California governor OKs ban on gay conversion therapy, calling it 'quackery'

[CopticChristian]

If you think that all the organisations quoted are not impartial, then I’d be pleased to hear about it. Maybe we can also look at the impartiality of organisations that disagree with them. We can then judge to which experts we should listen.

There’s me thinking that if I wanted expert opinion on gay therapy, I’d ask the American Psychological Association. Or maybe the American Psychiatric Association. Perhaps the American School Counselor Association or the American Academy of Pediatrics.

If not then maybe the American Medical Association Council on Scientific Affairs or the The National Association of Social Workers. If they weren’t available I might try the The American Counseling Association Governing Council and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry or maybe the Pan American Health Organization.

I’d probably ask them if they were now, or had ever been, pressured by any person, group or groups associated with homosexuality. Just to make sure that they were impartial, you understand. And to keep Rob happy.

So who should I use to give me the other side or the story? I have all these recognised professional experts saying it’s harmful and the only people that I can find who disagree are specifically Christian organisations such as NARTH. And as Christians generally think homosexuality is an abomination, their views might not be entirely unbiased.

Again, what has led you to believe that the ten or so professional bodies noted above (plus many others overseas) are wrong? Where is the evidence that has persuaded you?

Brad,

I wish I had some new ideas…everytime I come up with an idea for solution for a problem someone else has done it…I said in an earlier post the answer to the issue of “therapy” for sexual reorientation is to call it coaching…well lookkee here… from the Johah website provided earlier…

Incorporated as a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation in 2000, JONAH not only helps parents and families find support in dealing with their loved ones’ homosexuality, but also provides support and resources to individual men and women struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction. JONAH’s mission is not political and therefore we will not take political stands.

Since 2000, JONAH has provided resources, referrals, mentoring and coaching services, group support, Shabbatons, seminars and outreach to thousands of impacted individuals both from our Jersey City offices (which services close-by New York City) and throughout the world. Its outreach extends to 5 continents and more than a dozen countries. The agency’s services are open to male and female adults 18 years of age and older. For those under 18 who seek assistance, parental permission is required.

JONAH believes that homosexuality is a learned behavior and that anyone can choose to disengage from their same-sex sexual fantasies, arousals, behavior and identity - if motivated and supported in that process. We also believe that with appropriate assistance, same-sex attractions can be reduced or eliminated followed by the subsequent development of one’s innate opposite-sex attractions.

You can’t stop people from mentoring, coaching and producing seminars…good luck with the attempt to legislate the gay.

 

[ivebeenshown]

When you generalize and say “people too insecure” you are generalizing and judging and this I would suggest should be explained. What people? How do you know these people? Where did you get this information about these people?

Next how did you come to believe that insecurity was the issue?

There are plenty of folks with same-sex attraction who fell into those ways growing up and experienced some form of rejection or discrimination growing up, and so lived in insecurity until they ultimately rejected with confidence the notion that their sexual attraction is disordered and proceeded to push their own notion upon others.

It was the story of my life for a while and you wouldn’t have to look very deep into the internet to find countless similar stories.

 

[CopticChristian]

There are plenty of folks with same-sex attraction who fell into those ways growing up and experienced some form of rejection or discrimination growing up, and so lived in insecurity until they ultimately rejected with confidence the notion that their sexual attraction is disordered and proceeded to push their own notion upon others.

It was the story of my life for a while and you wouldn’t have to look very deep into the internet to find countless similar stories.

IBS,

Thank you. I understand. I imagine that there are many that look at their life and can say that things were one way or the other for “a while” and things do change. Amen…

 

[TimeEntrance]

What irks me about these articles is they give paragraphs and paragraphs to one kid who had a horrifying experience, and yet they don’t even make an attempt to present the perspective of someone who has been helped. Presumably some people have been helped or people like Nicolosi would be out of business.

I looked on Wikipedia* and it says the Governor of California is Catholic. It also says - as I suspected - that he earned a J.D. in graduate school.

I like how people of every profession can speak about “science” as if they are some sort of authorities on what science is and what it can produce and where its applications are useful and authoritative.

You don’t see me going to a school of culinary arts and thinking that makes me competent in tort law.

