quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
...and they blend psychology and faith healing in a rather queasy way[/.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
I think that sexual orientation can be more flexible and changeable than people sometimes give it credit for. People are often surprised by whom they find attractive. I dated women exclusively until a couple of years ago and I'm now engaged to a man (I'm female). HOWEVER. That doesn't mean that it changes in response to people's efforts to change it, and this is important. I've yet to see any evidence that efforts such as ex-gay programs are anything other than a horrible, traumatic waste of time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

My gay lifestyle today involved doing lots of filing, and there might be some ironing this evening.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
I'm happy to answer any particular queries about the cures (bearing in mind that I remained 'sick').

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by beatmenace:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

My gay lifestyle today involved doing lots of filing, and there might be some ironing this evening.

---

Your gay lifestyle seems very similar to my straight one. Except the ironing bit. And the filing. But similar in nature if not detail.
Does writing a Word doc count with filing?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
My experience of such things is extremely limited, but it seems to me that sometimes when you fall in love, the nature of the plumbing isn't so important.

---

Really, really, it isn't important at all. This is why I'm bewildered at the idea that a gay relationship is a source of great moral peril whereas heterosexual marriage is a wonderful gift from God. OK, I'm only engaged at this stage (maybe it'll all become clear after July) but the two kinds of relationship really are more similar than they are different. When it comes down to it, someone still has to buy the toilet roll and feed the cat. You have the same kinds of arguments and cuddles and supportive moments. You make the same kinds of mistakes.

I think that's also why there's so much resentment about the word "lifestyle" because it suggests that gay people are living a completely different kind of life. It also generally involves comparisons of apples and oranges - the "gay lifestyle" conjuring up images of promiscuous young men as opposed to a faithful hetero marriage. The truth is that monogamous relationships have more in common with other monogamous relationships - sexual orientation aside - than they do with random sluttiness, whatever the orientation of it.
 

---

Posted by beatmenace (# 16955) on :
 
All - my heartfelt apologies to all my Gay friends here. I had no idea that using the word 'lifestyle' would be offensive. I suppose that implies a choice of sexuality in the same way we pick curtains. In no way was I suggesting that and i'm sorry if that is the impression i gave.

I guess thats my ignorance speaking and shows how careful we have to be with words.

Guess i'm here to learn this sort of thing - which is why i'm asking questions!
 

---

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
This is a really interesting discussion and I hope it continues in a lively way. As the OP'er first suggested might be the case, any discussion of the rights and wrongs of homosexuality belongs in the Dead Horses thread, and a conversation about whether homosexual orientation can or should be "cured" clearly falls within that category. Fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the ride.

Trudy, Scrumptious Purgatory Host
 

---

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :
 
Beatmenace: not a problem at all. I never thought you meant to upset anyone
 

---

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 

quote:

---

Hawk: I'd be interested in what exactly this therapy consists of.

---

quote:

---

orfeo: Gays don't use Word. We've got our own special software.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hawk:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
I'm happy to answer any particular queries about the cures (bearing in mind that I remained 'sick').

---

I'd be interested in what exactly this therapy consists of. Is it just prayer and faith healing, and making you feel guilty for who you are? Or is it a genuine psychotherapuetic attempt to comfort, support and assist someone in sexual desires they wish to move away from? For those who find the therapy helps, for them is it just a matter of 'will' and choosing not to indulge their sexual desires, or does it genuinely seek to change their sexuality?

It is easy enough to find people willing to criticise these therapy programs, the internet is full of ex-participants angry and probably rightly so, at being hurt by them. It's interesting to know that there is another side of the story. For you, why do you think the therapy didn't work whereas it did for others? Is your sexuality more definitely homosexual than those who were helped, or are those people deluding themselves prior to inevitably realising it's all a lie and jumping angrily into the ex-participant camp.

---

quote:

---

I wrote a really long reply to this. Unfortunately, the Ship ate it when the thread moved to DH.

---

quote:

---

Nicolosi’s ideas did more than haunt me. The first two years of college, they were the basis for how I saw myself: a leper with no hope of a cure. I stayed in the closet but had sexual encounters with classmates nonetheless. I became increasingly depressed but didn’t go to mental-health counseling for fear that a well-meaning therapist would inform my parents that I was living the “gay lifestyle.”

I planned for what I would do if my parents decided to stop paying my tuition. I would stay in New Haven and get a job. I would apply for a scholarship from the Point Foundation, which gives financial aid to gay kids whose parents have disowned them. I would not go back to Arizona. I would not see an ex-gay therapist.

I spent hours in front of the window of my third-story room, wondering whether jumping would kill or merely paralyze me. I had a prescription for Ambien and considered taking the entire bottle and perching myself on the ledge until it kicked in—a sort of insurance.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mary Marriott:
One common form of 'treatment' involves the giving of electric shocks, to gay men while pictures of naked men are shown, projected large size on to a screen. Electrode round one ankle. Very searing pain.

After the shocks comes calm and pictures of women ar projected on to the big screen.

Then more men, more shocks.

These sessions a number of times per week at psychiatric hospital out-patients in the UK. This is still going on to this day I believe.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mary Marriott:
These sessions a number of times per week at psychiatric hospital out-patients in the UK. This is still going on to this day I believe.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
A good friend of mine, who has always been gay, is now getting married to a woman.

---

quote:

---

Orfeo wrote:
Such groups would argue that the desire is just temptation to sin. The main thing is not to indulge in the desire - which doesn't just mean not having homosexual sex, it means dismissing the desire instead of indulging in the fantasy inside your head.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mary Marriott:
These sessions a number of times per week at psychiatric hospital out-patients in the UK. This is still going on to this day I believe.

---

Citation please.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Biology - you have straight, homosexual, bisexual and asexual.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Biology - you have straight, homosexual, bisexual and asexual.

---

If you can find a purely biological difference between those categories - in other words one that is physiological or anatomical or genetic rather than psychological and social - you really ought to publish it because no-one else ever has.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alogon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
A good friend of mine, who has always been gay, is now getting married to a woman.

---

Does she know? If so, then please give them my congratulations and best wishes. If she doesn't know, then I wouldn't want to give him the time of day and my opinion is unprintable.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by beatmenace:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

My gay lifestyle today involved doing lots of filing, and there might be some ironing this evening.

---

Your gay lifestyle seems very similar to my straight one. Except the ironing bit. And the filing. But similar in nature if not detail.
Does writing a Word doc count with filing?

---

Gays don't use Word. We've got our own special software.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mary Marriott:
One common form of 'treatment' involves the giving of electric shocks, to gay men while pictures of naked men are shown, projected large size on to a screen. Electrode round one ankle. Very searing pain.

After the shocks comes calm and pictures of women ar projected on to the big screen.

Then more men, more shocks.

These sessions a number of times per week at psychiatric hospital out-patients in the UK. This is still going on to this day I believe.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evangeline:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Gays don't use Word. We've got our own special software.

---

What, why did nobody tell me before????? For something that replaces Bill Gates's annoying rubbishy software I might consider a change in sexual preference......

---

Actually, you don't have to be gay to use OpenOffice.

And it makes my word count look bigger
 

---

Posted by Balaam (# 4543) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Gays don't use Word. We've got our own special software.

---

The hardware, however is exactly the same.

I'm interested in hearing of your treatment, orfeo. Not the same as Mary's I hope. Let's hope the software does not eat it again.
 

---

Posted by beatmenace (# 16955) on :
 
There is another one in the Indy.

Is there a tax exemption for working on this particular part of the Christian Loony Fringe?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/they-say-being-gay-is-a-sin--and-they-cant-get-over-it-7643992.html

Don't know whats worse in this article - describing Greenbelt Festival as being responsible for the 'Gayification of society' or calling the said Festival 'innocuous'.

Not the effect the organisers were trying to achieve i think.
 

---

Posted by Balaam (# 4543) on :
 
The "treatment" in that article is horrendous. I wonder which part of the Bible they get their traumatising people for Jesus beliefs from.
 

---

Posted by Edith (# 16978) on :
 
Does anyone know anything about these so called Christian groups? There has been a lot of ink spilled and they have garnered a huge amount of publicity for their bizarre views. But I've never heard of them before. What really upsets me is that friends and acquaintances are blaming 'Christians' for every bit of homophobia they can. Many are mystified that I can continue to be a Christian if these are the views that they hold. In vain do I protest that that they are probably a very small totally untypical subset. It's a dilemma, isn't it? Do we protest about it and thus publicise it, or do we ignore it and trust that in the general bombarding of the senses in Central London, everyone else will too.
 

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Posted by Louise (# 30) on :
 
At Anglican Mainstream's last conference on homosexuality only 30 people turned up. But they have some well-known defenders - Lord Carey, Michael Nazir Ali and Wallace Benn, Bishop of Lewes. Though the first two are retired, they are very popular with sections of the media and get a lot of coverage. Because the current Archbishops haven't spoken up about this and dissociated themselves from it, I think there is a problem that actual mainstream Anglicanism (and other churches) will be undeservedly associated with this.

L.
 

---

Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on :
 
Mainstream Anglicanism currently suffers many ills, Louise.

If you like, you could add it to your list.

I've run out of space.

 

---

Posted by beatmenace (# 16955) on :
 
Ouch - what started as merely a puzzled piece of questioning now seems to have implicated a couple of Bishops too. Now I have found some of George Carey's recent pronouncements a bit paranoid, for a man who wrote 'the church in the marketplace' the conflict of christianity with increasingly secularised culture shouldnt be suprising - but Bishop Nazir-Ali always seemed reasonably sensible.

Ignoring Westbro Baptists who have their own unique spot on the loony spectrum, the way i seem to see it there seem to be three strands of Christian Opinion on this issue.

1) God sees Homosexuality as needing repentance / deliverance / curing.
Anglican 'Mainstream' (hah) seem to take this view. Cue Loony Psychotherapy / Demon slaying depending on your church background.

2) God wants gay folk to stay Homosexual but live a celibate / non-partnered life. I think this is the official 'Mainstream' view of the Church of England and I think its now the current view of True Freedom Trust who were mentioned in one of the articles.

3) God doesnt care about your orientation or practice. He is much more concerned about other stuff, like 'loving your neighbour as yourself' etc. The biblical Hebrew and Greek wasn't intended to apply to a modern understanding of Homosexuality.

In an attempt to balance scripture with experience i would have leaned towards 2) but as i have now done more reading on the actual Greek and the culture of the Roman world I now read the texts differently (Romans 1 particularly).

Thanks for sharing your experiences Shipmates, i think i'm now pretty much in camp 3) or at least enough to belive there are different ways to read scripture on this - making it an 'agree to disagree' issue, and not worth all the heat its generating in the media.

Except for the human cost which does need exposing, which i think is the REAL issue here. I think most of these curers are deceiving themselves - and the truth is not in them.....causing great harm in the process.
 

---

Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on :
 
4) A homosexual inclination is a call to the monastic life.

Without being as accepting or indifferent as (3), it promises a far more positive and valued place in the cosmos than does the dismal negativism of (2).
 

---

Posted by beatmenace (# 16955) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alogon:
4) A homosexual inclination is a call to the monastic life.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alogon:
4) A homosexual inclination is a call to the monastic life.

Without being as accepting or indifferent as (3), it promises a far more positive and valued place in the cosmos than does the dismal negativism of (2).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by LucyP:
Am currently reading " The Mind and the Brain : neuroplasticity and the power of mental force", by Jeffrey Schwartz, a psychiatrist who has also written a book about treatment for Obsessive Compulsive disorder.

The book (like Norman Doidge's The brain that changes itself ) outlines a paradigm shift in our understanding of the brain's capability for change.

As late as the 1990s, it was believed that the brain could not rewire itself. So after a stroke, if you had lost the use of the neurones that controlled your left arm, no other neurones could take over that function.

Research in the last 2 decades has demonstrated that this is false, and that -with appropriate therapy -new neurones can be co-opted into taking over the function of the old ones.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
This is why the professional bodies in medicine and psychiatry will probably not allow this kind of therapy from now on, as, as soon as you say that homosexual desire or behaviour is sinful, you are no longer doing psychotherapy at all.

