Posted on 01/04/2003 1:15:17 PM PST by Remedy
The American Psychological Association's prestigious journal Professional Psychology: Research and Practice has just published a comprehensive research paper on sexual-orientation change. Clients have the right to pursue change, the author says, because "sexual orientation, once thought to be an unchanging trait, is actually quite flexible for some people."
New Study Confirms Homosexuality Can Be Overcome
ENCINO, Calif.--May 17, 1997--Nearly 25 years after the American Psychiatric Association officially removed homosexuality from its Diagnostic Manual, labeling it a lifestyle choice rather than a psychological disorder, a California-based association of psychiatrists and psychologists has proven that homosexuals can change their orientation through intense therapy and a strong desire to change.
Certainly. As noted above, many people have turned away from homosexuality - almost as many people call themselves "gay."
Clearly the easier problem to eliminate is homosexual behavior. Just as many heterosexuals control their desires to engage in premarital or extramarital sex, so some with homosexual desires discipline themselves to abstain from homosexual contact.
One thing seems to stand out: Associations are all-important. Anyone who wants to abstain from homosexual behavior should avoid the company of practicing homosexuals. There are organizations including "ex-gay ministries, " (18) designed to help those who wish to reform their conduct. Psychotherapy claims about a 30% cure rate, and religious commitment seems to be the most helpful factor in avoiding homosexual habits.
|
This is AMERICA and people have rights here. |
Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 US 186 (1986)
After being charged with violating the Georgia statute criminalizing sodomy by committing that act with another adult male in the bedroom of his home, respondent Hardwick (respondent) brought suit in Federal District Court, challenging the constitutionality of the statute insofar as it criminalized consensual sodomy. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding that the Georgia statute violated respondent's fundamental rights.
Held: The Georgia statute is constitutional. Pp. 190-196 .
(a) The Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy. None of the fundamental rights announced in this Court's prior cases involving family relationships, marriage, or procreation bear any resemblance to the right asserted in this case. And any claim that those cases stand for the proposition that any kind of private sexual conduct between consenting adults is constitutionally insulated from state proscription is unsupportable. Pp. 190-191 .
(b) Against a background in which many States have criminalized sodomy and still do, to claim that a right to engage in such conduct is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" is, at best, facetious. Pp. 191-194 .
(c) There should be great resistance to expand the reach of the Due Process Clauses to cover new fundamental rights. Otherwise, the Judiciary necessarily would take upon itself further authority to govern the country without constitutional authority. The claimed right in this case falls far short of overcoming this resistance. Pp. 194-195 .
(d) The fact that homosexual conduct occurs in the privacy of the home does not affect the result. Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 , distinguished. Pp. 195-196 .
(e) Sodomy laws should not be invalidated on the asserted basis that majority belief that sodomy is immoral is an inadequate rationale to support the laws. P. 196 .
760 F.2d 1202, reversed. [p*187]
BURGER, C.J., Concurring Opinion
As the Court notes, ante at 192 , the proscriptions against sodomy have very "ancient roots." Decisions of individuals relating to homosexual conduct have been subject to state intervention throughout the history of Western civilization. Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards. Homosexual sodomy was a capital crime under Roman law. See Code Theod. 9.7.6; Code Just. 9.9.31. See also D. Bailey, Homosexuality [p*197] and the Western Christian Tradition 70-81 (1975). During the English Reformation, when powers of the ecclesiastical courts were transferred to the King's Courts, the first English statute criminalizing sodomy was passed. 25 Hen. VIII, ch. 6. Blackstone described "the infamous crime against nature" as an offense of "deeper malignity" than rape, a heinous act "the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature," and "a crime not fit to be named." 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *215. The common law of England, including its prohibition of sodomy, became the received law of Georgia and the other Colonies. In 1816, the Georgia Legislature passed the statute at issue here, and that statute has been continuously in force in one form or another since that time. To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.
This is essentially not a question of personal "preferences," but rather of the legislative authority of the State. I find nothing in the Constitution depriving a State of the power to enact the statute challenged here.
|
This is AMERICA and people have rights here. Take a Hike and take your little facist SWAT team with you. |
Take your own advice.
Lawrence v. Texas, 41 SW.3d 349 (2001)
Compassionate Society Should Discourage Deadly Homosexual Behavior
But the fact is, males who routinely indulge in homosexual perversions suffer on average a much greater incidence of foul and deadly STDs, and have shorter life spans than males who don't.
The headstones of San Francisco don't lie. They silently mock madg and its rote unthinking assertions.
|
The headstones of San Francisco don't lie. |
Nor does the money.