I can’t speak intelligently on this controversial form of therapy that the Governor of California takes issue with. What I will say is that if it has helped some people then there isn’t sufficient reason to totally dismiss it.

And if homosexuals were treated like drug addicts in rehabilitation centers there would probably be a riot. Drug rehabilitation centers partly operate on the premises that if you inflict suffering on an addict (diminishing their freedom like - which jails and prisons do) it will function as a motivator for change. Guilt and remorse are possible process a person might go through during periods of character change and growth too. I think this is true in the Catholic spiritual path of introspection and the sacrament of confession too.

The contemporary world of the West - for all it’s strides and improvements - has some superstitions in my opinion. For some reason these superstitions seem to be more pronounced around issues of sex. The pro-choice person’s idea - follow to its logical end - that a human being is “magically created” is one example. The failure to understand the word discrimination (which is not the same as racism, sexism, or even prejudice - and even these three are not one and the same) and to see homosexuality for what it is - discrimination against a physical phenotype - and to assume it genetic programing even though evidence and logic suggests otherwise is one more example.

*I’m a big fan of Wikipedia and I don’t care about the academic snobbery towards it. Though, I understand Wikipedia is not fool proof from error, and for good or ill you could say it’s informative writing operated either very “democratically” (to use that term loosely) or anarchically.

 

[TimeEntrance]

It is illegal to sell a teen a movie ticket to an NC-17 movie even if he wants to go and his parents are on board. Why? Because over and over again that material has been shown to be harmful, and even if the kid and parents are on board it is worth overriding their decision because they are wrong. Same thing here. This protects kids from being coerced by parents, or anyone in to a dangerous and damaging situation.

And no, despite the sensationalism this does not ban all religious help. Just the programs that are dedicated to changing a person’s sexual orientation. Support and prayer groups are still ok, and even a catholic group that focused on chastity would be fine.

I would argue parents have a right to educate their children before the state has that right.

By education I don’t just mean formal institutions of learning.

If the state said parents could no longer instruct their children in the arts of combat - at least hand-to-hand combat - I would not obey the state.

If I wish to help provide a certain formation to my child - perhaps one might term it Western, Catholic, Midwestern, American, maybe even savage - then as long as I’m not endangering my child I don’t see that the state should have any interference.

The United States is a bit of an oxymoron with it’s self given title “The Land of the Free.” For being so “free” this nation and its individual states are constantly passing new laws about what you can’t do. :ehh:

 

[TimeEntrance]

It has been documented repeatedly that those gay conversion therapies are harmful. Until you can provide scientific, peer reviewed evidence to the contrary than the only responsible thing for society to do is protect kids from them.

I’ve no beef with peer review in and of itself. But bear in mind it is not some infallible process imbued with mystical qualities.

Catholic Bishops united council and maybe even the Federal Reserve working in conjunction with American banks… can probably be said to have their own sort of peer review.

The history of science (not my opinion - but a matter of historical events and past scientific conventions once believed true) has a bunch of quack ideas. It brought the world to war over Eugenics in the 1940’s and many decades prior to that it’s infallible scientists were making tobacco pouches and taking skeletal souvenirs from the corps of the last Tasmanian man (As British scientists carried out research in Tasmania to prove their hypothesis of the evolutionary superiority of the white man).

The fact is science has been wrong before were the Catholic Church has been concluded to be right. The case example of the history of forced sterilization of small girls and women in the U.S. and throughout Europe.

I think it is a logical fallacy to invoke scientific peer review as something symmetrical to Papal Infallibility - in so far as the two might be believed to be infallible in their conclusions or acceptance of X, Y, Z.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review#Criticism_of_peer_review

Criticism of peer review

Drummond Rennie, deputy editor of Journal of the American Medical Association is an organizer of the International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication, which has been held every four years since 1986. He remarks,

There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print.[29]

Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet, has said that

The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability—not the validity—of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.[30]

**
Allegations of bias and suppression**

The interposition of editors and reviewers between authors and readers always raises the possibility that the intermediators may serve as gatekeepers.[31] Some sociologists of science argue that peer review makes the ability to publish susceptible to control by elites and to personal jealousy.[32][33] The peer review process may suppress dissent against “mainstream” theories.[34][35][36] Reviewers tend to be especially critical of conclusions that contradict their own views,[37] and lenient towards those that accord with them.