Similarly, I doubt if any psychotherapist would today say that adultery is sinful.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
There's an article on the BBC website today about a man who thinks the stroke he had turned him gay (his whole personality changed). There is a discussion about whether this is possible or whether he was really gay all along. If a stroke can do this to someone, then I suppose it's also possible a stroke could turn a gay person straight. I'd be interested to see if anyone claims this for themself.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by beatmenace:
Ignoring Westbro Baptists who have their own unique spot on the loony spectrum, the way i seem to see it there seem to be three strands of Christian Opinion on this issue.

1) God sees Homosexuality as needing repentance / deliverance / curing.
Anglican 'Mainstream' (hah) seem to take this view. Cue Loony Psychotherapy / Demon slaying depending on your church background.

2) God wants gay folk to stay Homosexual but live a celibate / non-partnered life. I think this is the official 'Mainstream' view of the Church of England and I think its now the current view of True Freedom Trust who were mentioned in one of the articles.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bran Stark:
I think 2 is actually rather a cruel position compared to 1. Harsh as 1 may be, it is at least consistent - homosexuality is a regrettable distortion of God's creation. But unless I'm reading you wrong, 2 appears to imply that God intentionally gives some people homosexual desires and then proceeds to turn around and make such desires sinful.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
And no, I'm not implying a moral equivalence, but I bet someone here will claim that I am and go off on one.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
This is a rather bizarre way of viewing the doctrine of Creation and Fall. Isn't it perfectly possible for someone to have a homosexual orientation which is "biological" but is part of the Fall?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
There's an article on the BBC website today about a man who thinks the stroke he had turned him gay (his whole personality changed). There is a discussion about whether this is possible or whether he was really gay all along. If a stroke can do this to someone, then I suppose it's also possible a stroke could turn a gay person straight. I'd be interested to see if anyone claims this for themself.

---

Given some of the research on the association of sexuality with certain brain structures (ie differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals in the size of particular areas), it seems entirely plausible to me that a stroke, physically changing the brain, could have that effect.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
And no, I'm not implying a moral equivalence, but I bet someone here will claim that I am and go off on one.

---

Oh right, forgot one! (Related post on a parallel thread.) "[N]ot implying a moral equivalence" usually precedes or follows a statement about why two things are, in fact, equivalent, usually in a moral context. It's always interesting how those claiming they're not implying a moral equivalence between homosexuality and pedophilia (or bestiality, or kleptomania, or . . . ) can never seem to find an analogy that doesn't involve some kind of predatory immorality or criminal behavior. I've yet to hear anyone advance an argument along the lines of "would you say for example that God *intentionally* makes people left-handed?", probably because such analogies don't go where the analogist wants them to go. (" . . . therefore gays should get back in the closet, just like those sinister Lefties should get Right with the Lord!")

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bran Stark:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
This is a rather bizarre way of viewing the doctrine of Creation and Fall. Isn't it perfectly possible for someone to have a homosexual orientation which is "biological" but is part of the Fall?

---

Of course it's possible for homosexual orientation to be biological yet part of the Fall. It's what I believe, in fact. But if the orientation is part of the Fall, then how can we say that "God wants gay folk to stay Homosexual"?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bran Stark:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
This is a rather bizarre way of viewing the doctrine of Creation and Fall. Isn't it perfectly possible for someone to have a homosexual orientation which is "biological" but is part of the Fall?

---

Of course it's possible for homosexual orientation to be biological yet part of the Fall. It's what I believe, in fact. But if the orientation is part of the Fall, then how can we say that "God wants gay folk to stay Homosexual"?

---

Because ever so often God has a purpose through suffering? No-one ever said being a Christian meant that you have a perfect life.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
... Because ever so often God has a purpose through suffering? No-one ever said being a Christian meant that you have a perfect life.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Avila:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
There's an article on the BBC website today about a man who thinks the stroke he had turned him gay (his whole personality changed). There is a discussion about whether this is possible or whether he was really gay all along. If a stroke can do this to someone, then I suppose it's also possible a stroke could turn a gay person straight. I'd be interested to see if anyone claims this for themself.

---

Given some of the research on the association of sexuality with certain brain structures (ie differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals in the size of particular areas), it seems entirely plausible to me that a stroke, physically changing the brain, could have that effect.

---

Just watching the programme on iplayer now and given that there are cases (at least AFAIK) of post stroke changes to accents and other elements of personality why not this?

But it feels that the fear of it being used against them makes it too hard to acknowledge that rare things can happen.

It links with the 'cure' debate as well.

In my experience someone who comes out mid life is held up as one who was always gay but suppressed. But if anyone were to travel the opposite way...

If we are all on a sprectrum then surely it can go both ways. And therefore people will exist who have changed from gay to straight relationships as well as the other way around.

Yes there are reasons why people may seek to suppress an opposed minority aspect of who they are, but the assumption that all shifts are due to this is perhaps damaging. not least in terms of prior relationships which can be felt to be 'unreal' or 'invalid' in some way.

In the same way those who move to a straight relationship amid all this cure talk are dismissing their previous life.

Why do we have to do this? Why can't we be allowed to change over time in lots of ways?

Probably because it is too much of a threat to both tribes...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
If God put a thorn in my flesh, it really isn't necessary for my brothers and sisters in Christ to keep hammering it in.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bran Stark:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
This is a rather bizarre way of viewing the doctrine of Creation and Fall. Isn't it perfectly possible for someone to have a homosexual orientation which is "biological" but is part of the Fall?

---

Of course it's possible for homosexual orientation to be biological yet part of the Fall. It's what I believe, in fact. But if the orientation is part of the Fall, then how can we say that "God wants gay folk to stay Homosexual"?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by OliviaG:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
... Because ever so often God has a purpose through suffering? No-one ever said being a Christian meant that you have a perfect life.

---

Welcome to the Ship, Peter Ould. We have a saying around here: Suffering for one's beliefs makes one a martyr. Making other people suffer for one's beliefs makes one a prat. OliviaG

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
Possibly worth examining Peter Ould's sig, then ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Because ever so often God has a purpose through suffering? No-one ever said being a Christian meant that you have a perfect life.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
It's always interesting how those claiming they're not implying a moral equivalence between homosexuality and pedophilia (or bestiality, or kleptomania, or . . . ) can never seem to find an analogy that doesn't involve some kind of predatory immorality or criminal behavior.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
Left-handedness may not be predatory or criminal, but it's not generally agreed to be immoral either.

---

Well, in some cultures it is, or has been, considered immoral or bad. The Latin for left is sinister. In some cultures you must eat with your right hand only. Etc etc.

You also don't have to go back very far at all to find children being forced to use their right hand instead of their left. My grandmother is ambidextrous (note: 'dextrous' comes from the Latin for 'right', so effectively it means that both of my grandmother's hands are right hands), and I think in her case it's quite likely that she would have been predominantly left-handed if not for the interventions carried out in her childhood to make her perform certain tasks with her right.

Oh yeah, it's also correlated with homosexuality apparently...
 

---

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
Possibly worth examining Peter Ould's sig, then ...

---

Well that's going to start another rumpus...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Ricardus, Mrs B and I have a very close friend who would fall within your category. He is a Christian, with same-sex attraction/ orientation, and would self-describe as gay, but believes same-sex sexual acts (define!!!) to be sinful and therefore leads a celibate life. He would personally be loathe to shout such things from the rooftops as he regards the whole matter as deeply private and personal to him but, if pressed, would probably self-describe as 'gay but celibate'.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
If someone feels attracted to members of the same sex, but believes that homosexual acts are sinful, and therefore does not act on those feelings of attraction: why would they identify as gay or homosexual at all? Granted its axioms, wouldn't it be like saying "I'm a liar, but I never actually tell lies"?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
Apologies, it was probably unfair to put you under the spotlight.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
same-sex sexual acts (define!!!)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
A conservative must deny that premise.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Isn't it perfectly possible for someone to have a homosexual orientation which is "biological" but is part of the Fall?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by beatmenace:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

My gay lifestyle today involved doing lots of filing, and there might be some ironing this evening.

---

Your gay lifestyle seems very similar to my straight one. Except the ironing bit. And the filing. But similar in nature if not detail.
Does writing a Word doc count with filing?

---

Gays don't use Word. We've got our own special software.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by LQ:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
Apologies, it was probably unfair to put you under the spotlight.

---

Och, it's a bit late to worry about that for our Dobby.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
Because ever so often God has a purpose through suffering? No-one ever said being a Christian meant that you have a perfect life.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alogon:
The idea would be more intriguing if homosexuality were unique to the human race.

---

quote:

---

The Fall, if it is to have any meaning, is an event distinct from creation. It is the result of a human act. Being such, it must have occurred within the lifetime of our species.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
But denying sexual fulfilment to homosexuals is - on the liberal argument - a suppression of their identity.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
FWIW, I am a straight man who is liberal on the Gay Issue, and one question which I have never quite dared ask is:

If someone feels attracted to members of the same sex, but believes that homosexual acts are sinful, and therefore does not act on those feelings of attraction: why would they identify as gay or homosexual at all? Granted its axioms, wouldn't it be like saying "I'm a liar, but I never actually tell lies"?

The link in your sig does seem to address that question, so thanks.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
But denying sexual fulfilment to homosexuals is - on the liberal argument - a suppression of their identity.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Louise:

quote:

---

Originally posted by LQ:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
Apologies, it was probably unfair to put you under the spotlight.

---

Och, it's a bit late to worry about that for our Dobby.

---

Hosting

LQ, pejorative nick-names count as name-calling which is a C3 violation. This is not allowed anywhere except the Hell board, so don't do it again.

thanks
Louise
Dead Horses Host
Hosting off

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
But denying sexual fulfilment to homosexuals is - on the liberal argument - a suppression of their identity.

---

And the trouble with that argument is that there are hundreds of millions of heterosexuals who can claim they are denied "sexual fulfilment" as well.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alogon:
The idea would be more intriguing if homosexuality were unique to the human race.

---

It more or less is. As long as you count bonobos as human...

The idea that "gay" behaviour is widespread animals is mostly a mixture of misinterpretation and special pleading. I'm not saying there is nothing behind it but its heavily over-interpreted.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
orfeo,

I am simply trying to explore the implications of the conservative view of homosexuality - where feeling homosexual attraction is not sinful, but acting on it is. This is not a view that I personally hold.

---

Sorry, I do understand that. I'm sorry if that came across as having a go at you personally, rather than having a go at the proposition.

It's probably something that I react to with great feeling because basically I tried to live the conservative viewpoint for quite a long time. And at times it was sheer psychological agony. I'm not saying that my life is a bed of roses now that my views have changed (now I just get to go through all the heartbreak shared by single people generally, and 'look forward' to all the troulbes of being a member of a couple one day), but there is something uniquely perverse about living with the sense that there is something so wrong with you that you are fated to always and forever be cut off from the world of intimate human relationships.

Which is pretty much what happened over time once (a) I had identified myself as gay, and (b) came to conclude that this was going to always be the case (note, this was actually a bit before I tried getting cured in a new fit of desperation) while still holding onto the conservative view that I couldn't act on my feelings.

If anything, it was my sense of integrity that did me in. I have actually met plenty of men who married their female best friend in the hope/wishful thinking that the deep non-erotic love they felt would 'cure' them of their erotic homosexual attractions, but I simply couldn't contemplate doing this. I couldn't imagine doing that to a woman - and in fact, for these men the most difficult part of 'coming out' was what they put their wives through. As it was, I apologised to my last girlfriend several years later, once I'd faced reality. We're probably even now, now that she's come out as a lesbian.

