand.
They may be able to help someone be more comfortable with a sexual orientation that is not natural to them, if that is their wish. But they can not change the natural orientation someone is born with.
So are homeopathy and chiropractic. In fact, so is ordinary Freudian psychoanalysis, but there are still people who practice that scattered around. This is no different, and if people want to trust it, I'm not going to raise a fuss about their wasted money.
I am not sure that is a perfect analogy though. I was born a leftie, but when I was in kindergarten, I was forced to write with my right hand. I don't feel comfortable trying to write left handed, however, my handwritting sucks right handed. I still do most things left handed however.
This is absolute BS. These conversion therapists are total frauds. It has been proven that homosexual tendencies are not created by environment, they develop in the womb. Usually but not always it happens when a pregnant mother is under some severe stress. Any so-called expert who says he can talk away a brain anomaly is lying. He probably also has the ability to change a blue eyed person to brown eyes. Just ask him.
I put more stock in homeopathy and chiropractics than i do conversion therapy.
The problem with Freud and conversion therapy is it rests on the idea we are born "tabula rasa" and consequently we are shaped by our environment. For over a 100 years nurture has reigned supreme, and nature has taken a back seat. Currently the fastest growing field in psychology is evolutionary psychology, and the great importance of nature. We now understand that so much of human behavior is innate, and it is hubrisitic to believe that cognition is so powerful, it is not. The reality is the thinking function is a more recent development in our evolutionary development. Human behaviors such as dreaming and sexuality have their origins in the older parts of the brain. Telling someone to change their sexual orientation is akin to telling them to stop dreaming - not possible, and absolutely silly.
Dr. Jack Daniels has had some success with this, at least on a temporary basis.
The sexual experiences are the "lifestyle" or did you just think it''s about liking show tunes
A huge problem I see with this is that people are born either homosexual or heterosexual. As a straight woman, I can't possibly see myself changing to gay and I am sure it is true that a gay person can't really change to straight. They can go to counseling to try to change, but as some have mentioned, it won't really last. The "true" attraction these people feel to those of the same sex will always be there, even if it is buried. Eventually, it will come out.
I've known a few people, including my niece, who got married, had children and later were divorced, because the one of the parties ended up being gay and no longer wanted to live a lie. My niece's inlaws knew this and didn't say anything, because they thought he might change once he was married. Now, he is living as a woman and wants their daughter to call him "mom". Another friend was married and really wanted children, but her husband kept putting it off, saying he wasn't ready. Finally, when she was in her late 30s, he asked for a divorce, because he was gay. She could accpet that he was gay, but couldn't accept that he let her believe they would eventually have kids, when he admitted that the reason he kept putting off having them, was because he knew he'd eventually work up the courage to come out. When he finally told her, it was most likely too late for her to get past her divorce emotionally, meet someone, get married and still have the kids she had always wanted. It just isn't fair to put another person through this because a person is trying to conform to what society believes they should be.
If we, as a society were just accepting that we're all different in lots of ways, and stopped hating, this sort of "therapy" wouldn't be necessary or wanted.
Is there any reputable scientific evidence for this? I'd believe that orientation could appear fairly early in life. I don't know about a predisposition from birth.
Is it just me or does this doctor a gay man in denial? Seems like he talked himself into being straight and now thinks he can do it to everyone.
Yes, there is reputable scientific evidence of that.
Gay men that I've known have been repulsed by the thought of having sex with a woman. I don't know how you can overcome that. I also have trouble imagining the kind of woman who would contemplate a commitment to a man who may or may not be "converted" - at least, if she's aware of his situation. Any man who would marry a woman when he'd rather be with another man should seriously consider the devastation he's likely to inflict on that woman later on. I really hope that as a society we're moving toward people being able to live according to their true nature, for everyone's sake.
From my lesbian perspective - I think offering services to people who want to change from gay to straight is ok. Ultimately - to each their own. I mostly feel bad for people who are gay and who think they need to change, I cant really imagine the mind-f*ck they've experienced growing up.
though, this little nugget didnt escape me:
the therapist in this article says the gay men he's counselled all had a few things in common:
Overbearing/Over-involved Mothers
Detached/Distant Fathers
Raised in Conservative Religious homes
Now, I have no clue if these men are gay because of the mom/dad issue...but i know HANDS DOWN that the reason they dont want to be gay, or think they shouldnt be gay, is because of being raised in a conservative religious house...
so if there's anything that really needs fixing...it's that last part.
I wonder how many straight people could be convinced to become gay...
not a lot I imagine, though maybe for the right $ amount there are some?
please, any straight people who believe that you arent born gay (which means you werent born straight)...tell us how YOU could change to gay if you REALLY wanted to.
im very curious...
I honostly think this guy has lost his damn marbles.
This is so simple you either are attracted to females or males it's that simple.
I'm attracted to females always have been since I was a little boy it's just that simple.
Hm. Get these people in the right room with some smart people, I think we could talk their freedom away. What does fraud carry these days?
Is it just me or do all these "therapists" seem like flaming queens to everyone? The more they seem to rant about curing the gay the more like self-loathing head cases.
Can we stop trying to fix these people?
Let's start trying to fix Republicans first.
Rusty this has absolutely nothing to do with the Republicans... You will never ever fix 57 million Americans who didnt vote for Obama this last election..
Politics aside these douchebags who think they can cure gay are just plain lame.
@ Big Al
I agree.
Accepting that homosexual or lesbian behavior is not sin is very complicated for those that hold the belief that it is sin.
Western religious beliefs continue to be transformed into more compassionate understanding and acceptance that we are all flawed humans and that the label of sin just doesn't properly explain our flaws. But, it hasn't saved those that suffered from religious persecution in the past, nor is it sparing those suffering today from undeserved condemnation for perceived willingness to "sin". Religion is a good thing. It has served mankind well and in destructive ways. I am glad that religion is not being completely thrown out because of all of its "wrongs" to societies down through the ages. We seem to be able to make it work better for us, but it has been a very dangerous and costly and emotionally charged process.
We are not completely out of the "dark ages" and we are still experiencing the "era of Enlightenment". I think, we are finally beginning to catch on to the reality that each of us needs a lot of physical help and emotional support and that help and support means something different to each one of us. Crossing an unknown ocean four hundred years ago and facing an unknown frontier to conquer and settle and keep crossing to conquer and settle until it was done, will seem like a birthday party compared to the new unknown frontiers we keep coming across in our emotional life and try to conquer our frees so that we can live healthier and in better understanding with one another. I know that we will get through all the barriers of "sin" perceptions and that we will cross the psychological frontier as owners of our true identity. There will be a lot of break downs and false starts and missed opportunities and too many casualties and too many bystanders and too many naysayers, but we will get there. We will . . . it is as much a part of our destiny as it was for us to cross an ocean then a whole continent and look back and say . . . that was easy . . . what else can I do for the next few hundred years?
