Toledo Blade

The Blade's religion section reported that the Southern Baptist Convention, adhering to the discredited practice of reparative therapy, has hired an employee to oversee the "conversion" of gay and lesbian people to heterosexuality.

For a different (irreverent perspective):

http://www.bettybowers.com/bash.html

Or

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/

While I disagree strongly with the Baptist's "reparative therapy," in the US, we have freedoms. Even freedom of religion. That gives us the freedom, among other things, to be wrong. However they can't do any real damage to homosexuals, unless they submit to their misguided reparative therapy.

So while I passionately oppose reparative therapy, I also acknowledge the Baptist's right to engage in it. Beyond dialog, any fix would require legislation to deny certain rights that of one group, that another finds abhorrent. That in the end will also trample other different rights of other people through precedent.

When you limit your neighbors rights, you trample your own.

Whoa!!!  Those two sites you gals listed were hysterical!  So very, very funny.
I especially enjoyed the "ex-negro" ministry. Yes, Jesus can help make you white too if you just believe hard enough?!

Sandi, the problem is when you've been raised in a religion and are already in conflict between your religious upbriging and your sexual attraction, using this conflict to inflict guilt on you to push you into reperative "therapy" borders on the criminal.

Also, many children (before 18) are pushed into reperative therapy, even electroshocks (kid you not), there's lot of sick stuff done in the name of god out there.

I don't respect those that inflict harm using god as their calling card. Its just sick if you ask me, at total perversion of the basic message of love.

Quote from: Keira on July 04, 2007, 07:58:02 PM

Sandi, the problem is when you've been raised in a religion and are already in conflict between your religious upbriging and your sexual attraction, using this conflict to inflict guilt on you to push you into reperative "therapy" borders on the criminal.

Also, many children (before 18) are pushed into reperative therapy, even electroshocks (kid you not), there's lot of sick stuff done in the name of god out there.

I don't respect those that inflict harm using god as their calling card. Its just sick if you ask me, at total perversion of the basic message of love.

Keira,

I agree with all the problems you have posted, and I have no respect for extreme positions either (other than their right to hold them).

However in a free society there is no help for it except through legislative social engineering. I absolutely refuse to limit someone else's freedom, no matter how much their activities irritate me, when it sets precedents that can, and assuredly will, trample my own freedom in the future.

The "therapy" does psychological harm. I had a friend that went through this a couple of decades back and the damage is still very evident today. Did you know for lesbians that part of their "therapy" is learning how to apply makeup? The APA does not endorse it and due to the fact that we do have a mostly free country, they will not stand in the way of people seeking out treatment for being LGBT.

Please also keep in mind that there is not a single mainstream US medical group that will endorse this.

Physician Assistants vote on retail clinics, reparative therapy {Press Release}

QuoteThe HOD voted to oppose attempts to "cure" homose xuality and adopted the following resolution about reparative therapy: "The American Academy of Physician Assistants opposes any psychiatric treatment directed specifically at changing se xual orientation, such as "conversion" or "reparative" therapy which is based upon the assumption that homose xuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that the patient should change his/her se xual orientation."

The AMA LGBT pages

Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation & Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators and School Personnel {APA}

Homosexuality and Adolescence; Pediatrics 1993;92;631-634; COMMITTEE ON ADOLESCENCE {PDF}

Gay Rights, Patient Rights: The Implications of Sexual Orientation Conversion Therapy {PDF}

QuoteThe intersection of psychology, gay rights, religion, and public policy has formed a crucible, in which conversion therapy sits at an often-stormy center. Psychology has an important role in the controversy surrounding conversion therapy, as it clarifies the position that homosexuality and bisexuality are not indicative of mental illness but are normal variants of human sexuality. Psychology also has a responsibility to disseminate accurate information about sexual orientation and to actively counter the misrepresentations of some conversion therapists who would create a market for their services by peddling prejudicial notions of sexual orientation to fearful and confused potential clients. Finally, psychology has a major responsibility in offering reasonable, nonrestrictive guidance to the profession in helping its members responsibly address the needs of their LGB patients.

We sometimes forget, however, that religious identity and practice is a form of human diversity that is also often misunderstood and that deserves psychology's attention. Although it is sometimes the case that attempting to combat scriptural references to homosexuality with psychological knowledge about the subject is like trying to have a conversation in two different languages, that does not mean that we should turn away from the conversation. It also does not mean that we should superimpose religious values and beliefs on science, or vice versa. Rather, our task is to work on integrating these sometimes disparate elements of the human experience. Optimal psychological functioning depends upon one's
ability to integrate the various aspects of the self as fully as possible. In striving toward this goal for all patients, we move toward the most important work of all: not what changes sexual orientation, but what changes society so that we may all live and work together while respecting each other's differences.

While I respect freedom of speach, many of those speak precede terrible actions, they are not benign. abstract ideas. That's where the thing about hate speach comes from, is it protected speach? When you say that gays need to be converted and set up a whole society to do so. in some parts of the US this is the case, how is that different from expousing segregation on then applying so systematically that someone has nowhere to hide from it.

Freedom of speach works well when there is an opposing speach to create balance, or contrast. That's why it works best in more diverse areas, where such different viewpoints can arise, where no one majority holds power over others: California VS some prairie states.