But yes, the implications of that conservative view can be horrible. I can still vividly remember being at the wedding of 2 friends and thinking, "I can never have this". I can't join my life with another person like this. I spent the wedding, the following afternoon tea and the time afterwards spent with my best friend holding a torrent of emotion inside after thinking that thought. I didn't let it out until 8 or 9 hours later when I was alone, and then wept and wailed like you wouldn't believe.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are people whose mental process runs along the lines of "I'm not gay because being gay is not allowed", but I just didn't have the capacity to think like that. I actually do have a friend who DID think like that, and he fitted the stereotype of being particularly strong in his anti-gay stance, as a subconscious cover (including to himself) for the homosexual attraction lurking underneath. So we don't all respond in the same way.
 

---

Posted by beatmenace (# 16955) on :
 
From Wikipedia - so take it with the usual caution....

quote:

---

'Current research indicates that various forms of same-sex sexual behavior are found throughout the animal kingdom. A new review made in 2009 of existing research showed that same-sex behavior is a nearly universal phenomenon in the animal kingdom, common across species. Homosexual behavior is best known from social species.

According to geneticist Simon Levay in 1996, "Although homosexual behavior is very common in the animal world, it seems to be very uncommon that individual animals have a long-lasting predisposition to engage in such behavior to the exclusion of heterosexual activities. Thus, a homosexual orientation, if one can speak of such thing in animals, seems to be a rarity. One species in which exclusive homosexual orientation occurs, however, is that of domesticated sheep (Ovis aries). "About 10% of rams (males) refuse to mate with ewes (females) but do readily mate with other rams.'

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
One of the liberal arguments is based on 'identity'. Denying sexual fulfilment to gay people is bad because it is denying a part of their identity. And identity in this usage is something more than just the sum of your attributes.

(For comparison, I like bacon. If I went to live in Saudi Arabia, I would have to give it up, and this would be annoying, but it would not be denying a part of my identity. But denying sexual fulfilment to homosexuals is - on the liberal argument - a suppression of their identity.)

A conservative must deny that premise. I cannot think of any other case in which an urge is a.) considered sinful, b.) never acted upon, but c.) considered to be a component of your identity. Someone who wants to steal but doesn't is not a thief. Someone who wants to lie but doesn't is not a liar. They are not a liar precisely because they don't lie.

I don't accept alcoholism as a counter-example because alcoholism, AIUI, is an actual medical condition - an alcoholic who's given up drinking really is clinically different from a strict Muslim who has never drunk.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
... and, since the unwillingly single generally regret the absence of a partner more deeply than they would regret the absence of a bacon butty, that would seem to be evidence that sexual fulfilment is a greater part of our identity than bacon fulfilment.

Which seems to me a point to the liberals.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
To me it's about the issue of self-determination rather than sex. I am fed up with hearing "sexual orientation is not an important part of my identity, and therefore it shouldn't be an important part of your identity either."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
After all the Roman Catholic church teaches that there is effectively no legitimate and non-sinful sexual behaviour at all available to a divorced man whose wife is remarried.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
A divorced man is legitimately allowed to have sex with his [ex-]wife in the eyes of the RCC, since according to Catholic reckoning they're still married.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
A divorced man is legitimately allowed to have sex with his [ex-]wife in the eyes of the RCC, since according to Catholic reckoning they're still married.

---

But it would still be legally adultery.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Custard:
Peter Ould, Anglican priest, well-known blogger and Post-Gay activist has commented...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
... and, since the unwillingly single generally regret the absence of a partner more deeply than they would regret the absence of a bacon butty, that would seem to be evidence that sexual fulfilment is a greater part of our identity than bacon fulfilment.

Which seems to me a point to the liberals.

---

Yes, but from the point of view of the other side, no reson to change their laws or customs to accomodate all those lonely people. After all the Roman Catholic church teaches that there is effectively no legitimate and non-sinful sexual behaviour at all available to a divorced man whose wife is remarried.

So its yet another argument that makes sense to those who already believe it but can never persuade their opponents.

---

ken, again, drags his RCCphobia into a discussion which has nowt per se to do with it.
 

---

Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :
 
Post-gay Fags

Funny that.

That's how I misread Peter Ould's url for hawking the yellowish standard Jones and Yarhouse ExGay Study (Stanton L. Jones & Mark A. Yarhouse. (2011). “A longitudinal study of attempted religiously-mediated sexual orientation change.” Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, Volume 37, pages 404-427.).

My university doesn't seem to want to subscribe to this periodical, but here is the giggle-inducing abstract one can get for free.

quote:

---

The authors conducted a quasi-experimental longitudinal study spanning 6–7 years examining attempted religiously mediated sexual orientation change from homosexual orientation to heterosexual orientation. An initial sample was formed of 72 men and 26 women who were involved in a variety of Christian ministries, with measures of sexual attraction, infatuation and fantasy, and composite measures of sexual orientation and psychological distress, administered longitudinally. Evidence from the study suggested that change of homosexual orientation appears possible for some and that psychological distress did not increase on average as a result of the involvement in the change process. The authors explore methodological limitations circumscribing generalizability of the findings and alternative explanations of the findings, such as sexual identity change or adjustment.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
Post-gay Fags

...

My university doesn't seem to want to subscribe to this periodical, but here is the giggle-inducing abstract one can get for free.

...

Fr. Ould opines in this post that "The only way [whether people could change their sexual orientation through therapy] could be answered definitively would be by a replicable controlled longitudinal study with an independent control group for comparison. Such a study has never been undertaken [because any Institutional Review Board would mock the proposed protocol right back to the stone-age where it belongs]."

---

Thanks for that brilliant display of bias there. Perhaps you'd like me to come back to you with a list of commonly accepted psychological therapies which don't have this level of research to validate them either? Are you suggesting that *all* these therapies (gestalt etc) should be banned, or only the ones that don't fit your dogma, regardless of the evidential base or otherwise?

[ 21. April 2012, 08:56: Message edited by: Peter Ould ]
 

---

Posted by TonyK (# 35) on :
 
Host Mode <ACTIVATE>

Jahlove - a gentle reminder.

A bald assertion that 'Ken is RCCphobic' is a personal attack and you have been here long enough to know that such statements can only be made in Hell posts.

Please bear this in mind - thank you.

Host Mode <DEACTIVATE>

Yours aye ... TonyK
Host, Dead Horses
 

---

Posted by Jahlove (# 10290) on :
 
my apologies, ken and Tony
 

---

Posted by FooloftheShip (# 15579) on :
 
I'm still not attracted to the idea of sitting in brine.....
 

---

Posted by Devils Advocate (# 16484) on :
 
electric shocks, while pictures of naked men are shown, projected large size on to a screen. Electrode round one ankle. Very searing pain.

Hmm Sounds fun to me LOL though I could find somewhere better for the electrodes

A Gay Anglo Catholic (nough said)
 

---

Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
The real question is would sitting in brine with electrodes attached stop people being homophobic?

Can we run a trial group to see if it is worth applying for funding for full scale research into the topic?

Bags I have the rheostat first!
 

---

Posted by Devils Advocate (# 16484) on :
 
Bags I have the rheostat first!


A magneto is far more effective
 

---

Posted by whitebait (# 7740) on :
 
Jeremy Marks has an interesting article that I almost missed in The Guardian "I tried to cure gay people"

I'd been following this thread with interest, but not knowing how to contribute. Jeremy's article puts it rather well.

I tried the "ex-gay" route, visiting Jeremy's organisation Courage (whilst it was still trying to "change" people); True Freedom Trust; and Living Waters. I went to monthly meetings for almost eight years. I read all the books - many of them from the USA, and many of those books and ministries influenced by a small booklet produced in 1983 by an English woman - Elizabeth Moberly.

She wrote about methods of therapy to change homosexuals. A lot of people believed her - or at least wanted to believe her.

After all those years I was no more heterosexual than when I started. Looking back, I'd describe myself as being in "asexual limbo"; repressing any gay thoughts as much as I could. I was losing hope - in everything.

There were a series of events that finally made me snap to my senses. I won't go into them all here, but I went through a period of intense questioning.

I questioned the reparative therapists who were (at the time) claiming a 30% success rate. Yet amongst all the hundreds (perhaps 300?) of men I'd met in the various ministries, perhaps only a handful had gone on to get married to a woman, and most of those admitted that they still "struggled".

I questioned the validity of Moberly's book, which seemed so crucial to many of the "reparative therapy" ministries. It turned out she had never tested her theories out before writing it - it was a summary of her thoughts having reviewed older psychotherapy texts and earlier thoughts of Freud. She wrote little else on the subject of reparative therapy.

And then there were those ex-gay ministry leaders, like Jeremy Marks (and numerous others), finally prepared to admit that the therapies just didn't work, and were in many cases harming folk. (Just this year, Alan Chambers, leader of the largest umbrella organisation "Exodus" admitted "99.9% of them, have not experienced a change in their sexual orientation or have gotten to a place where they can say they have never been tempted or are not tempted in some way or experience some level of same-sex attraction".)

I'm really pleased to see that the tide has turned. Hopefully too, those facing this issue in UK churches now will no longer feel as much of the misguided homophobia of the past. Yet even in 2005, as I was leaving the church, I told my vicar I was gay, and he said "you can be cured of that". I did my best to correct him on that - I've no idea if he took it to heart.
 

---

Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on :
 
What? 137 posts and no "cure" in sight? Or is that "no cure insight"? "No insight into purported curers"?

The mind boggles.
 

---

Posted by Earwig (# 12057) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by whitebait:
I'm really pleased to see that the tide has turned. Hopefully too, those facing this issue in UK churches now will no longer feel as much of the misguided homophobia of the past. Yet even in 2005, as I was leaving the church, I told my vicar I was gay, and he said "you can be cured of that". I did my best to correct him on that - I've no idea if he took it to heart.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by whitebait:
I tried the "ex-gay" route, visiting Jeremy's organisation Courage (whilst it was still trying to "change" people); True Freedom Trust; and Living Waters. I went to monthly meetings for almost eight years. I read all the books - many of them from the USA, and many of those books and ministries influenced by a small booklet produced in 1983 by an English woman - Elizabeth Moberly.

She wrote about methods of therapy to change homosexuals. A lot of people believed her - or at least wanted to believe her.....I questioned the validity of Moberly's book, which seemed so crucial to many of the "reparative therapy" ministries. It turned out she had never tested her theories out before writing it - it was a summary of her thoughts having reviewed older psychotherapy texts and earlier thoughts of Freud. She wrote little else on the subject of reparative therapy

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Earwig:

quote:

---

Originally posted by whitebait:
I'm really pleased to see that the tide has turned. Hopefully too, those facing this issue in UK churches now will no longer feel as much of the misguided homophobia of the past. Yet even in 2005, as I was leaving the church, I told my vicar I was gay, and he said "you can be cured of that". I did my best to correct him on that - I've no idea if he took it to heart.

---

Thank you for sharing your experiences - I too hope that the tide has turned, and people no longer experience opinions like your ex-vicar's. He sounds like a right arse!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:
I know someone who has been so deeply damaged by Jeremy Marks that he cannot forgive him for changing his views and admitting that he'd got it wrong.

---

quote:

---

mental illness and substance abuse than heterosexuals” and that they are less likely to be faithful and more likely to experience domestic violence. And it states, as an alleged matter of fact, that homosexuals are more likely to molest children.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by beatmenace:

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:
I know someone who has been so deeply damaged by Jeremy Marks that he cannot forgive him for changing his views and admitting that he'd got it wrong.

---

And there is the main point of this thread!

I think we are getting close to a consensus here - that these techniques have NEVER worked as they claim ie to 'make Gay people into Straight people'.

So should we consider 'Core Issues' and 'Anglican Mainsteam' to be Charlatans?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Given that cognitive therapies for behaviour change in other areas of psychiatry are recommended by NICE as effective - there is clear clinical evidence that such treatments are useful and effect desired change - why should anyone hang either their theology or their mental well-being on such flimsy work?

---

quote:

---

Furthermore, if I advertised a controversial treatment which had such limited outcomes, even if proven, why wouldn't I expect to be smacked down by both the ASA and the DoH?