We can and we will get through this emotional ordeal and we will conquer and subdue all of our preceived notions of what is this thing called "sin" and we will create a new world in which all can live free in their own true identity.
Going into this article I was already thinking I was going to bash the article and the therapists who thought they could cure the gay away. After reading it I dont think there is too much wrong with what they are doing. Why is it so wrong for someone to offer services to another who wants to change. Nowhere, unless i missed it, did the therapist say it was wrong or unnatural to be gay, just that if someone wanted to talk about...he would listen to them. Im not crazy about the his possible causes of being gay, but who am I to tell someone to not go talk about it with someone else as long as its not being forced on them. I am all for live and let live.
Devil's,
I stopped seeing Dr. Jack Daniels after he told me to ride a bike off of a dock, while wearing a parrot hat and screaming "Caw Caw" at the top of my longs, while my friends filmed it. That's a moment that will haunt me for the rest of my life and a video that can never be erased.
This is why most people who know me describe me as "timeless and regal".
@Sarah
You never cease to put a smile on my face!!! Go girl!!!
big al, just to round out the picture, what do you do with those who are attracted to both genders?
People may want to change--the problem is these quacks make them think that CAN change. When the patients realize they can't, many become suicidal because they had false hope and were taken in by charlatans.
Being Gay is not a disease. It's the way some are born, which is why, in study after study after study and in culture after culture after culture, the rate of gay remains at about 5-10% consistently.
There is an evolutionary reason for gays--we just don't know it yet. E O Wilson, the great sociobiologist believes that gay remain as helpers to raise their siblings. Families with gay siblings have less infant mortality. Who knows, who cares.
What we know for sure, is you can't change anymore than a straight person can suddenly become gay.
Years from now, we will mock the notion like we mock trying to change left-handed people.
Actually they are religious kooks, from the president of NARTH on down. They have no scientific credibility whatsoever. Freud wouldn't give them the time of day.
Let there be no confusion about this - NARTH is a religious, anti-gay hate group. Just like NOM, Paul Cameron, the "American College of Pediatricians" and the Phelps clan, NARTH exists to spread hate and disinformation about gays. And it's not a scientific or medical organization - it's primarily a religious group comprised of repressed homosexuals which actively lobbies against gays.
A case in point is the discredited George "rent boy" Rekers, one of the founders of NARTH, who in the middle of his debunked testimony against gay adoption in Florida was discovered hiring a male prostitute for a trip to Europe. Every one of these nuts in NARTH are pretty effed up people, and they definitely shouldn't be allowed to claim that long-discredited malpractice is good medicine, much less practice that voodoo on children.
@maridanne - what compels you to think you have to do anything with those who are attracted to both genders?
And these Therapists can indeed talk deer into climbing trees, spotting their hunters, and shooting 'em before the hunters spot them. Will wonders never cease?
this makes me want to find straight people struggling with their heterosexuality, who just dont want to be straight anymore....who just cant fathom living the straight lifestyle and just want to gay it up, because it's just what they know they should do.
im not talking about gay people admitting they are gay...but straight people admitting they shouldnt be straight.
Totally believe in conversion therapy. I can convert a straight guy to bi in about 10 minutes at the club.
@maridanne
If someone likes both sexes it's still gay and there is nothing wrong with that.
Governments and unfortunately nosey people love to stick there noses into other people's social lives and that saddens me very much.
It's none of your god damn business 8) is my motto
Love the armchair psychiatrists that are on tonight...
Jessica-1170252: I think you found them:: lots of transgendered women are straight. There have been a crossroad of gays and straight transgendered in Thailand for the past 50 years. You are looking at one now.
It's because the gender idenity does not predicate sexual orentation (two diffent things). The Old Thai culture doesn't have a way for a man to openly see a woman, not if you dress like a woman. You will find us hiding our hetrosexuality, telling their mothers, brothers, and friends that they are gay.. because it's less fringe. It's also due to the generational gap. My mother is old Thai. Old Thai are very coservative, esp. chinese thai. She won't neccessarily understand the new ways (in my mind). I don't know if you want to to hear that, if you do: the Gender Revesal and Gender Cultures (ISBN: 0415114837) is a cheap and effective source. Furthermore, if you can read Thai, I am able to provide more references, hehe. Good luck on your search, may you find many more!
/ask and you shall recieve (a western proverb). /hopes that helps you find peace and beatitude.
Gay people are fakes. They just want attention, or they're suffering from a moral defect.
Southern Baptists like "Texas Conservatism" have always thought they deserved special rights while certain other Americans should be treated as 2nd-class citizens.
That's the real moral defect.
Fyte,
Links with studies please!
It simply depends upon which thumb the fetus stuck in it's mouth first and thought it tasted good. The favoring one over the other is really a result of repeating the first good experience. Just like many other things in life, if the first time you like the experience, you will repeat it until something you decide is better comes along or you begin to get a series of negative experiences when you are doing that action.
The Physical attributes are pretty obvious what they are intended for, but that is no guarantee that those who posses them will use them for obvious intended use. This is because we can use them in other ways for what appears to be equal or greater pleasure whether or not the alternate uses can be or are harmful in any way. The whole point today seems to be it's right because it makes me feel good, so I don't care if what I do really makes sense or is really appropriate.
I would ask Mr. Nicolosi how long he has been under medical Marijuana treatment and where can I get some. Especially, if it makes you believe that B.S.! Conversion Therapy my a$$! It sounds like cha-ching Therapy more than likely! Hey, do you need an assistant to handle the cha-ching, I mean therapy.
Andy, your delusion is shared by most of the willfully blind here that think their common agreement amounts to factual "proof" of something. It does not. Neither is there any "scientific" evidence regarding the moral value of any behavior. Science, falsely so-called, has nothing intelligent to say about a moral issue. As so-called, "science" is amoral in nature largely by definition; as practiced, it is amoral as a matter-of-fact.
The avowed homosexuals who go so far as to deny God to deny their sin will plainly never admit their sin, but for all the strenuousness of their wishful thinking they cannot take the sin out of their sin. What they will do, eventually, because they truly are slaves to their sin and cannot control themselves or free themselves from its power to compel their destructive behavior, is to declare it punishable by death to call this behavior "sin," which is what it is. That is, denying God, they will presume to have the authority to compel disobedience to God and they will force all men to obey them and to disobey God under penalty of death.
