This article reminds me that when I went through an MBA program in finance, I decided to avoid what I considered the touchy, feely courses in sales and marketing and instead took some in quantitative methods. There I encountered a psychology professor who was frustrated about the direction his concentration in abnormal psychology was moving. He was into the rigorous application of statistics for any doctoral committees on which he served, so he strongly opposed a recent decision of his association.
In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association (APA) decided to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Removal followed a two year campaign Newsweek described as ongoing disruptive, chaotic attacks on psychiatrists and physiologists. Yet throughout these disruptive attacks, no academic papers arose at conferences refuting any research previously done. Eventually onslaughts forced sufficient abstentions, under-votes, and apprehensive responses for a third of APA 17,000 plus membership to approve removal.
Next activists targeted leading individual researchers such as Dr. David Reuben to ensure perpetual sanctity for the APA action. No research papers would again arise to confirm initial therapy success rates of 30% to 60 %, substantiating that 7 of 10 homosexuals could eventually walk away from the lifestyle. (He thought that abstinance was highly underrated and should be considered a success also.) Persistent activism over 37 years enabled ubiquitous infiltration of academia ensuring pre-ordained theses, approved flexibility in research designs, suitable human data points, and enchanting statistical enhancements. New standards for peer review of articles ensured appropriate design definitions, outcomes, and analytical models.
Psychology and Psychiatry have always had a tenuous hold on claims they were sciences with the standing of Chemistry and Physics. On the scale of intellectual rigor, their research more often resembles alchemy and/or oral history, and seldom, if ever, approaches the determinism found in a Chemistry laboratory.
I agreed with him that developments in statistics should have enabled them to a least determine there is a marginal or significant propensity for a particular disorder. Careful studies could have identified and graded methods of treatment. Given persistence in searching for correct methods of analysis, even accumulated episodic events could be sifted for transformation into valid information. Research would have proceeded more slowly and conclusions would have been less intuitive, but more stable. The disciplines would more often have adhered to the medical principle of-first of all, do no harm. Responsible research would also acknowledge those pesky humans, who in spite of their genetics and upbringing, decided to live positive lives without APA professional help.
Instead, Psychology and Psychiatry have chosen to abandon all pretense of scientific rigor in exchange for popular societal and political acclaim. The barriers erected to meaningful research about homosexuality remind me of Genesis 3:23-24. In these verses the Lord God banished humanity from the Garden of Eden and placed an angel in the Garden to keep humanity away forever. By their actions, Psychology and Psychiatry appear content within their own Garden of Eden. They seem to consider the accoutrements of a religion to be more attractive than those of a science. The under-voting and public attacks support the understanding that the DSM is as likely to accumulate political manifestos and marketing brochures as attempts at scientific expositions.
Psychology and Psychiatry have chosen to relinquish scientific rigor for popular societal and political acclaim. With studies concerning homosexuality freed from objective analysis, advocates for social justice rely upon base antidotal politics to dominate debates.
Action of APA to remove homosexuality from list of disorders DSM http://conservativecolloquium.wordpress.com/2007/10/01/homosexual-activists-intimidate-american-psychiatric-association-into-removing-homosexuality-from-list-of-disorders/
Homosexuality and Sexual Orientation Disturbance: Proposed Change in DSM-II, 6th Printing, page 44
http://www.torahdec.org/Downloads/DSM-II_Homosexuality_Revision.pdf
The APA Decision
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+APA+decision+December+1973%3A+declassification+of+homosexuality+as...-a094598255
Exposed: The Myth That Psychiatry Has Proven That Homosexual Behavior Is Normal
http://traditionalvalues.org/content/article/30884/Exposed:%20The%20Myth%20That%20Psychiatry%20Has%20Proven%20That%20Homosexual%20Behavior%20Is%20Normal
Some excellent articles supporting the truth. Simply by logic, most of us already know this grossly self-destructive and disease-ridden lifestyle is way beyond mildly abnormal. Common sense is hate thought to the mentally diseased.