The problem with taking such a ban-happy approach is that it takes freedom of choice away from people. Like it or not, some have clearly benefited from reparative therapy, unless you prescribe to the silly conspiracy theory that every person who ever claimed so was lying. At some point, we have to consider that maybe the reason so many make that claim is because there actually are people out for there which it has benefited. The bottom line is that therapy and counseling are far too inexact of a "science" to treat as if it can CAUSE death and so forth, as the gay pride movement's PR campaign does with this. Let people make up their own minds and stop trying to "think" for them via law and regulation. The gay pride movement's only prescription for life is the 'out-and-proud' approach. So it's no surprise they would perceive any movement as an ideological threat that would dare (GASP) explore the possibility of trying to live in a way that ignores, works around/against, or suppresses homosexual feelings.

Ultimately, the only thing apologists like Foundit (as his post shows) can fall back on is an on-going strategy of accusing people of lying who are just sharing their experiences. And that's the problem--people can't change what they've gone through and experienced. As long as there are those out there who HAVE learned to live in a way that shows the gay-pride approach doesn't have to be the way, that possibility will be out there. I for one KNOW it's true because I know people who I trust that have and are doing it, and those people aren't lying. It's just unreasonable and downright wrong to fall back on that accusation all the time when these people mean well and need to be free to share their experiences without being called 'liars' all the time.

I mean, think about it. Do gay priders actually think ex-gays WANT to have to be public with all this? Do they actually think it's FUN to publicly say they have been gay at one time? Ex-gays are still 'coming out' in a sense in terms of stigma, but without the benefit of a pride movement to support them. (even though that pride movement hypocritically claims to be about fairness, equality, and freedom of choice, which means they should be for EX-gays too!) Ex-gays live in a sort of no-man's land: evangelicals don't trust them, and the gay pride movement downright hates them. So they're stance is all the more brave, in a sense.

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What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand???

Again, they aren't BANNING the so-called "therapy". They are limiting it to adults and removing it from being forced upon minors. It's all about freedom of choice.

And, like it or not, many have clearly been harmed by reparative therapy or it simply has not worked, unless you prescribe to the silly conspiracy theory that every person who ever claimed so was lying. At some point, we have to consider that maybe the reason so many make that claim is because there actually are people out there for which it has been a detriment.

No...again you completely miss the point. The issue at hand here is having a potentially harmful process forced upon a minor against his will. We aren't talking about a vaccine or a circumcision here; we are talking about a process which alters or corrupts a core trait of a person and can leave damaging psychological scars for life. If they want to do it as an adult, fine, but no one, not even the parents, should be free to force such an "inexact science" (your words) upon them when there is such a potential for harm. And especially not when every reputable professional organization in the field is against it.

This isn't about gay pride. I am, by no means, a part of any pride movement. I simply see this for what it is: a potential psychological harm to innocent people just to please the rigid sensibilities of others and their morality. Reparative therapy is fine if a person chooses it but it should never be forced upon a person without their informed consent.

Great. I am glad you know people that have had positive experiences from it. But all third party, unbiased research shows that yours is a unique experience and that the vast majority of those who go through so-called reparative therapy suffer bouts of depression, diminished self-esteem, increased risk of self destructive behavior, drug and alcohol dependancy, and, ultimately, a return to homosexuality.

No, I am pretty sure it's difficult to stand in front of the media and tell people you have changed a core trait because you were told it was dirty, wrong, immoral or whatever reason. It has to be a crushing blow to one's sense of self worth to tell the world that you had to become a different person to feel worthy of the respect of the people around you.

And to do that knowing you are still struggling in profound ways with this unnatural change has to make it even worse.

True. Any group that would require a person to go through therapy to change one of their most basic characteristics in order to be accepted isn't very supportive at all. That's why I don't get the reparative therapy movement or why anyone would subscribe to it at all.

I have compassion for them, myself. I don't trust that it worked; I worry about the lifetime of heartache and sorrow they will endure because they could not reject the notion that their worth is tied to the acceptance of others and so they subjected themselves to a potentially harmful "therapy" to make others happy. I am not sure how others feel about them but that is my view of "ex-gays".

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The voice in your head that says "you can't do this" is a LIAR!!!

True. But I was responding to a quote that was referring to what a child wants.