The proof that homosexual behavior is, indeed, sin, therefore, is that the homosexuals will soon turn to murder to enforce their intolerance of the truth about their behavior.
When they all stand condemned at the Judgment that is soon to come it will not be merely be for "loving" to pleasure one another, it will be for having murdered the friends of the Son of Man.
True reality is about to confront all of the lies and lame excuses with the Blood of Christ. The Blood of Christ is real blood, and its Power of Judgment to acquit or condemn is Real moral Power. The Judgment that approaches, being a Judgment written in blood, will leave no room for any further ambiguity or doubt.
The homosexuals will be guilty of murder. This fact will be one that they cannot hide, they cannot escape, they cannot deny.
The Truth stands as it is written.
A true oxymoron.
Thumb sucking has a sexual link but not a sexuality link according to basic psychology.
Even were your god non-fiction, you'd still be wrong: the Bible never condemns homosexuality.
Conversion therapy is hogwash; even the AMA, APA and American Academy of Pediatrics agree. Ever notice how these hateful anti-gay groups are based on "Christian Principles"? Christians have a HUGE problem with gay people- they believe in Intelligent Design. One cannot believe that the Creator made gay people and condemned them at the same time. It doesn't work and it discredits their Bible. It is no surprise that these groups sprang up around evangelical Christians- this tolerance of gay people created a rift in the church and they scrambled with damage control. It's funny that the best they could come up with is junk science administered by kooks and an old man in Rome's Vatican City riding in a glass box while shaking a magic wand.
@allswell: Just for the sake of argument:
Leviticus 18:22 "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination."
Leviticus 20:13 "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination..."
Definition of 'abomination' (dictionary.reference.com): "a vile, shameful, or detestable action, condition, habit, etc..."
And for those of you who want to point out it's the old Testament...
Romans 1:24-27 "Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relation with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and {receiving them in themselves the due penalty for their error}." [What some people say is the explanation for sexual diseases].
But then for those of us who are sinners in our own right, how many of us are divorced (like myself), had sex before we got married (like myself), have cheated on their spouse, have fiddled with their personal adherance to tax laws, have "forgotten" to pay a debt, or have (like myself) in any way (Romans 1:28-2:3) "not see[n] fit to acknowledge God, God [giving] them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness ["she doesn't deserve him, and he will be mine"], malice [I hate him and I'm going to ruin him]. They are full of envy [I MUST have the best car, home, clothes], murder, strife [that one thing you just can't let go of], deceit [what he doesn't know won't hurt him, hmmm?], maliciousness. They are gossips [ever passed some trash-talk?], slanderers [your husband's ex is really just a hot mess...I know, right?], haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful [ever felt like bragging?], inventors of evil, disobedient to parents [who hasn't been?], foolish [again?], faithless [to yourself, your kids, your spouse, and God], heartless [you can't give a dime to EVERY junkie you see on the street, can you?], ruthless [you'll do whatever it takes to make that promotion YOURS, darnnit]. Thought they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man-you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself-that you will escape the judgment of God?"
I Corinthians 6:9 "Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolators [waited your whole life to be able to buy that sweet car, didn't you?], nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves [does stealing supplies from work count??], nor the greedy [Oh boy, where do we start, right?], nor drunkards [half the country's in trouble, then], nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."
So who makes the cut?
And finally, a hard-learned lesson for myself, one I still don't always remember: Matt 7:1-5 "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."
Hypocrisy is a two-way street. It's funny how liberals throw the Bible at Christians, using it to hold them to some ambiguous, often-changing higher standard that the Christians, of course, can and will never live up to. But, it's to be expected. Yet they don't hold themselves to that same standard. And somehow, though this Book of overly-strident rules, this Bible, though it is a load of supposed hogwash, many non-believers, such as @allswell, seem to know it inside and out, or do they? So how do you on one hand discredit a document, and yet use it as an argument at the same time (especially if you've never read it, moreover, IN CONTEXT)? Yes, the Christians made the rules, and they should follow the rules they set. And though they feel you'd be best off to follow those rules to, most of them reasonably realize they cannot possibly do so. Yet the rules secular society makes, it expects Christians to follow, even if they don't agree. So how does that work?
Finally, how do we decide who is in the right, and who is in the wrong? Who gets to decide? Who made the standard, what is it, where do we find it, how do we apply it, and then how will we know we did it right?
I pray you all come to the place God wants you to be in your heart on this controversial topic.
All Scripture references from English Standard Version
Please take your bible, and crawl back in your closet, and continue to pop your zippie, looking a the pictures of bathing Roman soldiers.
I don't know. I think that for some people it might be possible. Look, there's nothing wrong with being gay, and no one should feel shame about it. But I believe that human sexuality is more fluid than static. I happen to feel that most of us are born somewhere in the middle of the attraction spectrum. Some are born mostly gay, some are born mostly straight. Most are born somewhere in the middle and culture, family, friends, experiences (both negative and positive) create a "preference" for one over the other. Being "bi" is more common and more natural than you would expect. But for guys, accepting that male attraction is still taboo enough that once you come out you have pretty much decided it's dudes only here on out. Look at girls. MOST women have had at least flirted with another girl. It's no biggie for 2 chicks to make out when they're drunk. Girls hug and kiss each other all the time. Many girls have a lesbian period during their 20's only to move out of their college circle and get married and have kids and never think twice about how or why they "went straight". I've known guys who did the same thing. Went from being gay to being bi to now only being interested in women.
And I don't think that everyone is gay for the same reasons. I do think 90% of gay people were born with a predisposition to be attracted to the same or both genders. But I have seen where a girlfriend I knew was 100% straight until she was date raped. When she began feeling sexual again, she only felt relaxed enough with women. Was she really gay? or was she just searching for sexual release in the only company she found nonthreatening. If she had been given therapy to talk through her rape and trauma and was finally able to enter into a heterosexual relationship again, would she be "Cured" of being gay? Reparitive Therapist would say yes, others would say she was never "Really" gay anyway. I just say she was Bi with an initial preference for men that was reinforced by societal norms. When other social pressures no longer made her initial preference pleasing to her, she re-oriented in a direction that she had not considered before.
The Hebrew word is Toeba (toeyvah): taboo. There is a host of animals for which this term is used. Leviticus is very clear that it is to be laws for the "chosen people" alone (the Jews of the time). This is expected when it is placed in the context that the Jews believed two key things: 1) sex was only for procreation/marriage, and 2) men were demanded by god to bear children.
Using these two, the verse "lay with men as with women" becomes "attempt to procreate with a man as with a woman". Since that is obviously not possible, it became taboo.