Citizens Against Government Waste
Since the first federal resources were made available to state and local health agencies for AIDS prevention in 1985, federal funding, which now includes money for research, treatment, and housing, has skyrocketed to $13 billion for fiscal 2003. As a result of the work of highly mobilized lobbying forces, more is spent per patient on AIDS than on any other disease, though it does not even currently rank among the top 15 causes of death in the United States. In one year, 1998, heart disease, the nation's leading cause of death, killed 724,859 Americans only 6.8 percent less than the 774,767 who have contracted AIDS in the last 20 years.2 Of those 774,767 total AIDS cases, 462,766 have died. During that same period, 14 million Americans 30 times more have died of heart disease.
Research expenditures at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) demonstrate the uneven use of federal resources. In 1996, NIH spent an average of $1,160 for every heart disease death, $4,700 for every cancer death, and a whopping $43,000 for every AIDS death.3 Even though they get far less research money, that year heart disease killed 24 times more and cancer killed 17 times more than the number of people who died from AIDS in 1996, when AIDS was still the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S.
In addition to research, the U.S. government spends large amounts on AIDS prevention and social programs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) spent $795 million on prevention in fiscal 2001. But questions have arisen regarding the misuse of some of that money.
HIV and AIDS prevention and social programs have long been cash cows for politically correct nonprofit firms and government bureaucracies. In their book, Private Choices and Public Health: The AIDS Epidemic in an Economic Perspective, University of Chicago economist Tomas J. Philipson and law professor Richard A. Posner concluded that the AIDS epidemic has been overstated in almost every imaginable way in order to gain more funding. They contended, "pressure from small, but organized, groups [including] male homosexuals, health professionals, government bureaucrats, and moral conservatives has deflected AIDS programs from their efficient path."9
In 1998, heart disease 118,151 people under the age of 65.24 Cancer killed 157,255 people under age 65 that year.25 That is nine times more and 13 times more, respectively, than AIDS, which killed approximately 12,000 people under age 65 in 1998.26 In all age groups, including the under 65 group, the death rates for heart disease and cancer have remained steady while AIDS deaths have been in decline since 1993. Furthermore, a typical AIDS case costs approximately the same amount to treat as a terminal cancer case approximately $40,000 to $50,000 per year.27
In 1998, AIDS ranked 17th in the leading causes of death among Americans, behind, among others, heart disease, cancer, emphysema and asthma, pneumonia and influenza, diabetes, suicide, Alzheimer's disease, homicide, and hypertension.28 Despite this, AIDS receives more funding than any other disease. In 1996, NIH spent 43 times more on AIDS than it did on heart disease and nine times more than it spent on all cancers.29
Some AIDS activists think it could be detrimental that AIDS receives much more money than other diseases. Martin Delaney, founder of the HIV treatment information organization Project Inform says that by giving AIDS so much funding, the federal government makes it "almost an advantage to be HIV-positive."30
After SFDPH worker Seth Watkins admitted in an August 2001 New York Times article that he sometimes went to San Francisco bars and ended up having unprotected sex, Tierney did not reprimand him. Instead Tierney, told The San Francisco Chronicle that his employee's sex life was that employee's business.57 Watkins is not the only AIDS prevention worker under scrutiny for such behavior. In 1999, Luis Diaz, director of the HIV and AIDS program for the Nevada Association of Latin Americans was accused of having unprotected sex with two people without informing them of his AIDS infection.
There are AIDS prevention success stories, but they aren't coming from American "health" organizations like SFDPH. In the 1990s, the prevalence of AIDS in Uganda hung around the 30 percent mark. Today only 6 percent of Ugandans have AIDS. A recent Africa News article says the Ugandan government attributes this drop to programs like the School Health Education Project, which, instead of sex and flirting seminars, include discussion and debate on the reality of living with AIDS. The article says, "More emphasis [is] put on the fact that HIV/AIDS has no cure and that abstinence from sex [is] the best way to avoid the pandemic."59
Upon her retirement as Director of the National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention at CDC, Dr. Helene Gayle said of her progress, "Nearly every adult can tell you what AIDS is and how it is spread." Adult prevention and education programs are wasted in well-educated, urban populations that glamorize the behavior that spreads the disease.
America is at war against AIDS and against terrorism. The waste of federal AIDS dollars does a disservice to taxpayers, and most importantly, to the victims and those at risk of contracting the disease. The nation cannot be expected to win those wars unless it gets serious about eliminating wasteful, fraudulent, and abusive AIDS programs.
Of course madg will merely respond that not a single death from AIDs has ever been conclusively proven to have resulted from male homosexual practices.
|
not a single death from AIDs has ever been conclusively proven to have resulted from male homosexual practices |
They get the disease and never die?
The cure for AIDS is homosexuality?
MADG tell the CDC.
