"The homosexual rights movement is not a cause based on science, social justice, or fairness toward a “persecuted minority.” Rather, it is the work of a devious and clandestine fifth column that seeks to undermine the moral values in place in America since the founding of the Republic. Its beginnings can be traced to the infamous 1973 decision made by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to strike homosexuality from the officially approved list of psychiatric illnesses.
From Illness to Interest Group
Prior to the APA decision, homosexual persons were considered to be emotionally disturbed and lacking in capacity to develop normal heterosexual relations. In his book, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover discusses how this change came about:
How did this occur? Normally a scientific consensus is reached over the course of many years, resulting from the accumulated weight of many properly designed studies. But in the case of homosexuality, scientific research has only now just begun (c.1996), years after the question was decided…The APA vote to normalize homosexuality was driven by politics, not science. Even sympathizers acknowledged this…the leadership of a homosexual faction within the APA planned [in 1970] a “systematic effort to disrupt the annual meetings of the American Psychiatric Association”.
The APA decision, therefore, was not based on rigorous scientific discovery, but on hardball backroom politics engineered by a cabal of homosexual activists who pushed their agenda through intimidation and deception. Other medical professional organizations meekly fell in line and sodomy suddenly became an officially acknowledged alternative lifestyle whose practitioners were considered to be born with unalterable homosexual attractions. Thus, any therapy employed by a psychiatrist or psychologist intended to change a person’s sexual orientation was declared to be unethical.
Armed with this newly gained acceptability, homosexual activists were able to infiltrate the media, academia, industry, government, and even the church with a message geared toward “tolerance.” They framed the debate over this issue in the context of a scientifically identified, oppressed minority, victimized by the prejudice of a society dominated by irrational religious values.
This strategy has proved so successful that homosexuality—i.e. sodomy and all its variations—must not only be tolerated, but accepted; not only accepted, but affirmed; not only affirmed, but promoted; and finally, not only promoted, but codified into law with appropriate penalties for exhibiting “intolerance” or “hate” toward the practice or its practitioners.
The astonishing success of the homosexual rights movement has, in large part, come about because the debate has been controlled by well-placed homosexual activists whose shameless work of propaganda has flown under the radar of the typical American citizen..."
"Psychiatry Turns A Hard Left
The American Psychiatric Association, in an attempt to expedite its descent into irrelevance, this week at its annual meeting chose to endorse same-sex marriage.
Before one applauds the moral fortitude and progressive instinct of this august body, we may want to ask not whether there should or should not be same-sex marriage, but what psychiatry could possibly contribute to this discussion. The answer is nothing.
You can't get away with pat answers, such as psychiatrists see the psychiatric ramifications of discrimination or being unable to marry. There are psychiatric ramifications of bankruptcy, and war, but no one felt compelled to write a policy statement on it (and thank God.)
And no, there isn't a difference between bankruptcy and gay marriage-- not to psychiatry. That's the exact point. These are social problems about which psychiatry is definitionally ignorant. The APA did not endorse polygamy. What's the difference? If homosexuality is not a psychiatric disorder, than there is no more reason to be more for or against it than there is for any other kind of marriage. The APA is no better suited to answering these questions than, say, the NFL.
Perhaps the APA should try to diagnose itself. What other explanation, beyond collective malignant narcissism, could there be for thinking that psychiatry has anything meaningful to say on this topic, or that it should say anything at all? What if the NFL came out against antidepressants in children? This is a perfectly valid analogy, because neither the NFL nor psychiatry have special knowledge that would allow them to be able to make such statements. What do psychiatrists know about same-sex marriage that the quarterback for the Eagles doesn’t? Don’t laugh—I’m serious. What’s the answer?
Has it occurred to the APA that not every psychiatrist agrees with gay marriage? Or that it does not—and has no right to—speak for psychiatry, or for psychiatrists? Does it think it is above its constituents, or that it knows something they do not? It is only allowed to legitimately express a policy above the objections of its members is if the policy was based on science. Perhaps the APA cares to release this intriguing scientific data? While it is at it, perhaps it can also release the data supporting the use of half of the medications currently favored by APA Guidelines, because my own investigations find very little in the way of evidence. But this seems pretty much business as usual for the APA. Rather than work on its own serious failings, it involves itself in social policy. Outstanding.
“Modern” (read: pharmacological) psychiatry is obsessed with reinventing itself as a biological and scientific discipline. Well, if it wants to be a science, it better start acting like one..."