Another very strong theory brings into question the full context of Leviticus 18. Verses 6-18 specifically speak of incestuous relations. Verses 19 and 20 speak of sex with a menstruating woman and adultery, respectively. Then you get to verse 22...but wait! What about 21?
Verse 21 "forbids ritual child sacrifice and names a Pagan god Molech to whom children were believed to have been sacrificed. The verse also forbids blasphemy against Yahweh."
Its interesting to realize that Molech had male priests who performed sexual worship, temple prostitutes as they were. When placed in that context, the passage in verse 22 speaks only against performing ritualized sex with the temple prostitutes in worship of a god other than Yahweh.
But wait, there's more! A direct translation of "V'et zachar lo tishkav mishk'vey eeshah toeyvah hee." leaves a blank space: "And with a male you shall not lay [ ] lyings of a woman".
We're forced to fill in this blank when translating. The common choice of theologians is "as the", which creates the version you likely know, as well as its meaning (outside the context of previous verses). However, using "in the" instead creates a passage which condemns men having sex with men in the bed of a woman. Vastly different, don't you think?
First off, this is a Pauline passage. That damages its credibility to begin with, as Paul: 1) never met Jesus, and 2) was an orthodox Jewish Rabbi before he converted.
Numerous scholars have looked at this passage, and I'm going to summarize them cause I can't find the explicit sources right now (the other site was easy to find). One of the key things to realize is that, in the timeline of Paul's writings to the Romans, this was shortly after the Roman Emperor had issued a decree that changed who could worship what in Rome. As a direct result, many pagans became Christian in name, but retained their pagan practices to include sexual worship.
If you read Paul's words in full context, the people first left god's grace, then began their sexual activities that Paul so dispises. Its also worth noting that Paul uses a phrase that we erroneously translate "natural relations" and "contrary to nature", when in actuality the phrases speak of "normal or expected" actions; in other words, Paul wanted people to adhere to what he viewed as the current norm. In non-sexual terms, this would've dictated such things as cutting the hair and what clothes they could wear.
Perhaps the best example of terrible translations. First off, I'm not sure where you're getting your quote. KJV shows
The emphasis is placed on the two terms used to condemn homosexuality.
Now, in the first the Greek word is "malokai". When it is used elsewhere, it means soft or pliable. In a human context, this means that it actually refers to persons who are easily manipulated, easily led. Not very effective for condemning homosexuality.
The second brings us to the real problem: Paul made up this word. The word "arsenokoitai" appears twice in the Bible, both times under Paul's writings, and never appears in any other Greek text. It has no known and agreed upon definition, undermining its usefulness. However, certain reasonable assumptions can be made.
The rest of the passage speaks of persons who commit crimes and lie, or believe lies. If used in a sexual sense, it is highly likely Paul was speaking against male prostitutes, pimps, or possibly those who use male prostitutes (the majority of which were children at the time). Doesn't really condemn homosexuality.
If we go via the root words, we end up with "arsen" (men) and "koitai" (beds). Well, it could be close to homosexual...but why didn't Paul use "paiderasste", the commonly used term for male-male sex in Greek? Why make up a word? "Men beds" doesn't tell us much, so we're forced again to extrapolate. It could be "men who sell their bed", meaning male prostitutes or pimps. Or maybe, "men who buy beds", meaning people who make use of prostitutes (this one being gender neutral on the prostitute's side).
In 1 Timothy, where it is also used, the context is:
Notice all the examples surrounding it. They're all thieves, prostitutes, murderers...this further lends credence to the idea that the term has to do with male prostitutes or their users (the use of whoremongers means it might not mean pimp).
And I point out again, how is it that people can both discredit a document, yet use it as proof of something at the same time?
Simple: you believe the document is true.
Under this contention, you must acknowledge that it doesn't condemn homosexuality (as I have proven above).
The fact that I believe your god and book are fiction do little to change the value you place in them. So it is necessary to prove where you are wrong even in that (again, see the above you appear to have ignored).
NARTH’s Pruden said fewer patients are seeking to change their sexual orientation these days because society has become more accepting.
Uh oh....we all know that is bad for business because misplaced shame is what these leaches prey off of.
Werll, doesn't it just boil down to: You can give one of these guys $175 an hour or more to tell you that it's not really your fault and tell you that you should blame it on your parents and upbringing -or- you can just be told for free that a fairly large amkount of variability in sexual orientation is "normal" amd you are all right.
The basic problem is twofold:
1) Homosexuality occurs in humans at about the same rate as in apes, horses, cows, dogs, etc. The parental and upbringing issues are missing in animals, so why are THEY gay?
2) Sexuality is a continuum, not a fixed absolute. There is no one who is exclusively heterosexual or exclusively homosexual by orientation. People can make that choice for their sexual activities, but not for their orientation.
These people should be forced to explain why the military and the NFL and NBA have about twice the "normal" percentage of gay men. Upbringing? Or twisted social pressures? Bad parents? Evil sexual encounters in prepubescence? Maybe all military and professional athletes should be forced into sexual "retraining" so they would be more "normal".
The religious right that is always behind these things is obsessed with the desire to punish anyone else who engages in any sexuality, period. But remember that Rep Foley was the most prolific sponsor of anti-gay and anti-pedophilia legislation in the House, while Sen. Craig was the most prolific in the Senate. My guess is that these "psychotherapists" are of the same ilk. Not interested in helping others, but interested in money and assuaging their own insecurities and covering up their own misdeeds. That's the right-wing Tao.
Chris-749391
I particularly enjoyed the part of your comment where you stereotype all conservatives as anti-gay.
Where did Chris make this stereotype? He said "religious right."
While I see no evidence of a stereotype in Chris' comment, the fact that only 24% of Republicans support marriage equality would indicate that such a stereotype would be very well justified.
And that's 24% of all Republicans - for teabaggers it's much worse, where 94% oppose marriage equality.
@Anthony California,
Is that called a Freudian slip? My experience is that conservatives are FAR more likely to be gay than liberals.
Um, do you even know what he meant by religious right? He meant the conservative extremists.
Also, Chris did NOT "come up with" that stereotype. That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. No, the right wingers do a pretty good job of creating and living up to their stereotype.
Shrek
Stereotyping is simply WRONG. It is a tool of abusers and politicians and only used to get the result they want.
When 94% of teabaggers don't support marriage equality it's not a stereotype but a sign that virtually all teabaggers are dumb bigots.
