Posted on 06/25/2004 7:32:18 AM PDT by scripter
The Titanic of Gay Rights, leaving all in its wake, is about to founder on a large and immovable fact.
My concern is not for the glamorous first-class passengers - the prominent doctors and judges - or for the Mardi Gras exhibitionists leering and lurching across the deck - but for the unknown homosexuals down in their lonely cabins feeling sick.
These are the ones who want to stop the ship and get off. The homosexuals who do not want to be homosexual but who are told that change is impossible, and that any talk of change is disloyal to the Gay crew, even mutinous.
The iceberg of clinical fact looming up in the dark is this: that homosexuals who want to become heterosexual can and do change, as authoritative medical research has now demonstrated. Given the will, and skilled therapy, there can be an end to the nightmare of same-sex attraction. That is the best news for our heartsick friends down below deck, but it is bad news for the complacent triumphalists of the Gay Titanic.
Bad news for their tall tale that being gay is like being black, an immutable inborn identity. Bad news, in the debate on gay marriage, for their false analogies with apartheid and Aborigines, since blacks cannot stop being blacks, but gays can stop being gay.
Homosexuality emerges in its truer light, not as a minority "genetic identity" but as a complex conditioned behaviour, which can and does change.
As to the exact causes of homosexuality, the medical jury is still out. But the baseless claim, promoted by Justice Michael Kirby and others, that gays are just born that way, is given no support by the American Psychiatric Association. Their Fact Sheet on Sexual Orientation (2000) sums it up: "There are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for homosexuality".
As to the ability for homosexuals to change, late last year a remarkable research paper was published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour (October 2003) by one of America's senior psychiatrists, Dr Robert Spitzer. Significantly, this was the same Spitzer whose reforming zeal helped delete homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's manual of mental disorders back in 1973. Now he has published a detailed review of "200 Participants Reporting a Change from Homosexual to Heterosexual orientation". He writes of his research: "Although initially sceptical, in the course of the study, the author became convinced of the possibility of change in some gay men and lesbians."
In his structured analysis of homosexuals who claimed to have changed their orientation through "reparative therapy", he concluded that the therapy had been genuinely effective: that "almost all of the participants reported substantial changes in the core aspects of sexual orientation, not merely overt behaviour". Against critics who say that attempts to change sexual orientation can cause emotional harm to homosexuals, he notes: "For the participants in our study, there was no evidence of harm".
So our seasick travellers down below in the Titanic can take heart: the desire to shake off sexual disorientation can be, in this eminent and gay-friendly doctor's opinion, "a rational, self-directed goal", and for some it can be successful. The enforcers amongst the ship's crew who accuse you of desertion, of "irrational internalised homophobia", are wrong.
To our shame, some of these enforcers are health professionals. To them Spitzer says: "Mental health professionals should stop moving in the direction of banning therapy that has as its goal a change in sexual orientation. Many patients can make a rational choice to work toward developing their heterosexual potential and minimizing their unwanted homosexual attractions."
Spitzer, once a medical darling of the Gay Rights movement, may now have to walk the plank, because his stubborn telling of the clinical truth has political implications.
The success of Gay activism has been due to portraying Gays as a persecuted minority group, identifying with historically persecuted minorities like blacks, women, Jews. This illusion cannot survive Spitzer's findings, that being Gay is a treatable psychological condition like any other, not an inborn identity.
In the current political debate about same-sex marriage, all talk is of persecuted minorities and human rights, while Spitzer's truth of a treatable condition is nowhere to be heard. Gay activist Rodney Croome thinks back to the Aborigines and accuses the Prime Minister, who opposes same-sex marriage, of denying gays "the full humanity of a disadvantaged group".
In The Australian, Former AMA President Dr Kerryn Phelps likewise accused the Prime Minister of "apartheid" against the gay "minority" in denying them marriage rights. But turning from that bogus racial minority model to Spitzer's therapeutic model, we see that gays can in fact marry, and in Spitzer's study many were married - but first they had to become biologically marriageable by successfully reorientating from homosexual to heterosexual.
The titanic illusion of homosexuality as a fixed inborn identity will take time to sink, but Spitzer's therapeutic iceberg will be more liberating than destructive. Below decks are the passengers I care about, and they need to know that it is OK to want to escape the suffering of same-sex attraction, and possible to do so. And our health professionals, who alone can man the life rafts, owe them a duty of care in aiding that escape.
Dr David van Gend is a family doctor in Toowoomba, Senior Lecturer in the School of Medicine, University of Queensland, and a medical advisor to the Australian Family Association.
"Genetics" isn't the only way one can be "born that way." It can be a personality trait -- a predisposition to be attracted to persons of the same sex.
If you've got more than one kid, you already know about how many personality traits are things we're born with. Many kids' personality traits are evident from the get-go. (For my daughter, her temper was even evident in utero)... ;-)
I have known enough kids who grew up to be homosexual, and known enough people with homosexual siblings, to understand that in some cases there really was an element of "always been that way." It's too bad -- it's a disorder -- but I believe they really were "born that way."
The author of this piece is trying to get us to buy off on a purely environmental model, which is not believable. In fact, it would appear to be furthering his political agenda -- which he most assuredly has.