---

quote:

---

It seems to me that if you convince people of the need to change (in this case, you insist their immortal souls are imperilled) and get only a marginal rate of them turning straight (almost as many decided that yes, they were gay and withdrew from the program), the therapy is really a bit rubbish.

---

quote:

---

And all this is leaving aside the notion that homosexual attraction is a sin.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Flimsy work? This is the best study done on the subject. If you want to suggest that such therapies *don't* work for a minority of participants, perhaps you'd like to point us to the longitudinal study (i.e. not just a collection of anecdotes) that demonstrates this.

---

quote:

---

If there weren't any good studies, absolutely. But interestingly, Jones and Yarhouse reported the same level of "success" as Alcoholics Anonymous report....

---

quote:

---

Since I don't go around trying to convince people they need to change (and indeed I criticise those who constantly do), I think this comment demonstrates more of your prejudice then it does my stance.

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

And all this is leaving aside the notion that homosexual attraction is a sin.

---

Really? Gosh, where does the Bible say that? News to me...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Flimsy work? This is the best study done on the subject. If you want to suggest that such therapies *don't* work for a minority of participants, perhaps you'd like to point us to the longitudinal study (i.e. not just a collection of anecdotes) that demonstrates this.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I could reasonably wheel out the slow hand-clap smilie, but we don't seem to have one.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Flimsy work? This is the best study done on the subject. If you want to suggest that such therapies *don't* work for a minority of participants, perhaps you'd like to point us to the longitudinal study (i.e. not just a collection of anecdotes) that demonstrates this.

---

Acutally, yes. Flimsy work. If this is the best you can point to, then it's frankly nothing to boast about. A collection of anecdotes is pretty much what you have here. And we all know the plural of anecdote is not data.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Flimsy work? This is the best study done on the subject. If you want to suggest that such therapies *don't* work for a minority of participants, perhaps you'd like to point us to the longitudinal study (i.e. not just a collection of anecdotes) that demonstrates this.

---

It's been my experience that "oh yeah, well prove that it doesn't work" is an almost sure sign of quackery. There's a very good reason that regulators expect those proposing novel treatments provide clear proof that they work rather than just assuming they work until someone proves otherwise.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by teddybear:
It is funny, several of the leaders of various "ex-gay" movements are starting to admit publicly that it doesn't work.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
I'm afraid if you're going to dismiss the Jones and Yarhouse study on the basis that you think it's just a collection of anecdotes, then we can't go any further. It is by any definition of the word NOT a collection of anecdotes.

---

quote:

---

The Fatal Flaw in the Study – There was no way to judge the credibility of subject reports of change in sexual orientation. I offered several (unconvincing) reasons why it was reasonable to assume that the subject’s reports of change were credible and not self-deception or outright lying. But the simple fact is that there was no way to determine if the subject’s accounts of change were valid.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
I'm afraid if you're going to dismiss the Jones and Yarhouse study on the basis that you think it's just a collection of anecdotes, then we can't go any further. It is by any definition of the word NOT a collection of anecdotes.

---

I'm not dismissing it as just a collection of anecdotes. Anecdotes are useful.

But coming at it from a hard science background, almost all social science studies are appallingly wooly: can't be reproduced, no control set, full of observer bias and relying on self-reporting. Therefore any data that's gained has to be couched in the strongest of caveats.

Add to that Crœsos' entirely valid and universally accepted point regarding where the burden of proof lies, evidence that ex-gay therapy works is, I repeat, flimsy. Its basis is largely discredited by its own former supporters - the quote from Spitzer regarding his own work:

quote:

---

The Fatal Flaw in the Study – There was no way to judge the credibility of subject reports of change in sexual orientation. I offered several (unconvincing) reasons why it was reasonable to assume that the subject’s reports of change were credible and not self-deception or outright lying. But the simple fact is that there was no way to determine if the subject’s accounts of change were valid.

---

puts a coach and horses through Jones and Yarhouse too.

If people are unhappy with being gay, perhaps the problem lies with those telling them that what they're feeling is wrong and will lead to their eternal damnation if they ever act on it. I would suggest some sort of therapy, but I'm not sure how we'd measure its outcome.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
I'm afraid if you're going to dismiss the Jones and Yarhouse study on the basis that you think it's just a collection of anecdotes, then we can't go any further. It is by any definition of the word NOT a collection of anecdotes.

---

I'm not dismissing it as just a collection of anecdotes. Anecdotes are useful.

But coming at it from a hard science background, almost all social science studies are appallingly wooly: can't be reproduced, no control set, full of observer bias and relying on self-reporting. Therefore any data that's gained has to be couched in the strongest of caveats.

Add to that Crœsos' entirely valid and universally accepted point regarding where the burden of proof lies, evidence that ex-gay therapy works is, I repeat, flimsy. Its basis is largely discredited by its own former supporters - the quote from Spitzer regarding his own work:

quote:

---

The Fatal Flaw in the Study – There was no way to judge the credibility of subject reports of change in sexual orientation. I offered several (unconvincing) reasons why it was reasonable to assume that the subject’s reports of change were credible and not self-deception or outright lying. But the simple fact is that there was no way to determine if the subject’s accounts of change were valid.

---

puts a coach and horses through Jones and Yarhouse too.

If people are unhappy with being gay, perhaps the problem lies with those telling them that what they're feeling is wrong and will lead to their eternal damnation if they ever act on it. I would suggest some sort of therapy, but I'm not sure how we'd measure its outcome.

---

It doesn't put a coach and horses through J&Y, because whereas Spitzer simply assessed one factor (self-reporting of sexual orientation) and one point in time, J&Y assessed five different factors over the longitudinal study. Completely different thing.

All Spitzer is saying is that his study doesn't prove that people had seen a change in their orientation, rather that people reported a shift in their orientation. It's not as if loads of us had been pointing out that exact issue with the Spitzer study for a while now.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
It doesn't put a coach and horses through J&Y, because whereas Spitzer simply assessed one factor (self-reporting of sexual orientation) and one point in time, J&Y assessed five different factors over the longitudinal study. Completely different thing.

---

quote:

---

Our subjects were spread all over the country, requiring at Time 1 that our interviewing teams travel widely to interview subjects and by Time 3 to resort to phone assessments because subjects were too dispersed for face-to-face interviews. This made it impossible to establish a central and accessible psychophysiological laboratory. Further, the substantial demands in time and energy we were already planning to make on our subject population to complete hours of interview questions and survey instruments, together with the personal intrusiveness of our questionnaires, led us to conclude that it was simply impractical to include such psychophysiological measurement among our dependent variables.

---

(from this page, scroll down to "Why didn't you use psychophysiological (biological) measurement of sexual orientation?")

The test subjects phoned their responses in.


 

---

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :
 
The "Why publish a limited study?" question also pretty much gives the game away:

quote:

---

For all of these reasons, we chose the quasi-experimental design of our study as the best way to get at the core questions we were interested in examining.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
It's been my experience that "oh yeah, well prove that it doesn't work" is an almost sure sign of quackery. There's a very good reason that regulators expect those proposing novel treatments provide clear proof that they work rather than just assuming they work until someone proves otherwise.

---

Except that one cannot say "it doesn't work" until one has actually demonstrated as such. The only way to definitively do that would be to do a longitudinal study that contradicted the findings of Jones and Yarhouse.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
... their understanding of themselves and their actualisation of lifestyle choice found greater congruence with their religious beliefs.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
There's a rogue bracket at the end of the URL.

Try this.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
Also: has anyone had a look at general populations of gay / straight Christians / atheists / members of other religions who are not going through ex-gay programs to see if there are statistically significant differences in the proportion of people who feel that their sexual orientation has shifted in some way over time? The lack of a control group bothers me - particularly because of my own experience of my sexual orientation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
Also: has anyone had a look at general populations of gay / straight Christians / atheists / members of other religions who are not going through ex-gay programs to see if there are statistically significant differences in the proportion of people who feel that their sexual orientation has shifted in some way over time? The lack of a control group bothers me - particularly because of my own experience of my sexual orientation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by OliviaG:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
... their understanding of themselves and their actualisation of lifestyle choice found greater congruence with their religious beliefs.

---

See that? Right there? That's not psychiatry.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by OliviaG:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
... their understanding of themselves and their actualisation of lifestyle choice found greater congruence with their religious beliefs.

---

See that? Right there? That's not psychiatry.

---

You're right. It's psychology. Therapy. Psychology.

Jones and Yarhouse are psychologists, not psychiatrists.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by OliviaG:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
... their understanding of themselves and their actualisation of lifestyle choice found greater congruence with their religious beliefs.

---

See that? Right there? That's not psychiatry.

---

You're right. It's psychology. Therapy. Psychology.

Jones and Yarhouse are psychologists, not psychiatrists. ...

---

No, not that either. You're missing the point. If the expressed goal is getting the patient to conform to religious rules, it isn't therapy. Real therapists (yes, including psychiatrists) work with their patients to find individual solutions, not to mold them to fit into a box. OliviaG
 

---

Posted by Peter Ould (# 482) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by OliviaG:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by OliviaG:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
... their understanding of themselves and their actualisation of lifestyle choice found greater congruence with their religious beliefs.

---

See that? Right there? That's not psychiatry.

---

You're right. It's psychology. Therapy. Psychology.

Jones and Yarhouse are psychologists, not psychiatrists. ...

---

No, not that either. You're missing the point. If the expressed goal is getting the patient to conform to religious rules, it isn't therapy. Real therapists (yes, including psychiatrists) work with their patients to find individual solutions, not to mold them to fit into a box. OliviaG

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spiffy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by OliviaG:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
... their understanding of themselves and their actualisation of lifestyle choice found greater congruence with their religious beliefs.

---

See that? Right there? That's not psychiatry.

---

You're right. It's psychology. Therapy. Psychology.

Jones and Yarhouse are psychologists, not psychiatrists.

---

What kind of psychologists? Who did their licensure? Because that sounds less like clinical psychology and more like pop psychology.

(Says the person with a degree in educational psychology.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Real therapists help clients achieve their goals. A goal, for example, like finding telic congruence between their faith and their sexual identity.

---

quote:

---

And again, I am left wondering why we feel the need to cram people into a linear, binary model of sexuality and define precisely where your switch is at every second.

Other than the fact it gives us something to do to distract us and give us excuses to refrain from treating other humans as beloved children of God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
]Real therapists help clients achieve their goals. A goal, for example, like finding telic congruence between their faith and their sexual identity.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
Not having heard the phrase "telic congruence" before, I decided to google it.

It seems to be a phrase invented by ex-gay ministries to give themselves the illusion of scientific basis.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Well, if you think they're quacks and you can prove it (seeing as just a few posts ago, apparently one has to provide evidence before making a claim), let us know.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
*Sigh* What is it with people here? No-one bothers to find out what I actually think about ex-gay therapies, they just assume what I believe and then attack me for stuff I don't actually believe...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Well, if you think they're quacks and you can prove it (seeing as just a few posts ago, apparently one has to provide evidence before making a claim), let us know.

---

Nope. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

It's entirely up to those proposing the therapy to show that it works. Those of us in the peanut gallery are at perfect liberty to snipe and sneer until they do. They're quacks until they prove otherwise, and I'm not holding out much hope on the evidence I've seen so far.

This is how science works, and nobody gets to change the rules because it's awkward for them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
*Sigh* What is it with people here? No-one bothers to find out what I actually think about ex-gay therapies, they just assume what I believe and then attack me for stuff I don't actually believe...

---

Well, you haven't exactly offered the information yourself, which is what I'd have expected you to do. Most folk around here don't need an invitation to share. But if you insist...

So, Peter. What do you think about ex-gay therapies?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
Not having heard the phrase "telic congruence" before, I decided to google it.

It seems to be a phrase invented by ex-gay ministries to give themselves the illusion of scientific basis.

---

Apart from the fact that those of us using it are people who no longer believe in the "ex-gay" myth of straight to gay, spot on.

*Sigh* What is it with people here? No-one bothers to find out what I actually think about ex-gay therapies, they just assume what I believe and then attack me for stuff I don't actually believe...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Extraordinary claims? That people's sexuality is fluid? You consider this an extraordinary claim?