Chris-749391, #2.1- I have absolutely no idea if what you're stating about the rate of Homosexuality in Humans paralelling that of certain Animals is true or not, (and would ask you if you could substantiate that), because I find it to be interesting and curiously question if whatever is perceived as "homosexuality" in Animals is not maybe connected to some kind of "compensatory dominance" factor; as in a feeling of having been overpowered in some way in the past or "at present" feeling powerless, somehow and for some reason. Strictly of the Animal World only, itself, slightly akin to "marking territory", if you will. (as an urge)
Just "matter-of-factly" speaking and questioning here; and not trying to be rude, crude or demeaning or offensive, in any way at all.
And the duck says.....quack.... er .....pseudo science
What about Lesbians? Conversion therapy does nothing but help the patient deny innate feelings, and perpetrate the myth that homosexuality is wrong.
The flaw of your logic is that no feeling is innate. Ever been in a situation and been absolutely disgusted with someone until you find out something that exonerates them completely? Your feelings are based on how you look at the situation and on preset mental scripting. Change the scripting and how you choose to look at it and you change the feelings.
You are fifty years out of date in your thinking. Read up on evolutionary psychology.
Ah, the arguement that genetics and evolution determines how you think and behave. It fails to address satisfactorily the vast complexity of human development and how experiences affect the individual. Simply, it can not tie behavior directly to the individual, only generalized traits to groups.
One of its basic premises is that the brain produces behavior based on response to internal and external inputs. It even acknowledges that if you change the inputs, you can change the behavior.
I particularly dislike the term "reparitive therapy" dude there's nothing broke!
"Evolutionary psuchology" was nothing more than another discredited stab at eugenics. The problem was that Darwinian evolution has not been a current theory in over 40 years. The current theory is "punctuated equilibrium." The attempt to overlay the idea that many mental illnesses (including homosexuality) are the result of evolutionary processes gone haywire is really quite silly. Mostly it was a silly attempt to explain things based on an already discredited theory. The problem was that Darwin was wrong. There is no gradual stepwise evolutionary process and never has been. The fossiil records is very clear about that. There is "small adaptation within closely regulated groups" and that is it. The gradual linear process that slowly evolved a single cell organism into man never happened. Trying to revive one line from Origin of Species when the rest of the book fails ...... not good theory.
Chris, let me guess, you say God. And that line about fossil records being refuting of evolution is crap. We're finding new ones every month that are beginning to prove Darwin entirely correct. That said, it takes many millenia to happen. No one understands that kind of time scale. And just as well, annimals have spread all over the world and fallen into their niche. Without a need to change and adapt, they're not going to. And it just happens to be a coincidence we share 93% of our DNA with monkeys? Not freaking likely.
Crainiumthedumb
You must also be familiar with the book "Living with Screwed up People". Apparently the regulars on this site haven't a clue about it.
To those that have not read it. It's all about how your behavior may affect others behavior toward you. You cannot change their behavior unless you first change yours. Unfortuneately some people are so screwed up that no matter how much you change your behavior, they do not change. For those you must grin an bear it or for self preservation withdraw from them (particularly a boss).
DB
I have not read it, but I agree wholeheartedly with the synopsis as you present it. It is a growth upon Viktor Frankls thoughts. Essentially, the impetus for change must come from inside and very few have the desire to initiate real change in their lives.
Boy they sure do have some " unique" therapy methods to make the gay an ex-gay
if this is how you make the gay an ex-gay ..I'm perplexed
and Prayer Cabins ..so that's what they call the Bath House now
Charges: N. metro pastor fondled 2 men while counseling them about their sexuality
Isanti County pastor charged with sex assaults on men he was counseling
Article by: PAUL WALSH , Star Tribune
Updated: November 8, 2012 -
A north metro pastor who participated in a ministry devoted to helping people put their homosexuality behind them has been charged with sexually assaulting two men he was counseling.
Lakeside Christian Church's senior pastor, Ryan J. Muelhauser, 55, of Cambridge, appeared in court Tuesday on eight felony counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct and remains free ahead of another hearing next month.
Muelhauser also was a counselor through Robbinsdale-based Outpost Ministries, whose website says it was founded more than 30 years ago to help men and women "break away from gay life" and declares that "all homosexual behavior is sin."
According to the criminal complaint:
One of the men told investigators that Muehlhauser "blessed" him by cupping his genitals outside of his clothing several times and that Muehlhauser asked the man to masturbate in front of him for "spiritual strength." Muelhauser would also fondle the man at times. Their encounters occurred over a period of nearly two years.
Another man told investigators of similar encounters spanning most of this year, adding that Muehlhauser feared he would "lose everything" if anyone found out. At one encounter, Muehlhauser fondled the man and then the two joined the pastor's wife for a dinner outing.
The assaults of the two men occurred at the church, its prayer cabin and at a home belonging to a relative of one of the victims. The criminal complaint made a point to note that "consent by the complainant is not a defense," given Muelhauser being a clergy member.
http://www.startribune.com/local/177906901.html?refer=y
Ex-gay guru Richard Cohen demonstrating his reparative therapy techniques
on CNN, May 2006.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtGouVqsmsg
And don't forget Dr. Phil. While he lost his license for having sex with several women he was "treating", he was also accused of having sex with at least one man he was counseling. (Note: He got his license back due to the intervention of his father, a prominent Texas psychotherapist, but was only alloowed to practice under "close supervision." He did not resume treating patients and later allowed his licensure to lapse.)
Just watched the youtube link - wow...
So if you can "un-gay" someone with therapy; it stands to reason that you can also make a heterosexual a homosexual through therapy? What utter nonsense!
To..Enma3"""
No all you need for that is a couple shots of Jack and a six pack
LOL.. sometimes not even a 6 pack is needed.
@Amunaka,
What you are describing is a whole 'nother aspect altogether --- pansexuality. "Pansexuality, or omnisexuality, is sexual attraction, sexual desire, romantic love, or emotional attraction toward persons of all gender identities and biological sexes. Self-identified pansexuals may consider pansexuality a sexual orientation, and refer to themselves as gender-blind, asserting that gender and sex are insignificant or irrelevant in determining whether they will be sexually attracted to others. The Oxford English Dictionary defines pansexuality as, "not limited or inhibited in sexual choice with regards to gender or activity".
In pansexuality, it is the sex act that is important, not the gender of the partner. General attractiveness and some level of alcohol or drugs seem to be the only common factors for pansexuality. Errol Flynn was a noted pansexual. Tom Mix once said that once Errol had a couple of drinks, you had to keep your hands over your butt at all times. LOL
As the russian joke goes:
A diary of an imperial guard soldier:
"Day one. Camping in the countryside. Drank all booze. Screwed all women"
"Day two. Drank all that burns. Screwed all that moves"
"Day three. Found what is not moving, moved it and then screwed"
"Day four. Leutenant Rzevsky arrived, and that's when the depravities began".
