Posted on 10/27/2001 6:56:49 PM PDT by Curly007
Yes, the American Psychologists Association before a majority of homosexuals got positions on the executive board and declared their perversion was no longer a mental illness. Now, only merely has to believe that a man who wants to sodomize another man is normal! When pigs are airborne, perhaps! ;-)
The author is not gay either! On the contrary
After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree.
So you see, the earth is not only flat, it is rectagular. It should be clear that round-earthers are victims of a fatal error which will lead them away from Salvation.
Gee, I guess metaphor is simply beyond your understanding. I'll have to attribute that to some physical or mental defect, probably associated with Same Sex Attraction Disorder.
Perhaps you should stick to the easy to understand quotes, such as:
Leviticus 18:22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.
Jude 1:6-7 He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
So glad that I could help!
[Comment by SPHA Editor: Very few people understand the significance of what happened in 1973 when the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed homosexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders. The following article documents what happened, why it happened and what the ramifications have been since the decision... The article first appeared in the October/November 1991 issue of Peninsula, a conservative student publication at Harvard College... Ronald Bayer's Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis (Princeton: 1987) was a primary source.]
A few weeks ago I was giving a friend a short preview of this issue of Peninsula. I had just returned from the library after reading several hours' worth of psychological studies, and was attempting to explain the causes of homosexuality. My friend interrupted me, saying, "I hope you read both sides of the issue --- not just the conservative one."
"These are psychological theories," I replied. "Disputes over which theory is most accurate do exist among professionals. But there isn't a conservative or liberal point of view. Science and medicine transcend politics." It was a few days later that I discovered just how misplaced my confidence in these professions really was.
Each year the American Psychiatric Association (APA) releases an updated version of its official publication, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders (DSM). Looking through the latest edition, I discovered that homosexuality was not among the list of mental illnesses --- the APA apparently did not consider it to be a psychiatric disorder. I found this quite odd; I had just read scores of articles that said it was one. I resolved to find out why this was.
Much to my surprise, the story behind the APA's decision to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses is well-documented. But the general public, as well as homosexuals attempting to come to terms with their sexual orientation, have not caught wind of it. The result is that many people are being deceived. They're told that homosexuality is a "normal" condition, and that psychiatrists say it's a "normal" condition, all because politics has made its way into a profession long thought to be scientific, rational, and objective.
Action by militant homosexual activists against the psychiatrist profession began in earnest in 1970 (merely one year after the Stonewall Riots marked the birth of the "gay liberation movement") at the APA's annual convention, held that year in San Francisco. During a panel on transexualism and homosexuality, protestors entered the meeting room and disrupted the discussion by shouting insults and demands at the speakers. One of the demands was that homosexuals be represented at the APA's annual convention.
Activists used strong-arm tactics again in 1971. Threatening violence, the activists were able to force the removal of a display on techniques for the treatment of homosexuality. They organized again the following year, accusing the medical profession of cruelty, thoughtlessness, and lack of common humanity. They hurled ad hominem invectives at certain prominent psychiatrists who characterized homosexuality as a disorder, seeming to ignore the fact that these doctors were known both for their sympathetic treatment of homosexual patients and for their hostility towards laws that discriminated against homosexuals or punished homosexual behavior.
During the early part of the 1970s, militant homosexual groups also attacked publicly any psychiatrist who presented clinical findings on homosexuality. These denunciations were sometimes accompanied by hate- filled letters and threats over the telephone.
Reaching to the increasing politicization of their field, a number of psychiatrists --- well-known for their work with sexual disorders --- formed a task force to study homosexuality. Dr. Charles W. Socarides headed the group which, after two year of deliberations, issued a report unanimously declaring that homosexuality was a disorder of psychosexual development. The Executive Council of the New York District Branch of the APA (the task force had initially been authorized by the New York branch) feared the potential political ramifications of the study and consequently shelved it, eventually publishing it as a "study group" report in the late spring of 1974.