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DISCLAIMER: Extreme amounts of sarcasm can possibly result in inflammatory situations. Not responsible for keyboard violence, spittle on the monitor, irrational responses mistaken for momentary brilliance, one-sided rages against hypocrisy or individual members or unintended consequences such as poor personal hygiene and bad spelling. Please fasten your seatbelts and put your trays in an upright position.

I find it amusing that you want to claim that people have “benefited”
from reparative therapy, but refuse to admit to the documented harm.
Regarding “freedom of choice”, adults can still engage in this
therapy. Vulnerable children should not be submitted to practices
that are based on false claims of scientific basis and a refusal to
admit to the harm that it can cause.

Your claim of “freedom” is really about putting kids’ lives at risk.
It’s an insistence that the validity of “snake oil” be put up to the
masses to be hoodwinked and that scientific validation of medicine can
go screw itself cause it’s not applicable.


So, many people recognizing it harmed them? Oh! Let’s be doubtful
and pretend it isn’t happening.
You claiming “many people” helped? THEM we have to believe!


Can you even honestly recognize the tactic you’re pulling?


Seriously. This attempt to make this about “gay pride” is boring and pointless.
The law is rejected based on scientific / therapy situations.
NOT because gay pride people would get their feelings hurt.

The sooner you start being honest about that the better.


Ahhh Joe.
It’s so much easier to misrepresent what I’m saying when you aren’t
even bothering to quote me at all, isn’t it…
We’ve had this conversation too many times before to disregard that as
an honest mistake.

First, regarding the reparative therapy groups, they do lie.
That has been documented.
The groups in general lie and misrepresent valid research in
order to claim a lot of nasty stuff about gays, or to pretend there is
supported validity for their “therapy” where there isn’t any.
In the video you presented, David Pickup lied.
He lied about identifying as a gay person. You can’t claim you are an
“ex-homosexual” if you are also claiming to have never been one in the
first place.
He lied about what other therapists would recognize, regarding the
claim that sexually abused kids and the impact of becoming gay because
of the sexual abuse.
The funny thing is you don’t even try to deny he lied. You just whine
about me pointing out they lied…

Regarding people “sharing their experience”, we’ve talked about this before…
It’s the equivalent of “faith healing”, telling people they have been
“cured” by the power of suggestion.
But the reality is that after the people go home, inevitably (over
time, which is the enemy of reparative therapy) there is nothing
changed regarding who the person is.
In the past, you have fallen back on the lame position of people just
abstaining from gay sex, which is mind-bogglingly lame. People
(unless they’re sex addicts which is an entirely different subject)
can abstain from sex without “reparative therapy”.

The reality of “sharing their experience” comes down to the timing of
the question.
There are even a variety of people who RAN ex-gay groups who
proclaimed they were “cured”, only to later renounce their “cure” as
false and announce that they were still gay.
But people like you would hang your hat on the PRIOR proclamation of
“cured”, while the reparative therapy groups REFUSE to do longevity
studies to recognize the falseness of their claims of helping people.


It’s amazing how many people CLAIM to know “ex-gay” people.
Yet when science comes calling and they do a study to DOCUMENT what
actually happened, they’re strangely difficult to find.

And when people like Dr Spitzer have to go to the ex-gay groups to
request they hand-pick results for examination (and the hand-picking
violates scientific standards), upon QUESTIONING the claims they find
the reality to be rather different than the claims of the group…


Oh dear gawd. You guys are SOOOOO victimized…
The reality is that other areas do this with no problem.
Being a drug addict or an alcohol addict has MORE stigma (depending on
the level of anti-gay bigotry) than being “ex-gay”…
You’re throwing out stupid excuses that are boring and trivial.


Oh puh-leaze.
GAYS TYPICALLY DO NOT CARE about people who are JUST “ex-gay”.
But the reality is when you have ex-gay groups (and some isolated
ex-gay people) who make it their purpose to attack gays.
It isn’t the “ex-gay” that we care about.
It’s their attempts to USE “ex-gay” to ATTACK GAYS that is the issue.

This also has been explained to you before.


You have truth regarding the bigotry evangelicals have towards
ex-gays, which only goes to PROVE that for evangelicals it is not
just about the “action”…

Regarding “gay pride movement”, you’re full of it. This is more of
the anti-gay movement trying to pretend THEY are somehow victimized
when they are actually attacking gays...

