Posted on 12/14/2002 1:12:14 PM PST by I_Love_My_Husband
New book on parenting engenders anger in gays
RUTH PADAWER
Move over, Dr. Spock. Now, alongside parenting books on discipline, potty training, and sibling rivalry, there's this: "A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality."
In a message that has some people getting riled and others throwing out the welcome mat, authors Joseph and Linda Ames Nicolosi argue that homosexuality is a "disorder" that parents can head off. To do that, they say parents should toughen up "girlish" boys, feminize rough-and-tumble girls, and make sure their kids stick with toys, activities, and mannerisms traditionally aligned with their gender.
It's a controversial prescription - sure to get the daytime TV talk shows buzzing.
"He uses the ugliest of stereotypes, with a 'science' that is provably bankrupt," Wayne Besen, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay and lesbian political group, says of Joseph Nicolosi. "His underlying message is that people can't find peace and happiness in being gay. It's complete nonsense."
But Len Deo, head of the New Jersey Family Policy Council, applauds the Nicolosis' message.
"Man was created to be in a complementary union with a woman - that's the natural order," he said. "No matter how you slice it, homosexuality is a tough lifestyle, and for parents, it's becoming more and more important to direct their children toward a normal, healthy lifestyle."
Joseph Nicolosi is no stranger to controversy. As founder and president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, he has long argued that homosexuality is a disability that can be repaired.
In the new book, Nicolosi and his wife urge parents to intervene as soon as they spot trouble: a boy playing with dolls; a girl romping only with boys. They tell fathers to be close to their sons, showing them how to fill gas tanks and partake in sports, and they warn that if fathers don't hug their sons, someday another man will.
Mothers, they say, must avoid over-involvement in their boys' lives. Children should find playmates of the same gender, so girls who might tend toward lesbianism can learn feminine ways, and what he calls "pre-homosexual boys" can be toughened up by other boys' roughness.
Mainstream psychologists and gay rights advocates are not the only ones rankled by the Nicolosis' advice.
"His ideas sound like they're from the 1950s," said John Chapman, a Teaneck father of two girls, ages 15 and 19. "I was brought up with those ideas, and I can't imagine imposing them on my kids. Giving girls dolls or making boys play baseball won't make them heterosexual, though it may make them miserable and repress who they really are. We raised our children to know we would love them no matter what."
The bottom line is that no one is born gay, Joseph Nicolosi said in an interview, and the proper environment can help children "actualize their true heterosexual nature." He contends that boys become gay because they feel insecure in their masculinity, and girls become lesbians to make up for the lack of connection with their mothers.
They are ideas that the medical establishment rejected years ago. The American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Medical Association all concluded about 30 years ago that homosexuality is not a disorder. More recently, they note that several studies indicate at least some biological basis for sexual orientation.
"His ideas about homosexuality are a recitation of old psychoanalytic theories that never had any empirical support to begin with," said Douglas Haldeman, co-author of the American Psychological Association's guidelines for psychotherapy for lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients. Haldeman says his colleagues have been firing off e-mails raging about the book. "His ideas are totally out of step with the social sciences. The notion that we should interfere with atypical gender behavior - especially based on prejudicial and outmoded ideas of gender identity - is potentially very dangerous for kids."
The Nicolosis suggest that parents replace toys, games, and articles of clothing that are not specific to their child's gender. They stress the importance of "extinguishing feminine behavior" in boys with "gentle and consistent disapproval." And they say parents should also watch out for tomboys.
"In and of itself, a girl who wants to wear blue jeans and climb trees is not a cause of concern," said Nicolosi. "But the pre-lesbian condition includes stereotypic rejection of femininity, only wearing things that look like a boy's, being emotionally detached from the mother, wanting to play only with boys."
Gay rights supporters have dismissed the book as simply the latest salvo in the ongoing, rancorous debate over homosexuality.
"They used to try to save society from gay people, like in the late 1980s saying that gays should be quarantined if they had AIDS," said Besen. "Then in the Nineties, there were people like Fred Phelps, the minister of God Hates Fags, with the idea that fire and brimstone and condemnation was the answer. And now their line is: 'We love gay people. We're simply trying to save them from themselves.' It's the same message, just in a prettier package."
Of course, not everyone agrees. The book carries a long list of endorsements from leaders in the traditional family values movement, who welcome it as a refreshing addition to a world they view as both too prescriptive and too lenient. The well-known radio evangelist James Dobson has called the book the "very best resource for parents and teachers."
"In our culture, boys can't be boys anymore," said Frances Edwards, a Ridgewood mother of children aged 10, 9, and 4. "Traditional boyish pranks are now viewed as psychosis or a crime. They're put on Ritalin and told they have to behave a certain way. There's a lot of pressure in our society to feminize boys and of course that's going to have an impact on a certain percentage of them."
Jim Slagter, a Wayne father of an 18-year-old boy and 15-year-old daughter, has always been amused at the ways his kids entertained themselves during car rides - his son making car and gun noises, his daughter singing and talking to her dolls.
"I agree with efforts not to encourage anything that might lead to homosexual behavior, primarily because I believe it would not be a happy life," Slagter said. "My wife and I have always tried to be conscious not to smother our son with too much protection. We have tried to find a balance. We wanted him to grow up to be tough enough to be a ... well, to be a man."
Little of the political debate resonates with parents who have come to accept their children's homosexuality. Though they agree with Nicolosi's assertion that lesbians and gays are sometimes distraught over their orientation, they say it's only because they fear a hostile reception.
"My daughter would have been very happy at one point not to be gay," said Lillian Epstein, a Park Ridge mother whose children are now grown. "Going through high school, college, her first years as a lawyer, those were difficult years. She was terrified of being found out, of being fired. She had to live a life of lies. When she came out to us, 25 years ago, I wondered, like every parent does: What did I do wrong? Did I send her to the wrong college? Was it too liberal?
"In the beginning, when you learn your child is gay, you think you should bring your child to therapy so they can change. But parents have to realize that it's their own expectations that have to change. Eventually, you move beyond accepting, to the point where you cherish their uniqueness and admire their courage."
To steve-b
Time to take your Ritalin. [Note: response to personal attack.]
But first you’ll have to take the {homosexual metaphor reference}; [Note: censored for sensitive tattletale gcruse], out of your mouth.
I made exactly the same reference as before. What’s the matter didn’t your tattletailing work this time?
Don't worry, I WON'T REPORT YOUR PERSONAL ATTACK.
I can bring in unpleasant photos from the 1980's if you like, or the 1990's.
What's your point? That unless the maximal liberal position is capitulated to on every issue, we live in darkness and misery?
Marxists always have a further agenda. Because the issue isn't the agenda. It's vanguard leadership -- aka unanswerable power.
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