Following the disruption of the 1972 convention, the APA surrendered to the demands of the protesters and granted the militant homosexuals an official panel. The activists were also awarded a hearing before the APA's Nomenclature Committee which, after listening to the organized homosexual community's complaints, agreed to reconsider the APA's definition of homosexuality. Robert Spitzer, a member of the Nomenclature Committee with, incidentally, very little previous experience studying sexual deviations, was made chairman of the Nomenclature Task Force on Homosexuality.
Charles Silverstein of the Institute for Human Identity (a homosexual counseling center) wrote and presented a lengthy statement critiquing the classification of homosexuality as a disorder. Dr. Spitzer presented Silverstein's proposal to the APA's Board of Trustees in December of that year. The board accepted the proposal.
Two hundred forty-three members of the APA immediately requested a referendum of the entire APA (two hundred signatures were needed for such a move), which numbered 25,000 members. An intense lobbying effort by the National Gay Task Force followed. The NGTF sent copies of a letter co-written by it and Dr. Spitzer to the entire membership of the APA urging members to vote for the nomenclature change. The NGTF funded the direct-mail campaign but did not acknowledge that it was involved. The two hundred plus psychiatrists responsible for the referendum did no campaigning.
In the end, only a quarter of the APA members sent in their ballots. The final tally was 60-40, for the change. The militant homosexuals had won, and scientific integrity had lost.
In 1977, ten thousand members of the APA were polled, at random, on the issue of homosexuality. Sixty-eight percent of those replying said that homosexuality was indeed "usually a pathological adaptation (as opposed to normal variation)." This led the interpreter of the poll, Dr. Harold Lief, to conclude that "the previous APA vote was influenced by political and social considerations and that the vote was [mis]perceived as a step towards the denial of rights to homosexuals."
Ironically, the vote was indeed a step toward the denial of rights to homosexuals. Betrayed by the medical profession, many homosexuals are now being denied access to the information that can help them lead fuller, more complete lives. Today, when a homosexual person questions his orientation, he is told by gay activists that he is healthy. Their fallacious claim finds full support in the primary text of the psychiatric profession, and while the "movement" gloats over its accomplishment, the individual suffers. The individual deserves better.
[SPHA Editor: For more information about the 1973 APA decision, read Freedom Too Far, by Charles Socarides, M.D. Chapter six covers the event; Dr. Socarides was present and a key player.]
The A.P.A. Normalization of Homosexuality, and the Research Study of Irving Bieber
"...Dr. Bieber was one of the key participants in the historical debate which culminated in the 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from the psychiatric manual.
His paper describes psychiatry's attempt to adopt a new "adaptational" perspective of normality. During this time, the profession was beginning to sever itself from established clinical theory--particularly psychoanalytic theories of unconscious motivation--claiming that if we do not readily see "distress, disability and disadvantage" in a particular psychological condition, then the condition is not disordered..."
Dr. Bieber describes the deletion of homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic and statistical manual as "the climax of a sociopolitical struggle involving what were deemed to be the rights of homosexuals."
"It is my aim here," he wrote, "to separate out the psychiatric and conceptual issues from the sociopolitical issues; to document my own theoretical and clinical position; and to describe the events that I participated in and observed--all of which I trust will bring into focus the elements that went into the American Psychiatric Association's decision."...
A task force was set up to study homosexuality, but the members chosen included not a single psychiatrist who held the view that homosexuality was not a normal adaptation. There followed riots at scientific meetings by gay activists who increased the pressure on the Psychiatric Association.
Will preventive therapy for homosexuality be prohibited, Dr. Bieber wondered, when homosexuality is normalized?...
Summary
The factors that determined the decision of the APA to delete homosexuality from DSM-II were summarized as follows:
1. Gay activists had a profound influence on psychiatric thinking.
2. A sincere belief was held by liberal-minded and compassionate psychiatrists that listing homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder supported and reinforced prejudice against homosexuals. Removal of the term from the diagnostic manual was viewed as a humane, progressive act.
3. There was an acceptance of new criteria to define psychiatric conditions. Only those disorders that caused a patient to suffer or that resulted in adjustment problems were thought to be appropriate for inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.
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