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"Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value."
Albert Einstein

We do that any way. It's called taxation, registration for selective service, and the list goes on and on. You don't get to choose everything and certainly not a "medical" therapy that is proven to cause more harm than good.

1 out of 100,000 isn't really good odds of getting cured. But 90,000 out of 100,000 is really good odds of negative impacts.

I guess it all depends on what you mean by "benefited"... If by benefited you mean "cured", then that's false. There is not a record of actually being "cured" of homosexuality. If by "benefited" you mean "brought out of a homosexual lifestyle", then that too is false. Most people who go through conversion therapy still ultimately ending up leading a homosexual life. That's probably due to the fact that they are... I don't know... HOMOSEXUALS. But one thing is clear. The number of people who have been harmed by "conversion" or "repairative" therapy vastly outnumbers those who have "benefited".

Well you have backed yourself in a corner. Either A) Therapy and counseling has real impact on people and can make a change in their life (both positive in the sense you try to advocate AND negative in the sense that the science shows) OR B) It's all hooey and thus outlawing has no real impact what so ever. Your choice.

I'm all for allowing people to entertain whatever sort of therapy they want to entertain WHEN they are adults. That's the problem. So many children are forced into this sort of therapy AGAINST THEIR WILL because their mother and/or father just don't approve. That's not treatment, that's torture.

I don't know this gay pride movement you speak of so often, I think it's a figment of your imagination. Homosexuals, like heterosexuals, are, for the most part, normal law abiding people who aren't interested in hurting their kids. Your inability to separate activists from the average everyday experience would be shocking if we weren't so keenly aware of your anti-gay activism.

It's unhealthy to ignore, work around/again, or suppress normal healthy feelings. Sadly for you, homosexuals feelings are normal and healthy.

I don't know that they're lying. I think they've been duped and brainwashed for the most part as evidenced by the huge failure rate of this form of therapy and the overwhelming majority who realize that nothing was wrong with THEM and end up leading a happy healthy homosexual life. They may really want to believe that they've changed, but that's the extremely rare case that actually does.

Nor can they change their makeup. They are who they are. They can try to live the lie they want to live to appease religion or society or family, but at the end of the day, it comes back to bite them in the ass.

It's also possible to spontaneously combust. Your point?

As I said before, I don't think they're lying. I think they really believe it. That's the saddest part of it.

I think it's unreasonable and downright wrong to ignore the fact that the vast majority of people who go through this sort of therapy still end up gay. We're talking 99%. So while it's unreasonable to think these people are lying, it's perfectly reasonable to think they've been brainwashed/duped.

The reason there is no pride movement to support them is because there isn't enough people to actually show a success rate. You'd have the forty people march. o.O

Oh it's brave... and short lived. Why? Because the therapy doesn't work.

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The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.

-- Hitler, April 11 1942

Please. If they are making regulation that bans parents from taking their kids for it, then they are banning it. Call a spade a spade.

Of course it is. You are apparently naive to how political this issue is, regardless of the fact you aren't in the gay pride movement.

If they say it has, you should as readily give them the benefit of the doubt as you do those for whom it hasn't worked. To not do so is a form of prejudice. There are plenty of people that aren't just claiming it worked, but are HAPPY with it. The gay pride movement would have you think they are all miserable wretches, but not so.

What's amusing is that you disingenuously go on as if we haven't discussed this before where I HAVE acknowledged there's documentation of harm. I do so now as well.

Ah, so it's rather an infringment on parenting instead.

"Snakeoil" with the unique position of many, many people instead saying it has worked for them. Why do you insist on inferring that all these people are lying???

If that were true there wouldn't be this campaign to discredit people who are just being open about their lives and what has worked for them. A campaign you partake in, intentionally or not.

LOL, it's hilarious how you feign outrage over something, and then turn right around and do the very thing you're whining about being called on.

Foundit, you have a bad habit of claiming instances where people give a different TAKE or view of the situation is a "lie". You've been around long enough to know this issue is controversial enough and has enough shades of gray that the things Pickup was saying may indeed have truth in the cases he has dealt with. You can't know if he's lying without investigating those specific cases.

That's not all faith healing is. That IS your agnostic/atheist VIEW of faith-healing. Meanwhile, as you stay on these wichhunts against things like this, many people have experienced change in their lives. It really doesn't matter that you'll never believe them, because their experiences aren't dependent on your approval.