How about these two claims - are they both lying?

http://bit.ly/pyHtzj
http://bit.ly/duUvK8

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
No, the extraordinary claims are of 'cures' for homosexuality.

What has failed to be demonstrated is that an individual's sexuality can be moved up and down the line by therapy.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
I'm not sure how your Times/WND link shows much beyond certain people not having a clear idea as to their own nature (or just not admitting to it).

No-one quotes Gene Robinson as an example of "changing" from straight to gay. Rather he is seen as having finally admitted to his orientation.

As do many men who became "trapped" in hetero marriage.

And ISTM that the lady you reference is in the same position.

I'm sure that there are people who have gone the other way as well, for equivalent reasons that have nothing to do with "reparative" theory, although I'm not questioning the role of therapists, providing that they have no preconceived agenda.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
Not having heard the phrase "telic congruence" before, I decided to google it.

It seems to be a phrase invented by ex-gay ministries to give themselves the illusion of scientific basis.

---

Apart from the fact that those of us using it are people who no longer believe in the "ex-gay" myth of straight to gay, spot on.

*Sigh* What is it with people here? No-one bothers to find out what I actually think about ex-gay therapies, they just assume what I believe and then attack me for stuff I don't actually believe...

---

I thought I was attacking the phrase 'telic congruence'.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
No, the extraordinary claims are of 'cures' for homosexuality.

What has failed to be demonstrated is that an individual's sexuality can be moved up and down the line by therapy.

---

These are two entirely different issues. Please make your mind up which you actually want to discuss and let us know.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
No, the extraordinary claims are of 'cures' for homosexuality.

What has failed to be demonstrated is that an individual's sexuality can be moved up and down the line by therapy.

---

These are two entirely different issues. Please make your mind up which you actually want to discuss and let us know.

---

Ermm. Take a look at the title of the thread? It might give you some clue.

Given that you appear not to agree with the idea of a "cure for homosexuality", and advocate the more nuanced approach of moving people closer to a heterosexual attraction, whether or not that results in heterosexual relationships, I'd have thought that providing evidence for this would have been your priority, rather than getting snarky with the denizens.

If you're struggling for something to discuss, tell me why self-reporting doesn't fatally undermine the Jones and Yarhouse study, given that by Time 3, all the interviews were phoned in?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
i) They still spoke to them all
ii) What's the difference between sending someone a questionnaire and getting them to answer the questions OR sitting someone down and asking them the same questions
iii) If you criticise this study for phoned in results, are you prepared to throw out ANY study that used phoned in results? If not, why not?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
i) They still spoke to them all
ii) What's the difference between sending someone a questionnaire and getting them to answer the questions OR sitting someone down and asking them the same questions
iii) If you criticise this study for phoned in results, are you prepared to throw out ANY study that used phoned in results? If not, why not?

---

i) yes they did
ii) the same difference between writing a statement and being interviewed by the police.

Okay, not exactly the same difference, but similar. You have a self-selected group (and Kinsey has exactly the same problem) of people who felt under considerable pressure, external and internal, to change their sexual attraction and behaviour, being asked questions by researchers who will be reporting their findings to an organisation which the subjects have an emotional investment in supporting and a cause they really believe in.

It's the old joke: How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one, but the light bulb has to really want to change.

iii) Not throw out, but consider it a huge caveat. Is the group self-selected? Is there a control? Is survey both wide enough and deep enough? Is there an incentive to misreport?

The only thing going for the Jones and Yarwood study is that it went on for a number of years. Other than that? A small, self-selected, highly-motivated group of people take part in a study where most self-report little or no effect? Colour me unconvinced.

Most surveys - political, social - have to have samples in the region of a thousand or so, carefully selected across representative demographics, and even then, they can be simply wrong. They're aggregating anecdotes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
On the basis of your criticism you would reject any research on the effectiveness of any therapy.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
No, the extraordinary claims are of 'cures' for homosexuality.

What has failed to be demonstrated is that an individual's sexuality can be moved up and down the line by therapy.

---

These are two entirely different issues. Please make your mind up which you actually want to discuss and let us know.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
On the basis of your criticism you would reject any research on the effectiveness of any therapy.

---

Binary much?

Again, not reject. Treat with extreme caution. Use to guide further research. Devise better protocols. Survey a wider population.

That's why huge longitudinal surveys with no explicit agenda often end up providing the most robust results. Meta-analysis of earlier surveys likewise.

The effectiveness of widespread techniques like CBT and NLP are severely questioned by many. I don't see how my criticism of ex-gay therapy is anything but mainstream.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Jones and Yarhouse had no agenda. When they contacted Exodus to get members for the research they warned that they would publish regardless of the outcome (i.e. if the research showed that the therapy didn't work they would report as such).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
That would be the phrase used by the APA. ...
From their Task Force report on Reparative Therapy.

---

quote:

---

The task force conducted a systematic review of the peer-reviewed journal literature on sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) and concluded that efforts to change sexual orientation are unlikely to be successful and involve some risk of harm, contrary to the claims of SOCE practitioners and advocates.
...
Thus, the appropriate application of affirmative therapeutic interventions for those who seek SOCE involves therapist acceptance, support, and understanding of clients and the facilitation of clients’ active coping, social support, and identity exploration and development, without imposing a specific sexual orientation identity outcome.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

And all this is leaving aside the notion that homosexual attraction is a sin.

---

Really? Gosh, where does the Bible say that? News to me...

---

quote:

---

Romans 1:27
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by OliviaG:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
That would be the phrase used by the APA. ...
From their Task Force report on Reparative Therapy.

---

From the executive summary of said report:

quote:

---

The task force conducted a systematic review of the peer-reviewed journal literature on sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) and concluded that efforts to change sexual orientation are unlikely to be successful and involve some risk of harm, contrary to the claims of SOCE practitioners and advocates.
...
Thus, the appropriate application of affirmative therapeutic interventions for those who seek SOCE involves therapist acceptance, support, and understanding of clients and the facilitation of clients’ active coping, social support, and identity exploration and development, without imposing a specific sexual orientation identity outcome.

---

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alogon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

And all this is leaving aside the notion that homosexual attraction is a sin.

---

Really? Gosh, where does the Bible say that? News to me...

---

quote:

---

Romans 1:27
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

---

There is nothing in the above about homosexual acts, only experiencing homosexual attraction--"burning" in the same way that other unmarried people do, hence marriage (according to the same author). Only for us, there's no safety valve for our "error", only a meet recompence-- evidently a euphemism for divine wrath and damnation.

We have been tasked many times with this and neighboring verses. These scrupulous folks are even apt to tar any straight sympathizer with gay people with the same brush.

But clearly you understand it better than I, since you have an exegesis that overlooks it, or at least its obvious meaning, while remaining bothered by Paul's other statements on the subject. How do you do it?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Jones and Yarhouse had no agenda. When they contacted Exodus to get members for the research they warned that they would publish regardless of the outcome (i.e. if the research showed that the therapy didn't work they would report as such).

---

They were, however, a very safe pair of hands.

Stanton L. Jones is provost and professor of psychology at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.

Mark A. Yarhouse (Psy.D., Wheaton College) is professor of psychology and Hughes Chair of Christian Thought in Mental Health Practice at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Both Wheaton and Regent are private Christian colleges, one closely associated with Billy Graham, the other set up by Pat Robertson.

They are not independent voices.

So now I'm thinking, if you knew that where they work and chose not to say, why is that?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
So on this basis Prof Michael King here in the UK cannot have anything worthy to say on the subject because he is gay and politically active?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
But interestingly, go and find the footnotes which refer to which studies on "harm" and which studies on "efforts to change sexual orientation" were referenced. Did they cite Jones and Yarhouse? How many of the studies on "harm" were self-selecting?

---

quote:

---

The task force examined the peer-reviewed journal articles in English from 1960 to 2007, which included 83 studies. Most of the studies were conducted before 1978, and only a few had been conducted in the last 10 years. The group also reviewed the recent literature on the psychology of sexual orientation.

---

quote:

---

"Practitioners can assist clients through therapies that do not attempt to change sexual orientation, but rather involve acceptance, support and identity exploration and development without imposing a specific identity outcome."
...
"In other words," Glassgold said, "we recommend that psychologists be completely honest about the likelihood of sexual orientation change, and that they help clients explore their assumptions and goals with respect to both religion and sexuality."

---

quote:

---

Don't get me wrong, I'm very clear that the evidence is that reparative therapy doesn't work for most participants (if work is defined as shifting sexual orientation), but the standards of evidence required to prove "harm" seemed to be much less then the standards demanded to prove "change".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Romans 1:27
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
...
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
(Romans 1:26-27 ESV)
...

---

I would just like to point out that in both those versions, reference is made to "leaving" or "exchanging" natural practices. So the men were previously having sex with women, and vice versa. What makes you so sure that the sin isn't straight people indulging in a bit of gay sex, and has nothing to do with gay people? OliviaG

PS Oh, and "natural use of the woman"?
 

---

Posted by sebby (# 15147) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by OliviaG:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Romans 1:27
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
...
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
(Romans 1:26-27 ESV)
...

---

I would just like to point out that in both those versions, reference is made to "leaving" or "exchanging" natural practices. So the men were previously having sex with women, and vice versa. What makes you so sure that the sin isn't straight people indulging in a bit of gay sex, and has nothing to do with gay people? OliviaG

PS Oh, and "natural use of the woman"?

---

quote:

---

The "due penalty" - antimisthian - literally "response" - is linked grammatically to the committing shameless acts (aschemosunen katergazomenoi = lit. "accomplish shame") and not the lust.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by OliviaG:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Romans 1:27
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
...
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
(Romans 1:26-27 ESV)
...

---

I would just like to point out that in both those versions, reference is made to "leaving" or "exchanging" natural practices. So the men were previously having sex with women, and vice versa. What makes you so sure that the sin isn't straight people indulging in a bit of gay sex, and has nothing to do with gay people? OliviaG

PS Oh, and "natural use of the woman"?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cadfael:

quote:

---

The "due penalty" - antimisthian - literally "response" - is linked grammatically to the committing shameless acts (aschemosunen katergazomenoi = lit. "accomplish shame") and not the lust.

---

You are quite the master of blame and judgement of others, but not so sharp on the sin and suffering that comes from the promulgation and fearful receipt of those notions. there is a different way to think about this:

Tony Campolo on the story of a gay son

I love the way this undermines the pernicious "hate the sin" line you are peddling. Accept a new judgement, Christ's absolute surrender treaty. It goes this way:

Examine yourself. Love others.
No terms.

C.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by OliviaG:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:
Romans 1:27
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
...
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
(Romans 1:26-27 ESV)
...

---

I would just like to point out that in both those versions, reference is made to "leaving" or "exchanging" natural practices. So the men were previously having sex with women, and vice versa. What makes you so sure that the sin isn't straight people indulging in a bit of gay sex, and has nothing to do with gay people? OliviaG

PS Oh, and "natural use of the woman"?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by OliviaG:

quote:

---

"Practitioners can assist clients through therapies that do not attempt to change sexual orientation, but rather involve acceptance, support and identity exploration and development without imposing a specific identity outcome."
...
"In other words," Glassgold said, "we recommend that psychologists be completely honest about the likelihood of sexual orientation change, and that they help clients explore their assumptions and goals with respect to both religion and sexuality."

---

ISTM they're saying the problem isn't the person's sexuality, but rather the religious beliefs that are causing the client distress over their sexuality i.e. there's no point changing the light bulb that *is* working.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
(Romans 1:26-27 ESV)

Notice the chain: consumed with passion => committing shameless acts => receiving in themselves the due penalty for the error.

What was the error? To be consumed with passion or to commit shameless acts?

The Greek tells us easily,

"Arsenes en arsesin ten aschemosunen katergazomenoi kai ten antimisthian en edei tes planes auton en heautois apolambanontes"

(Apologies for quick transliteration, but this forum doesn't appear to handle Greek...)