 

[fix]

I’ve no beef with peer review in and of itself. But bear in mind it is not some infallible process imbued with mystical qualities.

Thank you for pointing this out. Our culture seems to imagine that simply because some group invokes “science” or this or that study that it must be accurate and irreformable. Sceince is not a god, nor is it without politics and error.

 

[TimeEntrance]

Ringil,

If you believe that there is a 20% success rate with AA then you did not read anything provided and your opinion differs with experts in the field. As I said your opinions are suspect at best.

Personally, I doubt AA has 20% success rate. And I think any statistical study trying to quantify the success rate of any rehabilitative process or institution dealing with addiction will be fraught with error.

While this is just an opinion and I have objective, scientific evidence to back it up… what I think (or suspect) is that no recovery system or treatment exceeds 5%. If looking at the life time of the addict and including “slips” as failures or relapses.

My personal opinion is that homosexuality and lesbianism are more akin to substance and gambling addiction (ironically sex addiction doesn’t seem to include homosexuality or bisexuality) than many people realize. Gambling addiction in particular is something very odd to me - I don’t have it - and don’t understand it.

There is an Amazonian Amerindian tribe that still lives primitive and pagan in the jungles of South America. The men spend most of their days high as a kite, with snot running down their noses. This is normalized and part of their custom. It is functional because their society is mobilized to embrace and enable this behavior.

The United Kingdom does a better job of enabling drug addicts and assimilating them into society than the United States. This is because in the U.K. able bodied, working age, young males that are unemployed due to drug addiction are given free government housing.

So, contrary to what many people think, a society can structure itself economically and socially how it wishes, even enabling vices.

In a pure “Darwinian” world for example - one closer to anarchism or chiefdom - a male that would dress as a woman and flaunt himself as the submissive sexual partner, would have greater vulnerabilities and be less successful than in our more politically structured worlds that seek to provide protection to the weaker and more vulnerable.

Part of my point is that atheists and far liberal Catholics only subscribe to evolutionary theory partly (altruism aside). And since U.S. prisons and gangs on streets are a reality (gangs are very homophobic) the parent would be wise to encourage their son to be a strong heterosexual. At minimum a strong - possibly violent - homosexual.

But fear and pain are motivators. The only reason crack smokers ever seek change is because their lives either sink into hell or they fear their lives will sink into hell. Kind of like the heterosexual “sex addict” who fears his marriage might end because he’s having sex with other women. Well… unmarried, heterosexual, promiscuous men and women have little fear and hell as motivators. Society is mobilized to enable their vice by handing out condoms (so the hell of STD’s want be inflicted upon them). They are socially embraced as “good people.” Homosexuality - like cigarette smoking - is much the same to me.

Personally, I support society being mobilized to act collectively as enablers. Maybe because I favor a less harsh world and I’m more attracted to ease, gentleness, charity, and so forth.

I prefer the IV drug user to be given a free and clean needle and for the gay male prostitute to be given a free condom. I support the tax money of society going to treat and care for people with HIV and AIDS too.

 

[CopticChristian]

Thank you for pointing this out. Our culture seems to imagine that simply because some group invokes “science” or this or that study that it must be accurate and irreformable. Sceince is not a god, nor is it without politics and error.

Fix,

I took the time to speak with Dr. Nicolosi today on the phone. He was cordial and had some interesting things to say. He gave me liberty to say anything I chose to about our conversation however I will limit what was said to this…

He said that this is a blessing going to court over this issue. This will allow the following statement to be dismantled for what it is.

In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association’s Board of Trustees removed homosexuality from its official diagnostic manual, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Second Edition (DSM II). The action was taken following a review of the scientific literature and consultation with experts in the field. The experts found that homosexuality does not meet the criteria to be considered a mental illness.

We discussed the NPR piece by Alex Spiegel and her grandfather, a homosexual psychiatrists involved in this fiasco.

It will be good to have the full history of this firm science reviewed.

In the end the courts should see that

some people want to change
some people don’t want to change

Some believe homosexuality is fixed
Some believe homosexuality is not fixed

As long as there is a belief that homosexuality is not fixed and there is no proof, and there is not, to the contrary, then as long as someone wants to change you cannot deny them the right to seek help of any kind to change if that is what they want.

It should be an interesting court battle with the truth prevailing…

 

[Slavonic]

Courts have addressed conversion therapy (I use the term ‘therapy’ loosely). The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, when addressing an asylum case, found that being subject to conversion therapy (in this case by the Russian military) can be considered persecution by immigration authorities, even if the provider the treatment believes they are helping.

Oh look, NARTH and the Russian military have something in common. Granted NARTH is opposed to electric shock aversion treatments, which the Russian military has used. Should NARTH offer the Russian military assistance in bringing its conversion therapy methods up to modern professional standards?

 

[Bradski]

Independent thinking and not relying on organizations to do my thinking.

You’re not giving me much to work with here, Coptic. I have all these professional organisations saying one thing and I have you saying the opposite based on…the fact that you make up your own mind about it. In your honest opinion, do you think I should make my mind up based on your opinion or the opinions of the experts?

And as for these organisations being credible or not? You gave a couple of links to a self help TV guru working for Fox News in regard to the APA. What about all the other organisations in the US and overseas? Why do you not accept what they say?

 

[CopticChristian]

You’re not giving me much to work with here, Coptic. I have all these professional organisations saying one thing and I have you saying the opposite based on…the fact that you make up your own mind about it. In your honest opinion, do you think I should make my mind up based on your opinion or the opinions of the experts?

And as for these organisations being credible or not? You gave a couple of links to a self help TV guru working for Fox News in regard to the APA. What about all the other organisations in the US and overseas? Why do you not accept what they say?

Bradski,

Whose name is not Brad.

Self Help Guru? Who are you referring to?

Let’s start with the organizations overseas that you believe have opinions you respect and why and in the context of this thread…

Many organizations support the California Ban on changing behavior which organizations overseas would concur?

 

[Bradski]

Let’s start with the organizations overseas that you believe have opinions you respect and why and in the context of this thread…

Hang on, you’re meant to be telling me why you don’t accept the experts opinion. I need to know where I can get another view to compare. I want to know what you base your decision on that runs counter to all the organisations I listed.

And if you want an overseas one, we can use the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.

 

[pnewton]

If you think that all the organisations quoted are not impartial, then I’d be pleased to hear about it. you?

No you wouldn’t. I flat don’t believe you. You did the old switcheroo where you said all experts agree earlier. Then when contradictory evidence is presented, you claim it is partial. Therefore, I conclude that you judge particality based whether they support your opinion.

 

[pnewton]

is a lair of religious sharlatans who wage war against Nature, Science,Reason, Reality and Humanity. This organization must be disbanded and criminally investigated by law enforcement agencies for all their malpractice

A concerned mother of two

Fortunately, parents can always move from California to a state where religious freedom and tolerance is still allowed, where the enemies of God are not allowed to use the force of law to further the suppresion of religious thought. Your post demonstrates clearly the intolerance of those who preach tolerance. Support of homosexuality, yes, but let’s round up and arrest Christians for putting their beliefs into practice.

May God save us from California’s secluar facsism.

 

[Bradski]

No you wouldn’t. I flat don’t believe you. You did the old switcheroo where you said all experts agree earlier.

Yes, I said that all the experts that I listed were in agreement (post 67). They all believe that gay therapy is wrong. Was I wrong in saying that? There’s documentary evidence to show that they do. I’ve then been asking for any organisations that think it’s OK so we can compare one list with the other.

Could you list the organisations that have convinced you that all the ones listed earlier are wrong? We could check them against each other.

Reasonable request?

Then when contradictory evidence is presented, you claim it is partial. Therefore, I conclude that you judge particality based whether they support your opinion.

The only other organisation that I’ve been given (by Coptic) is NARTH. The only contradictory evidence I’ve been shown is a couple of quotes from a TV doctor working for Fox which is apparently meant to convince me that the APA is not to be trusted. I then asked again if there was any evidence that the organisations quoted (11 to date – I’ll list more if you like) are not impartial.

If you think that all the organisations quoted are not impartial, then I’d be pleased to hear about it. Maybe we can also look at the impartiality of organisations that disagree with them. We can then judge to which experts we should listen.

I’ve got a post from Coptic citing the usual business of the APA being pressured by the ‘homosexual lobby’ over 40 years ago, but that’s it so far. So I’ll make the same statement again:

If you think that all the organisations quoted are not impartial, then I’d be pleased to hear about it.