The funny thing is that Pickup SAID AS MUCH--in that he made it clear it is a challenge and long hard journey. I swear, sometimes it is so obvious you don't even pay attention to the very things you reject out of hand. The idea the gay pride movement puts forward about reparative therapy that it's like flipping a switch is THEIR spin on things. Reparative therapy people are normally quite clear it's a difficult journey where people mess up sometimes.

And it's even more amazing how people such as yourself clearly DON'T know ex-gay people, at all. If you did you'd be more honest and compassionate in your treatment of them.

Well by all means, since "we do it anyway", lets throw caution to the wind and accept ban-happy approaches with no critical thinking!!! I guess if everyone else jumped off a cliff, you'd do the same.

And I didn't USE the term "cured"--you did. I simply said 'benefitted'. The word "cured" is played up by your movement because it's a lot easier to portray as an extreme position than someone acknowledging it has HELPED. But sadly, your movement won't even acknowledge or admit that some have BEEN helped by it.

You don't get it do you? These people very well might not BE suicidal if they weren't homosexual to begin with! Reparative therapy didn't cause the problem that was already there--that they were suicidal to begin with. At least it's trying to FIX the problem, unlike the gay pride movement only wants to legitimize behavior and use gays and ex-gays for political purposes.

Oh, I think ya do. I know ya know it quite well.

Homosexuals, like heterosexuals, are, for the most part, normal law abiding people who aren't interested in hurting their kids. Your inability to separate activists from the average everyday experience ... [/quote]

The fact that I say gay-activists instead of singling out gays in general should tell you that I DON'T have an inability to do that. But that would take reading comprehension and pure honesty on your part.

At least you admit it happens, which is some progress for you.

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What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand???

Actually, engaging in this form of therapy is throwing caution to the wind. How interesting that you advocate we do that.

I went through several meanings of the word benefited, and through none of them was there an actual benefit. Would you care to go back and try again?

Actually I do get it. Homosexuality does not cause suicidal thoughts despite the assertion you've made. Homosexuality is not an illness. Homosexuality is not a mental condition. SOCIETY may indeed reject a person because they are a homosexual and thus create overwhelming pressure to change and thus lead to suicidal thoughts, but that is a problem with SOCIETY, not homosexuality.

No, the rejection of homosexuality caused the problem.

Fix? With a success rate of nearly 0 it has fixed nothing. It only complicates the real problem which is the social stigma and rejection.

I know what YOU consider to be the movement, but hell... that could be anybody...

The fact that YOU say gay-activists actually does mean you have the inability to do that because you have shown you cannot differentiate between gay and gay activist. Someone who lives their life as a homosexual to you is actively out there recruiting kids to the lifestyle and working to destroy "traditional" marriage.

It does. About as often as spontaneous combustion in humans, but it happens...

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The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.

-- Hitler, April 11 1942

The only thing I'm advocating here is taking people at the word and giving them freedom rather than CA's ban-happy approach.

IMO aversion to homosexuality happens as an internal thing and would be present no matter what society does. A person doesn't have to be taught that sexual acts with someone who's not biologically opposite in gender is not normative. We tend to have a built-in "ick-factor" so-to-speak. The important factor is that some people don't want it--that's THEIR decision. Not yours, when it's their life. There's another side to 'reparative therapy' altogether that simply involves supporting and helping people who don't want to live the gay pride prescription for their live and rather want to live more normatively. That's why the gay pride movement considers ex-gays such a threat to their ideology and politics.

Bad analogy; self-claims apparently happen much more frequent that that example.

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What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand???

This is malpractice. Pure and simple.

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"Don't seek truth, just drop your opinions."

Buddha

From a PERSONAL standpoint, I agree...

But I STRONGLY disagree from a legal standpoint...

This infringes upon the rights of the parents to make stupid decisions...

This is discrimination TOWARDS gays...It is selective...

Parents have a right to go to John Edwards so he can "talk to dead relatives", don't they?...

Don't they have a right to a plethora of bullsh*t "home remedies" for anything from depression to "balancing your karma" right here on the interweb?...

Don't the parents have a right to go to a tarot card reader to decide their children's path in life?...

These can be as damaging (if not more) than any gay reparative therapy...

The point is that if you believe it's the state's duty to prevent the separation of a fool and his money (and I surely don't), then do it ACROSS THE BOARD instead of hand-picking select groups because of their lobby and intimidation efforts...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd