"In 1973, the APA removed Homosexuality from its diagnostic category of mental illnesses. This action came not as a result of new research and findings, but was ultimately brought about by militant protest staged by activists at the APA annual convention. In other words, intimidation was a key motivation. In fact, only 16% of the entire APA membership actually voted in favor of the radical change."
-- Homosexuality, Dr. James Mallory, Head of Psychiatric unit – Rapha Center, Atlanta, Ga.; Ronald Bayer, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis (N.Y.: Basic Books, 1981), 101-54; Wm. Dannemeyer, Shadow in the Land (San Fran.: Ignatius Press, 1989), 24-39.
In fact, only 16% of the entire APA membership actually voted in favor of the radical change."
An excerpt from "Executive Summary For Sexual Politics And Scientific Logic: The Issue Of Homosexuality"
"Dr. Charles Socarides published an historical essay, "Sexual Politics And Scientific Logic: The Issue Of Homosexuality," in The Journal Of Psychohistory, Vol. 10, No. 3, Winter, 1992. It should be of interest to all students of our socio-cultural history.
... The doctor notes that the efforts to remove homosexuality as a disorder from the DSM was accomplished by pressure from psychiatrists within the APA as well as activist homosexual groups that began disrupting psychiatric meetings and publicly attacking any psychiatrists who dared consider homosexuality to be a deviant sexual behavior.
As outside homosexual pressure groups challenged psychiatrists with hate-filled letters and threatening phone calls, pro-homosexual psychiatrists within the APA were aggressively lobbying for the normalization of homosexuality.
Pro-homosexual psychiatrists successfully seized control of various committees within the APA and began issuing reports that recommended the removal of homosexuality from the DSM. Among these was Dr. Judd Marmor, who used the networking sources provided by SIECUS (Scientific Information and Education Council of the U.S.) to promote the normalization of homosexuality.
In 1973, Marmor and other psychiatrists met with members of the Gay Activist Alliance, the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis, and the Nomenclature Committee of the American Psychiatric Association at Columbia University to discuss deletion of homosexuality from the DSM.
Eventually, the issue was put to a vote to APA members. Only 25% of those eligible to vote sent in their ballots out of 25,000 psychiatrists. However, the vote was in favor of removing homosexuality from the DSM.
As Dr. Socarides noted: "By declaring a condition a 'non-condition,' a group of practitioners had removed it from our list of serious psychosexual disorders. The action was all the more remarkable when one considers that it involved the out-of-hand and peremptory disregard and dismissal not only of hundreds of psychiatric and psychoanalytic research papers and reports, but also of a number of other serious studies by groups of psychiatrists, psychologists, and educators over the past seventy years..."
So then, of the 25% (6250) of the APA members who actually voted, 16% (4000) voted in favor of removing homosexuality from the DSM. Look at what 4000 activist psychiatrists within the APA, along with the threats from activist homosexual groups, have accomplished.
Related replies posted in this thread: 46, 121, 139, 213, and 237.