The "due penalty" - antimisthian - literally "response" - is linked grammatically to the committing shameless acts (aschemosunen katergazomenoi = lit. "accomplish shame") and not the lust.

---

quote:

---

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cadfael:

quote:

---

The "due penalty" - antimisthian - literally "response" - is linked grammatically to the committing shameless acts (aschemosunen katergazomenoi = lit. "accomplish shame") and not the lust.

---

You are quite the master of blame and judgement of others, but not so sharp on the sin and suffering that comes from the promulgation and fearful receipt of those notions. there is a different way to think about this:

Tony Campolo on the story of a gay son

I love the way this undermines the pernicious "hate the sin" line you are peddling. Accept a new judgement, Christ's absolute surrender treaty. It goes this way:

Examine yourself. Love others.
No terms.

C.

---

I am absolutely NOT going to debate with a person who imputes to me theological positions I do not hold and who then insults me on the basis of those positions.

Grow up.

---

quote:

---

3. Attack the issue, not the person

Name-calling and personal insults are only allowed in Hell. Attacks outside of Hell are grounds for suspension or banning.

4. If you must get personal, take it to Hell

If you get into a personality conflict with other shipmates, you have two simple choices: end the argument or take it to Hell.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cadfael:

quote:

---

The "due penalty" - antimisthian - literally "response" - is linked grammatically to the committing shameless acts (aschemosunen katergazomenoi = lit. "accomplish shame") and not the lust.

---

You are quite the master of blame and judgement of others, but not so sharp on the sin and suffering that comes from the promulgation and fearful receipt of those notions. there is a different way to think about this:

Tony Campolo on the story of a gay son

I love the way this undermines the pernicious "hate the sin" line you are peddling. Accept a new judgement, Christ's absolute surrender treaty. It goes this way:

Examine yourself. Love others.
No terms.

C.

---

I am absolutely NOT going to debate with a person who imputes to me theological positions I do not hold and who then insults me on the basis of those positions.

Grow up.

---

quote:

---

3. Attack the issue, not the person

Name-calling and personal insults are only allowed in Hell. Attacks outside of Hell are grounds for suspension or banning.

4. If you must get personal, take it to Hell

If you get into a personality conflict with other shipmates, you have two simple choices: end the argument or take it to Hell.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
(Romans 1:26-27 ESV)

Notice the chain: consumed with passion => committing shameless acts => receiving in themselves the due penalty for the error.

What was the error? To be consumed with passion or to commit shameless acts?

The Greek tells us easily,

"Arsenes en arsesin ten aschemosunen katergazomenoi kai ten antimisthian en edei tes planes auton en heautois apolambanontes"

(Apologies for quick transliteration, but this forum doesn't appear to handle Greek...)

The "due penalty" - antimisthian - literally "response" - is linked grammatically to the committing shameless acts (aschemosunen katergazomenoi = lit. "accomplish shame") and not the lust.

---

How do you square that interpretation with the much stricter saying of Jesus in Matt 5:28?

quote:

---

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

---

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
How do you square that interpretation with the much stricter saying of Jesus in Matt 5:28?

quote:

---

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

---

---

So we're all adulterers at heart, regardless of our sexuality. Jesus' point is simply that sin is not so much about what we do but simply who we are.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
How do you square that interpretation with the much stricter saying of Jesus in Matt 5:28?

quote:

---

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

---

---

So we're all adulterers at heart, regardless of our sexuality. Jesus' point is simply that sin is not so much about what we do but simply who we are.

---

Okay, but you're specifically saying that homosexual attraction isn't a sin, homosexual acts are.

It seems to me that Jesus is saying that heterosexual attraction (to someone who isn't their wife) is as bad as an adulterous act. The thought in question probably goes beyond the "what a pleasant-mannered and attractive woman" to the "I'd like to give her a right seeing to", but it clearly indicates that a thought - even if it doesn't precede the act - is sinful.

This is clearly a hard saying, but I think the Matthew verse does have a bearing on the interpretation of Romans 1.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Okay, but you're specifically saying that homosexual attraction isn't a sin, homosexual acts are.

It seems to me that Jesus is saying that heterosexual attraction (to someone who isn't their wife) is as bad as an adulterous act. The thought in question probably goes beyond the "what a pleasant-mannered and attractive woman" to the "I'd like to give her a right seeing to", but it clearly indicates that a thought - even if it doesn't precede the act - is sinful.

This is clearly a hard saying, but I think the Matthew verse does have a bearing on the interpretation of Romans 1.

---

No. he's not saying that. He's saying that lusting after a woman is a sinful thing. However at the same time the Bible clearly says that sex within marriage (and the desire to have sex within marriage) is a good thing.

---

quote:

---

Compare this to one form of sex outside of marriage (sex between two people of the same sex) which the Bible always says is a bad thing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
That's a legitimate area of disagreement. I think the Bible has lots to say about straights engaging in orgiastic rituals where slaves and temple prostitutes are abused. I don't think it has much relevance to people with what we currently understand as a homosexual orientation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
That's a legitimate area of disagreement. I think the Bible has lots to say about straights engaging in orgiastic rituals where slaves and temple prostitutes are abused. I don't think it has much relevance to people with what we currently understand as a homosexual orientation.

---

*Snigger*

I never get tired of this one and I'll play any time of the day.

Come on, enlighten us. Where does the Bible talk about "straights engaging in orgiastic rituals where slaves and temple prostitutes are abused"? We're all dying to know.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
That's a legitimate area of disagreement. I think the Bible has lots to say about straights engaging in orgiastic rituals where slaves and temple prostitutes are abused. I don't think it has much relevance to people with what we currently understand as a homosexual orientation.

---

*Snigger*

I never get tired of this one and I'll play any time of the day.

Come on, enlighten us. Where does the Bible talk about "straights engaging in orgiastic rituals where slaves and temple prostitutes are abused"? We're all dying to know.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peter Ould:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
That's a legitimate area of disagreement. I think the Bible has lots to say about straights engaging in orgiastic rituals where slaves and temple prostitutes are abused. I don't think it has much relevance to people with what we currently understand as a homosexual orientation.

---

*Snigger*

I never get tired of this one and I'll play any time of the day.

Come on, enlighten us. Where does the Bible talk about "straights engaging in orgiastic rituals where slaves and temple prostitutes are abused"? We're all dying to know.

---

Fine. So you have all the answers you need. You see no reason to put a manuscript in its historical context, especially where you have a vested interest in interpreting the text in one particular way.

The rest of us, not so much. I certainly think that not to do look at the cultural, political and religious context of Bible passages risks abusing the text.

Greco-Roman temple worship sometimes involved pederasty and anal sex, something attested to by contemporary accounts and the interpretations of the Romans 1 text by the early church. There didn't appear to be any culturally-defined homosexual culture in the 1st century near east - as I understand it, as long as Roman men married and produced offspring, they could pretty much sleep with who they wanted, male or female. And sodomising those of a lower social rank was one particular way of demonstrating your power.

I think it much more likely that Paul was writing against this widespread and pervasive behaviour than he was about addressing a tiny minority of exclusively-homosexual persons who, due to the mores of the dominant culture, could effectively swim unseen in society.

Now, whether you could argue that Paul's prohibition on same-sex acts extends to those early Christians with a homosexual attraction, essentially leaving them with two choices - marriage or celibacy - is a follow-on debate and not Paul's primary concern.

---

quote:

---

The Galli not only castrated themselves but emphasized their artificial femininity through feminine dress and manners, so their high-pitched voices, long wild hair, and garish costume made them instantly recognizable. Moreover, the implicit degradation of such female appearance reinforced popular assumptions about their licentious behavior. Their castrated status made it impossible for them to reproduce, but this did not appear to inhibit their sexual appetites or keep them from erotic liaisons with both men and women. Numerous anecdotes and references portray the Galli as the purveyors of offbeat sexual activities, clearly exciting to respectable people. ... We receive the impression that the ambiguous sexual status of the Galli was precisely the thing that made them covertly attractive.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by OliviaG:

quote:

---

The Galli not only castrated themselves but emphasized their artificial femininity through feminine dress and manners, so their high-pitched voices, long wild hair, and garish costume made them instantly recognizable. Moreover, the implicit degradation of such female appearance reinforced popular assumptions about their licentious behavior. Their castrated status made it impossible for them to reproduce, but this did not appear to inhibit their sexual appetites or keep them from erotic liaisons with both men and women. Numerous anecdotes and references portray the Galli as the purveyors of offbeat sexual activities, clearly exciting to respectable people. ... We receive the impression that the ambiguous sexual status of the Galli was precisely the thing that made them covertly attractive.

---

In Search of God the Mother -
The Cult of Anatolian Cybele


If Paul were around today, he would probably object to Kathoey and Hijra. OliviaG

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Without going too much off-topic, I am not sure that there is a "cure" for gayness. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't, I don't know.

But even if it can be proved that gay cures don't work, it doesn't necessarily mean that gay behaviour is right and acceptable to God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Without going too much off-topic, I am not sure that there is a "cure" for gayness. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't, I don't know.

But even if it can be proved that gay cures don't work, it doesn't necessarily mean that gay behaviour is right and acceptable to God.

---

Gay behaviour?

Please expand on this. I'm all agog. If it doesn't involve mincing down the high street and singing showtunes, I'll be disappointed.

---

quote:

---

Focus in the Family and Exodus have expended a great deal of resources to develop the phrases and the terminology they use. In doing so, they’ve crafted an entire language, complete with its own lexicon and syntax. For example, the terms they used for describing gay people were very different from yours or mine, and Mike Haley’s problem with “love the sin, hate the sinner” provides a glimpse into that difference. Their language is specially designed to treat people and their sexuality as if they were two completely separate entities, as if sexuality were a separate thing outside of the person. As Melissa Fryrear put it in a breakout session, they constantly work to “separate the ‘who’ from the ‘do’,” or, as others have put it more crudely in Mike Haley’s example, “the sinner” from “the sin”.

<snip>

Since the language of Love Won Out represents a distinct dialect of Evangelical Christianity, the first order of business for the day was to teach us the elements of that dialect. First up was Dr. Nicolosi. He began his talk by proclaiming that “there is no such thing as a homosexual.” Knowing this was a head-scratcher to most people there, he repeated it again: “There is no such thing as a homosexual… He is a heterosexual, but he may have a homosexual problem.”

So here’s the first lesson: the words “gay,” “lesbian,” and “homosexual” aren’t nouns; they’re adjectives. And even as an adjectives they are never used to describe a person. There are no gay teenagers, there are no homosexual men, there are no lesbian women. Instead these adjectives are always used as modifiers to something else: a problem, a struggle, an identity, or an issue that is separate from the person. This is important because it’s very different from how these terms are normally used in the broader culture. It is also very different from how these terms are used even by other anti-gay activists.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
The problem then becomes when the "OTHER PEOPLE" persuade gay and lesbian people to internalize the anti-gay agenda and waste time -sometimes years- hating and rejecting an integral part of themselves.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:
The title of the thread is "Anyone know any 'cured' gay folk?"

It isn't "Is it possible to 'cure' gay people."

We had better comply, otherwise we will lose the thread.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
The problem then becomes when the "OTHER PEOPLE" persuade gay and lesbian people to internalize the anti-gay agenda and waste time -sometimes years- hating and rejecting an integral part of themselves.

---

...But, love them or loathe them, I don't think anyone would attempt to 'cure' a gay person unless that person wanted to be cured.

---

quote:

---

...But, love them or loathe them, I don't think anyone would attempt to 'cure' a gay person unless that person wanted to be cured.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Mark Betts:

quote:

---

...But, love them or loathe them, I don't think anyone would attempt to 'cure' a gay person unless that person wanted to be cured.

---

"Anyone"? You think not? You haven't heard of teenagers being sent to gay-cure boot camps?

ETA: Cross posted with Croesos.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Mark Betts:

quote:

---

...But, love them or loathe them, I don't think anyone would attempt to 'cure' a gay person unless that person wanted to be cured.

