Posted on 07/16/2004 8:54:50 AM PDT by Laissez-faire capitalist
The problem is that "treatment' for homosexuality has proven to be quackery.
The Founders gave us the tools to deal with this: It's called "freedom of association." We will never eliminate homosexuals, and it is probably counterproductive to try. But we don't have to let them in to every aspect of society, especially those invovling young boys, either.
I was listening to a re-run of Law and Order on TNT. The defendant's lawyer was trying to get a racist murderer off on the novel grounds that racism is a mental illness, and the defendant should get treatment, not jail time and execution. This lawyer was examining the prosecution's psychiatrist, who denied that racism was a mental illness. The dialogue went something like this:
Lawyer: "Why won't psychiatrists reclassify racism as a mental illness?"
Psychiatrist: "Because there is no scientific evidence indicating that we should do so."
Lawyer: "But there was no scientific evidence indicating that homosexuality wasn't a mental illness, yet you reclassified that! Why?"
Psychiatrist: "True; that was a reaction to a changing social environment and consensus."
I thought that was a interesting exchange to go out from a mass-media popular program.
Psychiatry hasn't helped society in this issue at all, and I for one doubt that the practice ever could.
In 1973, The American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed homosexuality as a mental disorder from the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-II).
durring the same time frame, they also put PMS as a mental disorder, allowing women to kill their husbands and plead insanity, getting away with lighter sentencing.
it was just another attempt by the liberals to express hatred of all things straight, male, and white.
Baloney.
Before 1973, when homosexuality was removed from the DSM as a mental disorder, there were numerous scientific papers/studies that were present within the sexual behavior medline that showed the effectiveness of sexual reorientation treatment. Sure, the percentage of homosexuals who were treated that changed their sexual orientation from total homosexual to total heterosexual was between 30 and 50%, but should treatment be denied, say, for all people who may suufer a heart attck, if the success rate of treatment is only 30 to 50%?
As well, recently, there was a paper published among the American Psychological Associations books by Dr. Throckmorten that showed that reorientation treatment was safe and effective. Dr. Spitzer's(The man who in 1973 helped lead the charge to have homosexuality removed from the DSM-II) recent work(2003) also shows that sexual reorientation treatment does, in fact, work.
Both show that sexual reorientation treatment for homosexuals is successful, just as it was proven to be before 1973.
whats sad though, is that i can witness even my homo/bisexual friends having mental instability. i have pointed out that their is a correlation, and they deny it.
i am yet to meet a homo/bisexual who either wasnt suicidal, or raped, or just has problems at home.
i will admit to having had thoughts like that before (homosexual) and you know what? on reflection, it was also in some of the darker parts of my life. times when i felt like crawling into a ball and enjoying nothingness forever.
its sad really... a full 5-10% of our people, told by the tv daily, that their painful thoughts are normal, and that they should just live with them.
Very interesting exchange....I am surprised that TNT broadcast that. Thanks for the post.
There was a recent Dutch study conducted within the Netherlands, the most gay-affirming society on the planet, and has been for decades, that showed that homosexuals are far more likely to be alcoholics, to suffer single or even multiple mental disorders and on and on...This agrees with other studies within highly gay-affirming socities like San Francisco, New Zealand, etc.. and they all show the same thing.
Blows out of the water that " internalized homophobia" is responsible for homosexuals higher mental problem rates.
There are also studies that show a high correlation of homosexuality with being raped/molested as a child by an adult man. Just Google, you'll find these studies.
If true, concerning PMS being declared a mental disorder, that does not surprise me in the least.
I read an interesting article by a psychiatrist who believed that homosexuality was a symptom of other mental disorders. He found that when he treated the other problems of his homosexual patients, their "same sex attraction" went away, too!
This is insane. Yes, there are a good number of homosexuals who face mental illness in their lives. But it ain't just the queers lining up at the pharmacy counters for psychiatric medications. There's an awful lot of straight folx out there on Prozac, you know. And, don't argue percentages with me unless you've got published statistics to back them up.
And, to compare homosexual desire to nihilism is patently absurd. I suppose we're still to believe masturbation to be self-abuse, right?
Hmmm. My palm is getting a bit hairy . . . urban legend, my ass!
correcting myself. PMS was reclassified in the mid 90's. before i took interest in Psychology (as i was only 8 at the time)
however, that does not change the weight or direction of the heavy foot.
there were numerous scientific papers/studies that were present within the sexual behavior medline that showed the effectiveness of sexual reorientation treatment.
I believe that more effort should be afforded to reorientation treatment. Isn't a form of this used to rehabilitate victims of child prostitution?
i never said all people with problems are gay. i simply said in my experience (and if you looked, youd find it too, i assure you) and research, gay people have issues.
and these issues are not "because thy are gay"
just the opposite.
i view masterbation as a recreational experience, thank you very much :p
that sounds about right.
Thanks. You say "google." Where did you start?
Urges. People have them all the time. For the most pert they are resisted. Occasionaly, by some, they are satisified. Like David Berkowitz, or John Wayne Gacie, among others.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.