If adults want to waste their time and money to go through this counseling, it's their right to. Children, however, should not. The shaming this "therapy" does can do too much damage to a child already overwhelmed by the stress of puberty. If they still want to go through with it after their 18th birthday, more power to them, but this gay man is glad to be gay. I have kids and a family who loves me and best of all, I get to be myself. No amount of therapy can make you happier than that.
I'd say the therapist from Encino looks like the "queen of denial". How many of these 'conversion therapists' have incorporated themselves -- so when the money comes in, it doesn't go out -- I wonder. Greedy parasites once, greedy parasites always.
Notice that he's "still looking" when it comes to a spouse.
Methinks all he did was make himself celibate and claim heterosexuality.
I'm tired of being a heterosexual. Perhaps I'll take his route:
I'm gay! I just don't have sex with men...
allswell, I think you are right. What about heteros who become celibate after a divorce or death of spouse, rather than cruise the bars or wherever for close encounters. Are they cured of being heterosexual? I think not!
I think there are some areas where the right therapist might be helpful -- confused young adults who had one or a few homosexual encounters and think they HAVE to be gay because of it. Not everyone who experiments with the same sex is truly gay. Some people need help figuring out who they are really attracted to. Also someone who is gay (or even straight) might feel their experiences are sinful, yet feel driven to have many encounters due to loneliness. Therapy might help them learn to look for true love in a more healthy way. Regardless of orientation, many people live with guilt for feeling sexual at all.
As for nature vs nurture? I think it is both and which is the highest proportion varies with each person. Look at various illnesses that run in families (physical and mental). Sometimes the genetics are very obvious. Then again certain kinds of trauma might actually "turn" someone gay, trigger bipolar or depressive states, or increase the intensity of heart disease. We can never know for sure how much is genetic vs how much is stress and other environmen factors.
Granny - you know I had a friend from high school, who was straight as can be - she dated lots of boys (and im pretty sure had sex with at least one of them).
Then she went off to college, played bball for college, and met a lot of lesbians.
and then she started having attractions to one in particular, and they had a relationship that lasted...
well, until college ended.
(we call them LUG's - Lesbian Until Graduation)
She then found a guy and got married asap.
Now, you might think "just because she had one or two gay experiences" doesnt make her gay.
But here's what's just as important when you make this determination:
her family is religious and when they found out about her girlfriend, they disowned her.
it's at that point that she broke it off with her girlfriend and claimed she wasnt gay.
it's at that point that her family welcomed her back, with open arms, like nothing ever happened.
Are you sure she was always straight, or is it quite possible she just would rather fake it through life and not lose her family?
and would you want to be the person married to her and never quite know what the truth really is?
There's a need for sexual discovery therapy, but not conversion therapy. The difference is one does not try and pre-determine what you'll be.
allswell - good point!
What better place for a homosexual than being with a homosexual. You will never sway me, homosexuality is a choice, I have seen them get turned on by women and they attempted to hide it. Women are stupid to believe they can trust these men. The greatest problem other than it being disgusting, and I do not even condone it with a woman, is the spread of aids among the heterosexuals, they have accomplished that very well also. You can say it would have anyway because of drug addicts and you could be right , but since it originated from homosexuality, that would not be correct either. Now since the public school system is teaching that anal sex is ok as a alternate to losing your virginity, aids is spreading like wild fire from middle school to high school children. They say they advocate the use of protection, and unless these girls are on the pill, take it from me when two teen agers start, they will not stop long enought to use them.
I have seen them get turned on by women and they attempted to hide it.
Really now.
Now since the public school system is teaching that anal sex is ok as a alternate to losing your virginity, aids is spreading like wild fire from middle school to high school children.
You have stats to back that up?
Your post is laughable actually.
To..Jerry"""
No it wasn't originated from homosexuality..and the public school system is teaching no such thing
but since it originated from homosexuality,
Did you get this from faux news, the secret christian right conservative ministries, or did you just make it up. It doesn't matter where a disease comes from, what matters is we cure it from destroying someone else.
Where is the public schools teaching that anal sex is okay? I believe we are teaching our children the "REAL World" and doing something adults don't do. Tolerance of others regardless of their sexual orientation.
Jerry, you are a fool to believe that being gay is a choice. So if your son or daughter told you they were gay you would accuse them of choosing a lifestyle not accepted by parts of a society. No one chooses to be gay, it is genetic codes implanted at the moment the sperm invades the egg. Time for you to go back to school and take your Biology class again.
So Jerry, by your "logic," if homosexuality is a choice, then heterosexuality is a choice, also. When did you make yours?
Jerry where in the he — — do you get the idea that HIV was started by the gay community. You sir are an uneducated fool if you truly believe that thought. Time for you to go back to school and learn how to read.
And studies show that homophobe have a tendency to get turned on by homoerotic visuals.
Any sex or fluid transfer can spread AIDS. Try and be less ignorant.
False. AIDS originated as SIDS (simian), and was spread via infected bushmeat (monkey meat). The two methods believed to have started it are eating undercooked bushmeat, and the cultivation of the polio vaccine in bushmeat (live virus cultivation and reused needles at the time).
Try and post support for this bull@!$%# contention next time.
Public sex education teaches that condom use (unless its one of the dumbass abstinence only classes) should be normal for all forms of sex. After that it is the choice of the individual.
Then that has nothing to do with education and everything to do with choice.
Oh, and one other thing: AIDS doesn't spontaneously come into existence. Somewhere along the chain somebody else had it to pass it along. You wanna stop the spread? Get tested regularly if sexually active.
HIV is a variant of SIV , Simian Immunodeficiency Virus, which is found in apes and monkeys.
No, it does not imply that some African pervert monkey humper was the original cause of the AIDS pandemic. The incident almost certainly occurred on a butcher's cutting board. People eat these animals and a slip of the knife would allow the transfer of a virus from one species to another.
I'm a retired cook, if there ever had been a deadly blood borne disease in the common meat animals of our culture I'd have died of it a long time ago.
Your facts are wrong, your assumptions worse, your bigotry obvious. Too bad shame is an ineffective therapy, you could use a serious round of it.
I think that Jerry is one of those "special" people.
Oh wait, I can't really say that. I've worked with people who have developmental disabilities, and they are way smarter than Jerry, based on the drivel he has spewed in this thread.
And that is why you have no business in a debate with grown-ups.
CAN WE JUST "TALK" THIS NUTJOB AWAY???????? I think he got "dumped" by a boyfriend and now he's got his panties in a bunch.
