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?
Sure it occurred to them. They just made sure that those who disagreed with the APA's pro-homosexual agenda were kept out of the association's leadership positions.
"The decision by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness was considered a watershed in the fledgling gay liberation movement. "This was, I think, a major issue that allowed society and the government to change a lot of stances that had been based on the pseudo-friendly idea that gayness was an illness," Hartmann explains. "Gayness traditionally, historically has been considered a sin, and a crime and then an illness. And to consider it simply a difference involved a major shift..."
The APA's decision was the result of a three-year process that began when the Gay Activists Alliance, energized by the 1969 Stonewall riots, disrupted an APA meeting in San Francisco in 1970 to protest APA seminars on treating and curing homosexuality. In 1971 the APA allowed a gay activist to address the APA meeting directly... Meanwhile, Hartmann and a group of psychiatrists worked successfully behind the scenes to install more liberal leadership in the APA. In 1973, the APA agreed to re-examine the scientific literature on homosexuality in preparation for revising the DSM and concluded that homosexuality did not fit the criteria of a mental disturbance...
But declassifying homosexuality as an illness was not immediately accepted by the entire membership of the APA. After the decision was announced, roughly 200 psychiatrists and psychoanalysts opposed to the move called for a member referendum on the issue. The membership voted to uphold the APA board of trustees decision to remove homosexuality from the DSM. "Whether they voted because they believed it is another question," says Drescher.
Since then, the APA has taken positions in favor of gay civil rights, for instance by supporting civil unions and gay parenting. The organization signed on to an amicus brief in Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, in support of overturning Texas' anti-gay sodomy law. The case was heard before the U.S. Supreme Court March 26. "I think the organization thirty years later is on the right side on all these issues," says Drescher.
And gay psychiatrists have become much more integrated into the profession and its institutions, as a result of the APA's declassification, say both Drescher and Hartmann. "It made a huge difference of course to whether people could be open, whether they could be respectful of a wide variety of patients, whether they themselves could be open enough to get professorships and distinguished positions. At the time it was impossible to be openly gay and to be in a psychiatric residency training program or in a psychoanalytic training program." Hartmann himself has served as both president and vice president of the APA. Drescher, who practices in New York City, is a past president of the APA's New York branch, the largest in the country.
But is the position that homosexuality is not an illness accepted by the entire APA membership today? Drescher concedes that there could be members who disagree. He adds, however, "They're not in positions of leadership in the organization and the American Psychiatric Association, for example, in 2000 ... put out a position statement which was critical of reparative therapies, saying that they're not proving to be effective, some people may be harmed by them, there has not been much good research done in this area. And the APA is publicly against religious groups or other non-mental health groups calling homosexuality an illness when it's not"..."
From the 'other' APA:
Gay Psychologist Urges Associates To Use Psychology As A Liberationist Tactic
Good articles EdReform! Thanks and BTTT!
This is what it was all about: it's called "Capture the Flag".
Never mind that their motivations and methods are no more scientific than those of the people they criticize so bitterly.