---

"Anyone"? You think not? You haven't heard of teenagers being sent to gay-cure boot camps?

ETA: Cross posted with Croesos.

---

Maybe it's because I'm from across the pond!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Mark Betts:

quote:

---

...But, love them or loathe them, I don't think anyone would attempt to 'cure' a gay person unless that person wanted to be cured.

---

"Anyone"? You think not? You haven't heard of teenagers being sent to gay-cure boot camps?

ETA: Cross posted with Croesos.

---

Maybe it's because I'm from across the pond!

---

Right, the country that drove Alan Turing to suicide for being gay. What's amazing is the way the criminalization of homosexuality has just fallen down the memory hole (a reference originating on your side of the Pond) along with electroshock and other attrocities despite being enforced within living memory.

Criminal penalties for homosexual acts are of a piece with gay conversion therapy. They're both premised on the idea that homosexuality is essentially a choice, so if you just change around the incentives enough a gay person will simply "choose" to straighten out. The only thing that's changed is the latitude society is willing to extend to these quacks and zealots, not their eagerness.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
Right, the country that drove Alan Turing to suicide for being gay. What's amazing is the way the criminalization of homosexuality has just fallen down the memory hole (a reference originating on your side of the Pond) along with electroshock and other attrocities despite being enforced within living memory.

Criminal penalties for homosexual acts are of a piece with gay conversion therapy. They're both premised on the idea that homosexuality is essentially a choice, so if you just change around the incentives enough a gay person will simply "choose" to straighten out. The only thing that's changed is the latitude society is willing to extend to these quacks and zealots, not their eagerness.

---

For heaven's sake mate, you make it sound like it's all my fault!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Maybe it's because I'm from across the pond!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Maybe it's because I'm from across the pond!

---

All together now:

British police are the best in the world...

---

Yes, I know - Tom Robinson - now married to a women who subsequently bore him children!
 

---

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Maybe it's because I'm from across the pond!

---

All together now:

British police are the best in the world...

---

Yes, I know - Tom Robinson - now married to a women who subsequently bore him children!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Armin:
That certainly does beg the question. I wonder how many people here think there is anything wrong with gay people in the first place.

---

I wasn't implying anything - it is just that the term 'gay cure' is used freely, and no-one can be cured (of anything) if there is nothing wrong with them.

Just words...
 

---

Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :
 
That's good to know. "Gay cure" isn't a term I use, for exactly the same reasons as yours.
 

---

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
I think the "gay cure" has been discovered!

Mark Betts just turned every gay commenter on the "redefine marriage" thread straight by fiat.
 

---

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
I think the "gay cure" has been discovered!

Mark Betts just turned every gay commenter on the "redefine marriage" thread straight by fiat.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:
I was going to suggest that maybe, for some men at least, the problem is merely that they haven't met the right sort of woman. Once they do meet that certain young lady, they are 'cured'... but then that begs the question whether there was anything wrong with them in the first place!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:
I was going to suggest that maybe, for some men at least, the problem is merely that they haven't met the right sort of woman. Once they do meet that certain young lady, they are 'cured'... but then that begs the question whether there was anything wrong with them in the first place!

---

Oh dear me, no. This is not to say that there are not examples of men somewhere on the sexuality spectrum that do indeed fall in love with a woman after having been attracted to men, but so many of us have had to live through the "you just haven't met the right girl yet" kind of comments...

If it happens, it happens. But the idea that it should happen and that it's a 'solution' to a 'problem' is really quite dispiriting.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:
I was going to suggest that maybe, for some men at least, the problem is merely that they haven't met the right sort of woman. Once they do meet that certain young lady, they are 'cured'... but then that begs the question whether there was anything wrong with them in the first place!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Palimpsest:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:
I was going to suggest that maybe, for some men at least, the problem is merely that they haven't met the right sort of woman. Once they do meet that certain young lady, they are 'cured'... but then that begs the question whether there was anything wrong with them in the first place!

---

I'm sure it happens. I know a number of straight married men who were cured of their heterosexuality when they met the right man.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Palimpsest:
I know a number of straight married men who were cured of their heterosexuality when they met the right man.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Palimpsest:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mark Betts:
I was going to suggest that maybe, for some men at least, the problem is merely that they haven't met the right sort of woman. Once they do meet that certain young lady, they are 'cured'... but then that begs the question whether there was anything wrong with them in the first place!

---

I'm sure it happens. I know a number of straight married men who were cured of their heterosexuality when they met the right man.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.

---

Of course not - I wouldn't dare say otherwise, in case the Thought Police are watching!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Mark, you give your location as "Leicester". Which country is that in?
We have a Leicester in England, but no Thought Police, so you must live somewhere else.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
When I was a student at a fundagelical university near Los Angeles, I got involved with an ex-gay group called Desert Stream.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:
I know several formerly self-identified straights who subsequently identified as gay, and a few people (both genders, but mostly women) who have callled themselves bisexual and subsequently settled down with one exclusive opposite sex partner.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
If anything, this thread has shown that the word "cured" can be twisted to mean anything.

When I was a student at a fundagelical university near Los Angeles, I got involved with an ex-gay group called Desert Stream.

---

quote:

---

journey out of homosexuality and into his true identity in Jesus Christ

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spiffy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:
I know several formerly self-identified straights who subsequently identified as gay, and a few people (both genders, but mostly women) who have callled themselves bisexual and subsequently settled down with one exclusive opposite sex partner.

---

Dude. Bisexual doesn't mean polyamorous. It means attracted to both genders*. You can be bisexual and monogamous. Or even celibate! Neither monogamy or celibacy negates the attraction to both genders.

---

quote:

---

Some of these continue to categorise their sexuality as bi

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:
What a horrible group. They speak of...

quote:

---

journey out of homosexuality and into his true identity in Jesus Christ

---

Presumably anyone who is LGBT do not have a true identity or have Christ.

---

quote:

---

“On The Journey Out Of Homosexuality”
When someone who is “struggling with homosexuality” decides he or she doesn’t want to be “gay-identified”, then that person is said to have embarked on a “journey out of homosexuality.” This is where the poorly-defined concept of “change” comes in. This “change” was much talked about, but never really defined except in its most important aspect: a new identity in Christ.

Exodus sometimes provides something of a non-religious public face, although that face is never entirely a secular one. Focus on the Family, however, is unabashedly evangelical in the public stage. At Love Won Out, both groups were free to be who they really are with the like-minded audience. Everyone who spoke did so from a plainly religious perspective. Even Joseph Nicolosi, the “secular scientist” closed his plenary session on male homosexuality saying, “When we live our God-given integrity and our human dignity, there is no space for sex with a guy,” and arguing that “good psychology is compatible with good theology.” Melissa Fryrear’s personal story (known as a “testimony” in evangelical circles, and was labeled as such on Love Won Out’s published agenda) was not so much a clinical struggle to change her sexual feelings as it was an unabashedly emotional religious transformation.

And this appears to really be the only transformation that matters. As the day wore on, it became clear that Love Won Out wasn’t there just to convince us that gays and lesbians needed to become heterosexuals. The goal was actually much, much higher. Mike Haley alluded to it earlier when he described gays and lesbians as “the unwanted harvest.” In his personal testimony that morning, he attributed his “journey out of homosexuality” and, ultimately, his marriage and career to an irrevocable calling from God. Alan Chambers reinforced the religious theme by repeating that “the opposite of homosexuality isn’t heterosexuality. It’s holiness.”

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:
A woman who has previously fancied/slept with women and men, and is now settled with one (male) person, could call herself bisexual (because she is still attracted to both) or straight (because she considers her attraction to her partner to be the important thing) and who am I to argue? I wouldn't see either as a case of homosexuality being 'cured'. It's just life happening, and causing her to redefine (or not) how she sees herself.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:
A woman who has previously fancied/slept with women and men, and is now settled with one (male) person, could call herself bisexual (because she is still attracted to both) or straight (because she considers her attraction to her partner to be the important thing) and who am I to argue? I wouldn't see either as a case of homosexuality being 'cured'. It's just life happening, and causing her to redefine (or not) how she sees herself.

---

That's kind of like saying that someone who had "previously fancied/slept with" both blondes and brunettes might legitimately consider themselves "cured" of their blonde-fancying after settling down with a brown-haired partner. Just casting it in those terms is freighted with all kinds of assumptions.

---

Do you mean what I AM saying is kind of like that, or that what I am deliberately and clearly NOT saying would be kind of like that? If the first, no, if the second, yes.

Is it really controversial to say that there are people who once thought of themselves as bisexual now think of themselves as straight (or gay)? There are. It's a fact.
 

---

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
Poe's Law strikes again! If it weren't posted at The Onion, this article would sound plausible.

quote:

---

Evangelical Hospital Holds 5th Annual Gayness Cure Walk

MARIETTA, GA—As part of an ongoing effort to eradicate homosexuality, Cobb County Evangelical Hospital held its fifth annual Walk to Cure Gayness Sunday, drawing thousands of participants to raise funds and awareness for the debilitating psychosexual disease.

Hospital administrators said the remarkably high turnout, which included many survivors and their new opposite-sex spouses, would allow the gayness treatment center to focus on developing new, more effective techniques to cure sufferers of their deviant lifestyle choice.

"Today's walk marks another important step in our continuing battle to make gayness a thing of the past," said hospital president Kenneth P. Strickland, who like many in attendance was wearing a gray ex-gay-awareness ribbon. "Thanks to the groundbreaking research these events make possible, perhaps in 10 or 15 years people who realize they're attracted to members of their own gender can have a shot at leading long, heterosexual lives in the eyes of God."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Palimpsest:
I know at least one gay person who left his lover, joined a search and is involved with a woman from the church.

I also know several gay people who went or were sent to ex-gay groups where they were seduced by the ex-gay leaders of the group.

Finally there's no shortage of married men who are out looking for promiscuous gay sex.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The problem with these courses is that they're seen as symptomatic of a homophobic culture. I understand that. But in a truly pluralistic society, people are free to change whatever they want about themselves, whether it's their sexuality, their religion, their gender or anything else. Or at least, to make the attempt! Yes, there may be family and societal pressure to fit in, but families are now quite fragile anyway, bonds are loose.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by FooloftheShip:
Svitlana I just hope to goodness you are wearing your asbestos underwear. Getting a celibacy debate going and suggesting that such courses are not of themselves damaging to all participants is going to get you some serious heat.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Are children now coming out earlier? Why would they do so, knowing that a course like this awaits them? Straight children don't necessarily tell their parents if they're thinking about having sex! Maybe in an ideal world they should, but children should have some idea about how their parents might react to news like this! But if children are coming out earlier, that indicates that the society is already changing, despite the dramatic response of the parents.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Are children now coming out earlier? Why would they do so, knowing that a course like this awaits them? Straight children don't necessarily tell their parents if they're thinking about having sex! Maybe in an ideal world they should, but children should have some idea about how their parents might react to news like this! But if children are coming out earlier, that indicates that the society is already changing, despite the dramatic response of the parents.

---

Given that the old assumption was that a lifetime of closeting was appropriate, I'd say yes, children (and adults) are coming out "earlier" than posthumous revelations.

There also seems to be a fairly big double standard in your post. Or are you willing to make the claim that no straight teenager would ever let their parents know they had an opposite sex boyfriend/girlfriend? It's that kind of 'subtle' behavior that parents sometimes pick up on to draw conclusions about their kids' sexual orientation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Well, obviously, many teenagers in a western cultural environment would be happy for their parents to know about their opposite sex boyfriend/girlfriend.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

If parents are now more savvy about picking up on subtle 'gay' behaviour that's as a result of a previous generation talking openly about what it's like to be gay; and children are less concerned about hiding their orientation for the same reason.

---

quote:

---

We come out as straights to our parents, families and the world at large with little angst or difficulty; young gays/lesbians usually don't have such a luxury.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
But in a truly pluralistic society, people are free to change whatever they want about themselves, whether it's their sexuality, their religion, their gender or anything else.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
But in a truly pluralistic society, people are free to change whatever they want about themselves, whether it's their sexuality, their religion, their gender or anything else.