If I had to bet on which of the posters on this thread was a heavily closeted gay, I would put my money on @Jerrylotsanumbers.
As Billy Shakespeare said, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." which comes from Hamlet, Act III, scene II, where it is spoken by Queen Gertrude, Hamlet's mother. The phrase has come to mean that one can "insist so passionately about something not being true that people suspect the opposite of what one is saying."
Remember that right-wingers Rep Foley and Sen Craig were the most prolific authors of anti-gay legislation in Congress before being exposed as gay.
There is a type of aversion therapy that @Jerrylotsanumbers might be interested in. It uses electric shocks applied to tender body parts whenever you say something stupid. However, I sould suppose in Jerry's case it might be called electrlocution.
Cher concerts don't count, Jerry.
"Now since the public school system is teaching that anal sex is ok as a alternate to losing your virginity..."
They're actually teaching this as part of the curriculum? I think not. Yes, many kids are doing this now, but it's not being "taught" by the schools.
If everyone is born with a bisexual curiosity and then just sort of drifts towards finding one gender more appealing then shouldn't that mean I could become gay and find men attractive if I were motivated to change? I don't understand why we spend so much time talking about gay issues when something like 3% of Americans are homosexual and sexual preference doesn't negatively affect job performance, morality, sense of duty, etc. If someone has five sexual encounters a week and lets say they spend an hour pumping and dumping each time then I don't see the fascination with what someone spends for five hours a week on their own time.
Quack. How come they never claim to be able to talk a straight person gay? If the theory says it works both ways, presumably you could do this.
On the other hand, if all you depend on is the great human ability to repress and lie to yourself to gain a better acceptability in family or society or avoid conflicts, then let's just call this BS brainwashing not therapy.
I would be interested to see what these "therapists" would do if someone came to them requesting "reparative" therapy to make him gay because he no longer wants to be straight.
Exactly right, Hambone.
Given that all of these "therapists" are coming from a Christian extremist background, I suspect none would be willing to help a straight person become gay.
As someone who works in the mental health field I would have thought that this fringe approach would have been moved to the pile known as outdated and obsolete ideas and approaches. There are those that keep it alive due to the fact that as long as there is money to be made from it there are the charlatans that will take advantage of the desperate and poorly informed.
Ultimately, if they would like us to believe them, they should prove their therapy works. Design a study, preferably a randomized, controlled research study, perform the study and publish it in a respected, peer reviewed journal. It's not that difficult, and would completely vindicate their work if the study supported it. I suspect it has not been done because these folks know it does not work, or it has been done and was never published because it exposed them for what they are.
As it has been stated many times, as long as there is money to be made, there will be conversion therapists talking the gay away.
People who believe that gay conversion works need to look at the suicide rates after supposed gay conversion. It only instills more fear of what others think of them and thus feel that if they are not here they do not have to face their true feelings because of what some fool brainwashed them with. Conversion therapy is wrong, it is torture and someday when a family sues a group or individual after they performed conversion therapy on a family member and that person took his or her own life will be convicted of murder. First degree murder!!!!!!!!!!
So Jerry, by your "logic," if homosexuality is a choice, then heterosexuality is a choice, also. When did you make yours?
After a chance meeting in a public Men's restroom at the airport in Minneapolis he felt it left a bad taste in his mouth and decided to choose straight.
has everybody lost their damn minds or is it just the Tea Party - Republicans - Born Again Christians and any other fool walking and talking as if they had a brain.
I am a proud mother of beautiful twin boys who are the love of my life. They have always been who they were born to be - gay. I celebrate that in the knowledge that they have become intelligent, caring men. Therapists can play the stereotype name games, and practice so called "conversion therapies" form now until forever. But, I can tell all of you that people, and I stress "people", are born to be who they will become. They, heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian, trans-gender and all of the other colors of the beautiful rainbow of human beings on this earth, including me, live life as we were born to live life. Please teach your children to love themselves, and love them back. This @#! needs to stop.
Grandma Dee from California..
I don't know but I am curious will anybody really believe you're an ex-gay when you've already been labeled as gay
Does a gay basher know the difference ...or care
“I never lived the gay lifestyle. I just had sexual experiences.”
News Flash: same thing.
God help us! All this a$$ is going to accomplish with his idiot theory is more alleged straight men attacking boys in locker rooms and public bathrooms while posing as upstanding, hetrosexual, valued members of society. Does the fool not realize that homosexuality is found in all animals? There are well documented cases of prize race horses not being able to be breed because the horse is gay; this is also true for other species. Where does this fit into the fools theory? Conservative religious are the plague of the Earth; they twist everything in order to fit their own view of what is right and acceptable. This fools license should be revoked before he creates dangerous and lasting problems to those who seek his so called treatment.
Men are made for women and women are made from men. That's the way God made it. its common sense. Look at the plumbing! Nobody was born gay. Its a choice people make for whatever reason, or life circumstance. People are confused and don't know the truth, or refuse to believe it. They don't know the purpose of life, and no wonder the commit suicide. Whats next, farm animals? Too extreme? Says who? Who decides right from wrong? None of you created this world, so none of your opinions matter. Seek the Truth. Seek God. Repent of sins and accept Jesus as your saviour. Your opinions won't matter when you die, and you go before your Creator!
Can you explain homosexuality in 1500+ instinctual species in nature?
A) Bestiality is a paraphilia, not a gender attraction (sexuality is gender-based attractions only).
B) Animals can't legally consent.
Guess that means yours doesn't matter either!
Which god? There are dozens of creator deities, and all of them are equally valid. You can't prove one without proving the others.
"Who decides right from wrong?"
WE do. We always have. We always will. Sometimes we make up an invisible friend that conveniently tells us what we want to hear, but it's still us making the decisions.
So.. does god say its bad to eat shellfish? Or for a man to marry his wife sister? have more than one wife? God did not say anywhere what sex we were made for or what our sexual orientation is supposed to be. God accepts everyone for who they are and what they are. He does not judge and if memory serves me correctly, he also (according to christanity) are not SUPPOSED to judge each other either right?
This is the United States of America and God does not make our laws nor do those who believe in god dictate our morality. Please keep your freedom of religion, but accept my rights to be FREE of your religious beliefs.
Why in the hell would someone choose to be gay?
Just as soon as they have legal capacity for informed consent. But seriously, you people sure do spend a lot of time thinking about having sex with animals.
Seek a theocracy. We're a secular nation.
I love how people always bring animals into the discussion about homosexuality. Like Sarah said, animals are not capable of giving consent.
It's 2012, put the bible down and get an education.