There’s 11 listed. If they are not all impartial, can you tell me the ones that aren’t and why you think that they’re not impartial? And maybe you can tell me where I can find information that will counter the expert opinion of those associations. I’m waiting for Coptic to do the same.

 

[pnewton]

The only other organisation that I’ve been given (by Coptic) is NARTH. The only contradictory evidence I’ve been shown is a couple of quotes from a TV doctor working for Fox which is apparently meant to convince me that the APA is not to be trusted.

Exactly!

 

[Bradski]

Exactly!

Exactly what, for heavens sake?

If NARTH is the only organisation that is being put up as having views in opposition to all the other associations I listed (eleven to date), then we can start looking at their credentials and make an educated decision as to whom we should trust.

Are we good to go with this or do you have anyone else to consider? And I mean anyone else at all, becuase your list is looking pretty skinny at this point.

Or is it ‘Exactly’ that some TV doc with a show on Fox has said something derogatory about the APA? I sincerely hope that you have something more than that.

 

[TimeEntrance]

Exactly what, for heavens sake?

If NARTH is the only organisation that is being put up as having views in opposition to all the other associations I listed (eleven to date), then we can start looking at their credentials and make an educated decision as to whom we should trust.

Are we good to go with this or do you have anyone else to consider? And I mean anyone else at all, becuase your list is looking pretty skinny at this point.

Or is it ‘Exactly’ that some TV doc with a show on Fox has said something derogatory about the APA? I sincerely hope that you have something more than that.

Actually, I’ve been very impressed by NARTH. And many of their members are medical doctors (or another way to put that is people trained in the advanced sciences that apply the life sciences to the practice of medicine). Personally, I regard medical doctors as higher up the food chain of scientists than psychologists. The exception might be neuropsychologists.

But I don’t think your reasoning is flawed given knowledge of only A, B, and C. Without more in-depth knowledge and understanding flowing from A through Z we lay people are forced to lay faith in the science community.

It should be no surprise most the science community once championed eugenics - which was embraced by both liberals and conservatives - and openly mocked the Catholic intellectuals that opposed the eugenic propositions. Most the lay world of the West - casting religious like faith in authority (a logical fallacy) - fell into the trap and championed eugenics too. Eugenics did not fall into disrepute until the Nazi’s laid hold to it an ran with it with great enthusiasms.

The problem is - objectively speaking - NARTH is right that there is little to no reason or evidence that homosexuality is some fixed trait through genetic or biological determinism.

The general public believes an erroneous proposition being pushed by some professionals in science and psychology today. What is more troubling is that these professionals know full well they are being dishonest and acting deceptive towards the broader lay public. Which in my opinion is a much greater sin than any Bishop, Pope, or scientist that challenged Galileo, and spread scientific error without the intent (in other words they did not know they were teaching something that was false).

But this is an example in my view why science or scientists should not be the sole voices in setting public policy. Some might argue science - as one philosopher of science has, who has gained followers to some of his views after publishing his influential work - that there should be a separation of science and state.

 

[TimeEntrance]

Addendum to post #99.

1. plato.stanford.edu/entries/feyerabend/#2.13

Paul Feyerabend (b.1924, d.1994), having studied science at the University of Vienna, moved into philosophy for his doctoral thesis, made a name for himself both as an expositor and (later) as a critic of Karl Popper’s “critical rationalism”, and went on to become one of the twentieth century’s most famous philosophers of science. An imaginative maverick, he became a critic of philosophy of science itself, particularly of “rationalist” attempts to lay down or discover rules of scientific method.

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend#Role_of_science_in_society

Based on these arguments, Feyerabend defended the idea that science should be separated from the state in the same way that religion and state are separated in a modern secular society ( Against Method (3rd ed.). p. 160.).

I don’t agree with all of Feyerabend’s views. However, I think that we lay people have no choice but to cast faith in the proposition of scientist due to their body of work and knowledge being so expansive and complex. But that inevitably will lead to lay people being led down the wrong path opposed to truth and accuracy sometimes. And that power is great in the hands of scientists who then can operate as Infallible Popes even if they collectively collude to spread falsehoods or bow to peer pressure for the sake of their careers or motivated out of their socio-political biases.