---

Their height, their skin colour, their date of birth, their blood type...

...one can only take this notion of changing "whatever they want" so far, Svitlana.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Svtlana - as school homophobic bullying around here is triggered by girls not being sexually active at 13 - you know: being locked out of the changing rooms, having your PE kit trashed, being shunned socially, name calling, abuse and a whole lot more, and just from the assumption that if you're not interested in boys at 10, 11, 12 you are gay, and this is the UK - you are making huge assumptions here. It's pretty much the same for boys.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Well, obviously, many teenagers in a western cultural environment would be happy for their parents to know about their opposite sex boyfriend/girlfriend.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
In any case, this just seems to me a sign of hypersexualisation in children (obviously of the heterosexual kind). Without the constant sexual emphasis in our culture, young children wouldn't have to be judging each other on this basis.

I'm middle aged, but on this matter it seems as though I should feel grateful for having missed out on 'progress'; . . .

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Croessos

OK, you and I come from different cultural/ethnic backgrounds, and have different experiences on these matters!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I'm rather more ok with the idea that people are different in terms of the nature and extent of their sexual expression, as in other things.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Palimpsest:
I know at least one gay person who left his lover, joined a search and is involved with a woman from the church.

I also know several gay people who went or were sent to ex-gay groups where they were seduced by the ex-gay leaders of the group.

Finally there's no shortage of married men who are out looking for promiscuous gay sex.

---

Hmmm... So in fact, some of these programmes could actually provide cover for gay people to meet up and have relationships in the midst of an evangelical church environment? That's interesting.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:

I have severe skepticism about some idyllic non-sexual age in the recent past where no one had "those urges" until at least the age of twenty-five, if not thirty or even older.

For instance, looking back fifty years the median age at first marriage was 20.3 years for American women in 1962. That's the median, meaning half of American women entered their first marriage at an age younger than that (i.e. as teenagers). I'm not sure why a society where at least half of the female population became openly sexually active as teenagers wouldn't count as "hypersexual" under your rubric.

---

quote:

---

The question isn't whether people are different in their sexual expression, but whether they can change their sexual impulses simply by an expression of will.
[... See]
Ted Haggard

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by George Spigot:
Oh dear. This is rather sad. Fewer Than Ten People Show Up For Ex-Gay Pride Event That Expected to Draw 'Thousands'

---

For values of "sad" bordering on "hilarious"?
 

---

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 
I wonder if any of the ten ex-gay participants in this really are going to be spotted out at the gay bars doing "research" and "outreach"?
 

---

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
Bumping this thread rather than starting a new one.

A New Jersey Judge has ruled that an organization that ran a "coversion therapy" scam can be held liable for damages.

quote:

---

A judge has ruled that a New Jersey conversion therapy organization is potentially liable for the costs to repair the damage it inflicted on four young people by using dangerous and discredited efforts it claimed can convert people from gay to straight.

New Jersey Superior Court Judge Peter F. Bariso Jr. ruled today that Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) and its co-defendants may be liable for three times the amounts the four men paid for subsequent, legitimate therapy to repair the psychological damage caused by JONAH’s conversion therapy program. JONAH’s program included nude sessions with counselors and “father-son holding.”

<snip>

The court rejected JONAH’s motion seeking to limit its liability. In its ruling, the court held that costs for legitimate therapy to repair damage caused by conversion therapy constitute an “ascertainable loss,” a prerequisite to seeking damages under New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act. The court also ruled that such costs can be recovered as “damages sustained” under the CFA, potentially allowing the SPLC’s clients to recoup three times the costs they incurred.

The type of services offered by JONAH – known as conversion therapy – have been discredited or highly criticized by all major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional counseling organizations.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nicolemr:
Might be a place to mention that the Texas Republican party platform endorses "reparative therapy" for gays.

---

Evidently the individual who pushed for this says he's a recovering gay man who has replaced sex for food. 'Ex-Gay' Activist: Food Replaced Sex



 

---

Posted by AmyBo (# 15040) on :
 
too sick to read that many pages, but I do know plenty of cured straight folk.
 

---

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by ToujoursDan:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nicolemr:
Might be a place to mention that the Texas Republican party platform endorses "reparative therapy" for gays.

---

Evidently the individual who pushed for this says he's a recovering gay man who has replaced sex for food. 'Ex-Gay' Activist: Food Replaced Sex

---

quote:

---

Because gluttony wouldn't be nearly as bad a sin, right?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:
the sin of theobromine addiction.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:
Well, you're unlikely to catch an STD from a box of chocolates...

---

quote:

---

Chocolate is not an addiction, but a vital resource for mind and body.

---

...well, that was sort of my point. You can live without it, but then life becomes grey and dull.

We'd probably get more sermons about overindulgence in chocolate if ministers confined themselves to preaching about sins they themselves were tempted to commit.

[ 19. June 2014, 08:27: Message edited by: Jane R ]
 

---

Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :
 
I guess it depends on what food the ex-Gay eats. Kielbasa, 12 inch hot dogs, foot long salami...


 

---

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :
 
Whatever happened to spotted dick?
 

---

Posted by Dennis the Menace (# 11833) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
Whatever happened to spotted dick?

---

quote:

---

"Many people I knew suspected all along that change— true change where all same-sex attractions disappear or become rare and incidental, and heterosexual attractions take their place — never happened," she explained. "I can say I’ve never met an 'ex-gay' man I thought was not still attracted to men, and would not go back to gay relationships under the right circumstances. One of my colleagues tried to fix me up with an 'ex-gay' man when I was still single. I said, 'No way. I have no interest in dating an ex-gay man. I don’t trust that they’re actually ex-gay.' "

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
I think we can safely take it that his 'cure' didn't work.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I don't know if anyone's mentioned lesbians on this thread. There are fewer (adult) lesbians than gay men in the church to start with so I suppose evangelical churches don't have as many of them to 'work on', but I wonder how it works out when they deliberately marry men as part of some sort of 'cure'.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

I don't know if anyone's mentioned lesbians on this thread.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

There are fewer (adult) lesbians than gay men in the church to start with so I suppose evangelical churches don't have as many of them to 'work on', but I wonder how it works out when they deliberately marry men as part of some sort of 'cure'.

---

Well, I think it a different case. Women in conservative churches have long been "encouraged" to be submissive. In this culture, little attention has been given to how, or even what a woman thinks.
Culturally, this has been true as well.
But, in this day and age, I would think that anyone whose sexuality is unidirectional would fare poorly in a "cure" type of situation.
 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
I'm thinking of the episode of the US version of Queer as Folk in which Emmett and a lesbian he's met at an "ex-gay" group make themselves have sex with each other, and they're lying there saying, "Well... I guess I didn't absolutely hate it..." After which they both leave the group.
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
from lilbuddha

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In this culture, little attention has been given to how, or even what a woman thinks.

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Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:


I knew a guy (ordained) of charismatic evangelical conviction. His wife (of some years) "came out" and moved in with another woman. The children were highly confused and angry. The husband was utterly dumbfounded. The church members were appalled.

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
There are fewer (adult) lesbians than gay men in the church to start with

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Originally posted by leo:

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
There are fewer (adult) lesbians than gay men in the church to start with

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Is there any evidence for that?

I remember a lot of unmarried women who lived together and went to church.

More so than gay men - not least because there are more women than men in churches in the first place.

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Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
I have friends (2 lesbian, 1 male gay) who have married persons of the opposite sex. Apparently, the persons they found were of an unsuitable sex, but they are willing to overlook the anomaly. One of the lesbians makes it quite clear that she is still a lesbian, just married to a man. However, I do not think that any of them would say that they are cured or changed.

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

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Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:

R
I knew a guy (ordained) of charismatic evangelical conviction. His wife (of some years) "came out" and moved in with another woman. The children were highly confused and angry. The husband was utterly dumbfounded. The church members were appalled.

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To be fair, I suppose this messiness might occur in any situation where the wife turns out to be gay, regardless of her motives on entering the marriage.

In the story you mentioned, were the two lesbians still mixing in church circles? It's rather odd that the church could have been 'scrutinising' them if they'd simply left, as most people would do in those circumstances. If they were so devoted to this particular church why did they make their relationship public, knowing what the reaction was likely to be?

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Rosie Garland identified as a lesbian for twenty years but is now in a relationship with a man, Jayne Headon-Meldrum was married to man for over 20 years and they had children together, but she now in a relationship with a woman. They join Jenni to discuss the reactions they have experienced to their changed sexual identities.

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Well if gay liberation means freedom for all,
a label is no liberation at all.
I'm here and I'm queer and do what I do,
I'm not going to wear a straitjacket for you.

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Originally posted by Gracious rebel:

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

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Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:

R
I knew a guy (ordained) of charismatic evangelical conviction. His wife (of some years) "came out" and moved in with another woman. The children were highly confused and angry. The husband was utterly dumbfounded. The church members were appalled.

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To be fair, I suppose this messiness might occur in any situation where the wife turns out to be gay, regardless of her motives on entering the marriage.

In the story you mentioned, were the two lesbians still mixing in church circles? It's rather odd that the church could have been 'scrutinising' them if they'd simply left, as most people would do in those circumstances. If they were so devoted to this particular church why did they make their relationship public, knowing what the reaction was likely to be?

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Why is it odd for them still to be in church circles? I find that a rather dismissive sweeping statement. Just because I have realised I am a lesbian and have set up home with another woman, creating this "messy" situation you speak of, why should I also have to give up going to church - my faith is still an integral part of who I am. And why should i have to keep my relationship and my living conditions secret from my fellow churchgoers - have you any idea what a strain that is? And yes I am not speaking hypothetically, this is how my life is now.

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Originally posted by Penny S:
We used to be quite cruel about the single teachers who were odd

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Originally posted by leo:
]Female teachers in England were not allowed to marry. They resigned upon marriage until 1994.

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

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Originally posted by leo:
]Female teachers in England were not allowed to marry. They resigned upon marriage until 1994.

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1944, surely!

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
In the story you mentioned, were the two lesbians still mixing in church circles? It's rather odd that the church could have been 'scrutinising' them if they'd simply left, as most people would do in those circumstances. If they were so devoted to this particular church why did they make their relationship public, knowing what the reaction was likely to be?

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One hears of 'becoming gay' after many years of marriage but not the other way round, so to speak.

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I wonder was he ever gay or is it a phase he is going through?

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I wonder was he ever gay or is it a phase he is going through?

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I hope that question is meant in jest.
A 22 year relationship is not "a phase". And no one would have spent 22 years in a same-sex relationship at a time when society was so anti-gay relationships unless they had strong same-sex attraction.

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New Jersey Superior Court Judge Peter F. Bariso Jr. granted a permanent injunction today [December 18, 2015] after an agreement by both parties requiring JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing) to shut down entirely and prohibiting founder Arthur Goldberg and counselor Alan Downing from engaging in any form of conversion therapy commerce in New Jersey.

The jury in the case found unanimously on June 25 that by offering services it claimed could turn gay people straight, JONAH committed consumer fraud and engaged in unconscionable commercial practices.

The therapy, based on the idea that LGBT people are sick and need to be cured, has been denounced by every major U.S. medical and mental health association. Not only can it be psychologically damaging, the American Psychological Association has noted that it promotes a climate of bigotry and discrimination against the LGBT community.

“JONAH’s conversion therapy program harmed countless LGBT people and their families,” said David Dinielli, SPLC deputy legal director. “JONAH peddled discredited, pseudo-scientific treatments to people who weren’t sick, who weren’t broken, and who needed nothing but love and support.”

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
ISTM, there are a sizable percentage of people who do not question their own sexuality. They accept their initial attractions or societies expectations.
I am exploring this concept, it is new to me, so forgive me if I do not express it well.
I question myself constantly, about everything. The result being I am fairly certain my sexuality will not deviate or broaden. However, if one does not, I could easily see missing a component.
People are fascinatingly variable.

Well, as a species. Individually...

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