Bestiality is commonly used in homosexual discussions with "religious types". Mainly because homosexuality in itself is not repulsive enough to mount a war against it, so they lump it in with bestiality. I have my own stereotype: Those that believe in the big man in the sky is the equivalent to severe mental retardation and should be admitted to a facility so the "truth" can be talked out of them.
OMG which rock did crawl from under, oh wait we all did the human species evolved we were not created from dust and rib bones. People do not make a deliberate choice to be gay or straight, genetics controls that and there is no changing that no matter what the Bible supposedly tells you. Sperm + egg = whatever happens. Being gay, straight, black, white, yellow, red, handicapped, normal, blue eyes, ten fingers and ten toes or no fingers and toes is all genetic.
I know! It's just total common sense! Everyone knows that Eve was cloned from Adam's rib by a magic sky fairy, and that Adam promptly had sex with his transgendered clone.
And since they only had two male children, those sons had sex with their mother.
I thought everyone knew that - it's just common sense!
shrekk -- I don't think Cain and Abel were Adam and Eve's ONLY children. But still, they had to have married their sisters at the least. Somehow this subject came up last night with my 12 year old. He was totally grossed out that siblings would have had to mate.
As for beastiality, I think Eve was just a bit too friendly with that snake.......
Sorry Granny, no daughters were mentioned in the bible-babble, only two sons one of whom turned out to be an ax-murderer.
"What you really do is treat them like any other client that is distressed about anything, and you work on distress.”
The cure for distress is acceptance, not more self-loathing.
Well, it is striking to hear how mild-mannered Nicolosi and Pickup speak now, compared to what NARTH and its conservative Christian allies preached or published a few years ago. Just compare these fresh remarks with Gabriel Arana's first person report of actually doing therapy with the 'good, kind' doctor N. himself when Arana was a teen in a conservative family.
See:
and See:
How do we reconcile the differences in the story lines?
One story is supposedly about acceptance, welcome, insight, and healthy choices (now claimed to be essential to SOCE/Reparative Tx); the other story is about gay=bad or gay=sick, about needing desperately to be judged 'normal' in the eyes of one's self, the doc, and family and others.
My own concerns as a human services colleague in the widest professional sense, about SOCE practitioners, mainly focus on two areas. First, I just cannot see how this once-heralded psychodynamic business of 'you just didn't get to bond sufficiently with your father before touch/sight/closeness became sexually charged" can survive a common sense and solid methodological face off with the evidence. Simply put, many functioning heterosexual men had vexed, complicated, distant, or troubled or less than psychoanalytically-psychologically 'ideal' parented relationships with their own fathers during childhood. The theory fails to account for the innumerable straight guys who had imperfect and often outright horrid fathers. Why aren't all those straight men gay? If the dominant theory is complete and correct? Nicolosi, Pickup and others still don't bother to even theorize about this common sense critique.
Second, and perhaps even more humanly pressing? I consistently find no evidence that SOCE workers bother to follow the basic ethical guidelines that we are all pledge to follow as professionals who do any kind of clinical helping service or consultations. Informed Consent ethics are routinely glossed over, abridged so as not to telegraph ahead of time the 'discouraging' statistics concerning SOCE outcomes ... a small minority of the already small minority who involve themselves in SOCE. Ethical requirements for experimental procedures are rarely followed if ever by SOCE workers. Ethical-professional-clinical monitoring for indicators of harm or suffering are routinely neglected since SOCE workers glaringly tag themselves as nothing but benign. At termination of SOCE procedures, which fail to work most of the time? ... professional follow up evaluations (best done by completely neutral colleagues?) are never done, and so, proper referrals to other services that can continue exactly where SOCE leaves off (especially when it happens to be a real failure) are not given. People who do not change in SOCE are trash talked as if something turned out to be wrong with them as humans. Even so high a moral authority as the current Vatican maintains their behaviors are instrinsically disordered. Finally, SOCE workers are ethically bound to utterly come clean about the faith or religious roots and contexts of their theory and their self-lauded counseling or clinical work.
We might also note for the record that a significant portion of SOCE promoters happen to turn out to be fathers whose own sons are gay. While this family matter is delicate indeed, any one among us who has to weigh SOCE has to factor personal aims and motives into the yardstick we use to measure, because 'counter-transference' as a father who 'failed to make his son straight like himself' could be a confounding and powerful reason for at least some instances of SOCE allegiance. drdanfee
drdanfee--great post! I'm a retired substance abuse counselor, and I remember one client coming up to me and asking if she had to turn straight to be in recovery--I told her "Not at all! There are many gay people in AA. In fact, AA has meetings specifically for gay people by gay people." I loved the look of relief on her face when I said that!
Excellent point about counter-transference. And basic ethical guidelines are so critical for we mental health professionals. And I have to second your observation about many functioning heterosexuals having come from vexing and traumatic childhoods!
I will believe these wackos as soon as they use the same techniques to turn a straight person gay. Same thing right?
"Conversion therapy" (alias "torture", "marginalization", "ridicule") has been used for centuries: to make newly converted Protestants go back to Catholicism, to make Native Americans live like white people, to make left handed people right handed, etc. There will always be some "group" that irritates smug "normal folk" who feel they have a direct line to God, or Truth, or Normalcy, and a right to force others into their mold or exclude them altogether. Pro-conversion nut cases like to yap about how unhappy gay people WANT to "convert". Well gosh, golly, gee, why are they unhappy? Because they're MADE to be. Make someone unhappy enough, and they'll seek "change" to escape that unhappiness. Innocent jailed and threatened suspects who "confessed" to witchcraft in Salem, 1692, were allowed to live, with their accusers shouting, "Praise Jesus, they're saved!"
Sorry my links to Gabriel Arana's articles did not post. Just google/search for Gabriel Arana and you will find the information if you are interested in digging just a bit deeper than this interview/article.
Gay conversion therapy is not just wrong. It is not just homophobic. It is evil. It teaches people to hate themselves, and can lead them to hurt themselves or others.
What's right for you may not be for everyone. Only the wise will seek the truth...and never stop seeking.
Not only are you wrong it should be mandatory like any other mental or emotional illness. If one is going to kill themselves they will most likely do it anyway. I suppose that there should be treatment discontinued for all the other dysfunctional people like gay's. Give me a break, gay's are the whinniest, hateful people there are, and the justification for their problem is unbelievably ridiculous.
WRONG. Homosexuality is not considered a mental or emotional illness -- but your homophobia is. You need to seek treatment.
What justification do you have for YOUR problem?
*crickets*
Funny, I hear a lot more whining and hate from Christians lately.