Homosexuals represent about <5% of the population and yet:
Young People at Risk: HIV/AIDS Among America's Youth
In 2000, 1,688 young people (ages 13 to 24) were reported with AIDS, bringing the cumulative total to 31,293 cases of AIDS in this age group. Among young men aged 13- to 24-years, 49% of all AIDS cases reported in 2000 were among men who have sex with men (MSM); 10% were among injection drug users (IDUs); and 9% were among young men infected heterosexually.
"The study involved a new way of using data from monozygotic twins," Murray said. "It turns out that identical twins who differ for a single genetic trait are quite common. So we are proposing that other people who study, say, hypertension or diabetes, might think about looking at monozygotic twins in the way we did to see if they can find genetic differences that would explain at least a genetic component of the disorder."
"The APA is too ... politically correct...and too .... obeisant to special interests!" said Robert Perloff, 1985 President of the American Psychological Association.
Dr. Perloff delivered those uncensored remarks during a rousing speech to psychologists at the 2001 APA Annual Convention.
In an expression of public anger and frustration, Dr. Perloff condemned the APA's one-sided political activism. Of reorientation therapy with homosexuals, he said: "It is considered unethical...That's all wrong. First, the data are not fully in yet. Second, if the client wants a change, listen to the client. Third, you're barring research." (1)
Dr. Perloff is a recipient of the American Psychological Foundation's Gold Medal Award for Lifetime Achievement in Psychology in the Public Interest. In bestowing the award, the Psychological Foundation recognized Perloff for his noted "love of social justice" and his career-long struggle to champion "the rights and dignity of women, minorities, and homosexuals."
But, Perloff asked, "How can you do research on change if therapists involved in this work are threatened with being branded as unethical?"
Contacted by NARTH, Dr. Perloff added the following comment in an interview:
"I believe that APA is flat out wrong, undemocratic, and shamefully unprofessional in denying NARTH the opportunity to express its views and programs in the APA Monitor and otherwise under APA's purview." (2)
Other Professionals who Support Client Autonomy
Robert Spitzer, M.D., the psychiatrist who is called the "architect of the 1973 diagnostic manual" that normalized homosexuality, expressed a similar concern two years ago about the movement within the mental-health professions to prevent sexual-reorientation therapy. Describing his own study, which he would later announce at a panel discussion at the 2000 Psychiatric Association convention, Dr. Spitzer said:
"I'm convinced from people I have interviewed...many of them...have made substantial changes toward becoming heterosexual. I came to this study skeptical. I now claim that these changes can be sustained."
About exclusive homosexuality, he conceded, "I think, implicitly, there is something not working" (3).
Dr. Raymond Fowler, CEO of the American Psychological Association, says that his interpretation of the APA's position on reparative therapy is that those who wish to explore developing heterosexual feelings or behavior have a right to do so as part of every client's right to self-determination (4).
Dr. Brent Scharman, former president of the Utah Psychological Association, considers himself a "typical" psychologist--not an activist on either side of the homosexual issue--and he says that all homosexual individuals should have the right to pursue change. It is the client, he says, who should determine the direction of the treatment (5).
Dr. Warren Throckmorton, immediate past president of the American Mental Health Counselors Association, studied a broad cross-section of research on sexual-orientation change. He says such treatment has been effective, can be conducted in an ethical manner, and should be available to those clients requesting such assistance (6).
Dr. Martin Seligman, 1998 President of the American Psychological Association, cites research in his book What You Can Change and What You Can't that is optimistic about change for those who have had fewer homosexual experiences and/or some bisexual feelings (7).
In a recent paper in the premiere academic journal Psychotherapy, and again in the American Journal of Family Therapy, Dr. Mark Yarhouse of Regent University made a powerful case for such therapy:
"Psychologists have an ethical responsibility to allow individuals to pursue treatment aimed at curbing experiences of same-sex attraction...not only because it affirms the clients' right to dignity, autonomy and agency...but also because it demonstrates regard for diversity (8)."
Endnotes
(1) "Same Office, Different Aspirations," APA Monitor on Psychology, December 2001, p. 20.
(2) Dr. Robert Perloff, personal correspondence to NARTH, February 15, 2002.
(2) Quoted by Dr. Laura Schlessinger on her syndicated radio show, January 21, 2000.
(3) Reported in "1999 NARTH Conference, Speech by Brent Scharman," the NARTH Bulletin, December 1999.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Throckmorton, Warren, "Attempts to Modify Sexual Orientation: A Review of Outcome Literature and Ethical Issues," Journal of Mental Health Counseling October 1998, vol. 20, pp. 283-304.
(6) Reported in "1999 NARTH Conference, Speech by Brent Scharman," the NARTH Bulletin, December 1999.
(7) Yarhouse, Mark, "When Clients Seek Treatment for Same-Sex Attraction: Ethical Issues in the 'Right to Choose' Debate." Psychotherapy vol. 35, Summer 1998, no. 2, pp. 234-259.
Copyright © NARTH. All Rights Reserved.
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.