To Be Queer, as Folk, to be a tranny, is to be as the freak is, not normal, as compared to the standards of a civilized
World, thus the word Queer, as they call themselves.
I call them pillars of salt, or, worshippers of Baal, or citizens of the new Gomorah.
I do not want to be looking back at that picture, let alone to be one of its acceptance, in any way.
Ops4 God Bless America!
That's where I am with it.
I don't believe homosexuality is genetic. But if it were genetic, there are two possible explanations for how it could survive genetically.
One is "kin selection". This theory is that because homosexuals do not have their own children, they're free to make other contributions to the clan. Since everyone shares 50% of their genes with their siblings, if a homosexual helps their siblings' children survive to reproductive age, he would actually be propagating his own genes -- including his genes for homosexuality.
Another theory is that homosexuality is a peculiar occasional manifestation of another gene that normally has nothing to do with homosexuality, but which normally increases a person's chances of reproduction. There are genetic diseases that you only get if you have two copies of the defective gene, but if you have one copy of the defective gene, you actually are more likely to survive. For example, researchers believe that one copy of the gene for Tay-Sachs disease makes you more resistant to tuberculosis.
Why do I not believe homosexuality is genetic? Partly because the scientific studies asserting it's genetic haven't been replicated. Partly because a study involving identical twins indicated a 50% linkage (if you're a gay man with an identical twin brother, there's a 50% chance he's also gay) -- this shows a strong genetic component but clearly genes aren't controlling. But one big reason I don't believe in a genetic cause is that the alternative psychological theories (early sexual trauma, absent father, etc.) are more predictive of homosexuality. For example, a study showed that 75% of boys identified as sissies became gay men in adulthood. Also, I have read that youngest brothers are more likely to turn out gay.
I'm not sure I understand the question.
I'm not sure I understand the question.
Now now.
Well then, that would make it "scientific" that some queers are Normalphobes. And Queerisity is an unusual reaction to normal behavior and an alternate groinoistic option. If not just a simple sexual identity disorder..
I would guess (after googling fraternal twin to mean "non-identical") that they were identical, but I don't know for sure. I myself could tell them apart after a year maybe. And then around age 11 or 12 one got a cheek cut (snowshoveling mishap) that pretty much ended the identical part.
Other facts of the case - I can't remember the mother or father treating them any differently. And after high school I lost touch with them - it would be intersting to see what happened, though.
True. Genetic mutation/problems/diseases do pop up. Let's take something similar -- alcoholism. It is also questioned as to having a genetic component along with an environmental cause. Plus, you can do your same identical/fraternal twin studies.
If alcoholics did not breed, therefore, there would be even less occurrences than there are now. So, eliminating the possible genetic component completely will not stop the mutation, only reduce the occurrence.
Alcoholism, like homosexuality or pedophilia, may be "genetic" in the sense that a person, randomly, may be predisposed to that behavior. That doesn't mean that you have to drink -- one can decide to quit.
Yes.
Good article. I've postulated some of that reasoning myself over the years. It really fits some of the gays I have known.
And homosexuality was considered a mental illness until 1973. That's when homosexual activism was able to have it removed as a mental illness. It certainly wasn't science that lead to the change.
For documentation of homosexual activism in both the APA's, see the following replies in scripter's "Homosexual Agenda: Categorical Index of Links (Revision 1.1)" thread:
American Psychological Association: 121, 240 and 242.
American Psychiatric Association: 46, 139, 213, 232, 237, 239, 241, 243, and 246.
For documentation of homosexual activism in American Academy of Pediatrics, see reply 284
Great post. I selected this section to quote because it hits two critical areas: The mental disorder of homosexuality and basic rights.
I've read many articles on the subject and somtimes say things that others infer as hatred toward homosexuals. It's my compassion that drives me here, not hatred.
Homosexuals suffer from a mental disorder and need help. They're also human beings that have basic rights just like the rest of us. But rights based on sexual behavior would be special rights, and rights homosexuals would lose once they became ex-homosexual.
Thanks.
Thanks, ER. Excellent. I've saved that post in html format so it's much easier to find and repost.
I promise you the assault on Spitzer's character and mental faculties will soon begin. They will call him senile, they will say he has become a tool of the religious right, that he's been brainwashed, or financially corrupted, or whatever.
Actually the assault began three years ago and continues today, as documented here (see the last two paragraphs in that document).
It is also questioned as to having a genetic component along with an environmental cause.
Dad liked to drink vs. friends like to drink. Ok.
Plus, you can do your same identical/fraternal twin studies.
I gotta read up on that stuff - got any twin disease study links?
If alcoholics did not breed, therefore, there would be even less occurrences than there are now.
I think this is a bad example for you - alcohol actually encourages breeding in both males and females. I am still waiting for a class action lawsuit by unwed mothers against the makers of both Boone's Farm and MD20/20 for unwanted pregnancies. But I digress.
That doesn't mean that you have to drink -- one can decide to quit.
True. But one can't decide to either be a siamese twin or not.
In my defense, these are big huge issues that I don't completely understand from either a religious or scientific point of view - but I don't think anyone else does either.
Homosexuality Agenda Ping - Don't have time to read this at the minute, but it looks good. Check it out.
Let me know (not Scripter - he's very busy!!) if you want on/off this pinglist.
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