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DrTaffy
Guest
That just shows that more people sought secular medical help than religious counselling. The statement by the authors that religious counselling was associated with a higher suicide rate does not clash with this.
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That just shows that more people sought secular medical help than religious counselling. The statement by the authors that religious counselling was associated with a higher suicide rate does not clash with this.
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estesbob
Guest
It seems to show that those who sought religious counseling had a lower suicide rate than those who sought secular medical counseling, However the study only looks at 318 people in NY City so I don’t think we can draw any real conclusions from it.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
I am not clear what implications you are drawing from this. It seems that you are trying to infer that the religious counselling was, at least, partly responsible for the individuals committing suicide. That would imply that seeking medical help, in fact, makes suicide even more likely than seeking spiritual help.
However, both those would simply be false inferences. Perhaps the severity of their situation which led those individuals to seek help was precisely the contributing factor to their suicide. In other words, the grave predicament or precarious psychological state that the individuals found themselves in was the contributing factor for both their seeking help and for their committing suicide.
Perhaps individuals in such a state do not seek help until a point of no return is reached or nearly so, which means any help offered at that time is tenuous at best.
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commenter
Guest
The problem with the article cited is that it uses one issue - that “reparative therapy” sometimes seems to harm some people - to build up an emotional response in the reader, then uses the reader’s emotions to get them to accept another thesis - that evangelicals should accept, not just their child’s sexual orientation, but also acting out on that orientation. That same sex activity is not immoral. Whether “reparative therapy” is or is not “successful” by whatever definition is not the issue here.
What is the issue is that any kind of counseling - including what happens in the confessional - that might help a person who wants to avoid same sex activity is being lumped in together with forced interventions that claim to do far more. In some countries clergy who even preach that same sex activities are immoral are being sued.
We need to keep the 2 issues separate, whereas the article cited misleadingly blurs the issues.
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SMGS127
Guest
I totally agree. But I do think articles like this, albeit advocating an immoral stance, are still useful for explaining why it is so important to legally bar so-called “reparative” therapy for minors. It is completely ineffective, extremely harmful to its participants, especially when unwilling (aka minors), and only serves as a deterrent from the Christian faith. Showcasing this country’s abuse of gay children, which “reparative” therapy falls under, is the easiest way to change someone’s opinion on the behavior as well.
If we stuck to the Church’s position of respecting the human dignity of all people and children, including gay and lesbian children, we would not, in any way, tolerate “reparative” therapy or any of the abuses inherent within. Every Catholic should support the legal banning of it for minors on principle.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
There seems to be an a priori assumption here that all therapies will be or must be harmful merely because the ones that have been tried were. What if a therapy is shown to be helpful? Will that one be banned, as well? Why?
It seems to me that is precisely the claim regarding what should happen because the underlying position is that it is quite fine to have particular sexual “orientations,” therefore any attempt at changing those, is or will be harmful to the individual, because the individual is identified to be one with his/her orientation. Ergo, changing the orientation is changing the individual. Bad because bad.
By definition, then, even perfectly effective “reparative” therapies are ruled out, by fiat, on the grounds that reparation itself is morally bad.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
This is a non sequitur. The banning should not be “on principle” unless it is shown that reparative therapy is “in principle” wrong or harmful. At this point in time, that is a presumption only, based on the fact that reparative therapies, to this point, have not been shown effective or even harmful.
Reparative therapies should only be banned “on principle” if it is accepted that gay orientation is a completely wholesome, fully human mode of being human.
That certainly appears to be discordant with homosexual activity being sinful. It just seems strange to claim homosexual activity is sinful, but that being homosexual is something you all will just have to live with because nothing, in principle, can be done about it.
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SMGS127
Guest
My conscience is perfectly clear in supporting wholeheartedly a ban on reparative therapy. The fact that even one suicide results from it is enough to make it unsupportable from the principle of double effect, even if one believes (especially from a naive, heterosexual point of view where one has not seen the destruction left in the wake of “reparative” therapy) that “reparative” therapy can have some good qualities. Supporting it is equivalent to someone suggesting that IVF should be allowed because maybe, someone, someday will do it without committing simultaneous abortion. Intrinsic evil is still intrinsic evil, and that includes “reparative” therapy.
We need to focus on changing behaviors, (therapy that is left untouched and unbanned by “reparative” therapy bans), not harming children by attempting to force them to change their orientation.
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DrTaffy
Guest
:ehh:
No, it explicitly shows the opposite. Not definitively - as you note the sample size is small - but while there were fewer people who went for religious counselling more of them, proportionately, attempted suicide.
References were asked for, and I happened to be aware of a recent one. That’s all.
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kozlosap
Guest
Your daughter is blessed too have a family that loves her regardless of her sexual orientation. I was on the crisis support team for our huge school district, and it was that experience that changed my own views on LGBTQ issues. After the second suicide incident in less than two months of a gay student because of bullying at school and unacceptance by family, i began to pray daily about the issue. I also have a nephew who is a physician and has been in a committed relationship for 17 years with another male physician. My prayers led me to agree to disagree with the position of the Church on LGBTQ issues. I understand that it doesn’t matter that the vast majority of Western Catholics do not believe that being LGBTQ is sinful and that civil marriage for everyone is just fine, but i am hopeful that someday the institutional stance of the Church will change. The heart is hard to fight. The entire concept of marriage being for child bearing and not primarily for reasons of love and companionship will also change since it is not revelent in 2014. What I mean is that we marry for love (in the First World), not to populate the world.
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estesbob
Guest
I fully support the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, Homosexual behavior is a grievous sin that puts ones immortal soul in danger. So called homosexual marriage is a mockery of marriage and very publicly endorses grievous sin.Your daughter is blessed too have a family that loves her regardless of her sexual orientation. I was on the crisis support team for our huge school district, and it was that experience that changed my own views on LGBTQ issues. After the second suicide incident in less than two months of a gay student because of bullying at school and unacceptance by family, i began to pray daily about the issue. I also have a nephew who is a physician and has been in a committed relationship for 17 years with another male physician. My prayers led me to agree to disagree with the position of the Church on LGBTQ issues. I understand that it doesn’t matter that the vast majority of Western Catholics do not believe that being LGBTQ is sinful and that civil marriage for everyone is just fine, but i am hopeful that someday the institutional stance of the Church will change. The heart is hard to fight. The entire concept of marriage being for child bearing and not primarily for reasons of love and companionship will also change since it is not revelent in 2014. What I mean is that we marry for love (in the First World), not to populate the world.
What doesn’t matter is what Western Catholics supposedly “believe” What matters is what the Church teaches.
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Thorolfr
Guest
Your daughter is blessed too have a family that loves her regardless of her sexual orientation. I was on the crisis support team for our huge school district, and it was that experience that changed my own views on LGBTQ issues. After the second suicide incident in less than two months of a gay student because of bullying at school and unacceptance by family, i began to pray daily about the issue. I also have a nephew who is a physician and has been in a committed relationship for 17 years with another male physician. My prayers led me to agree to disagree with the position of the Church on LGBTQ issues. I understand that it doesn’t matter that the vast majority of Western Catholics do not believe that being LGBTQ is sinful and that civil marriage for everyone is just fine, but i am hopeful that someday the institutional stance of the Church will change. The heart is hard to fight. The entire concept of marriage being for child bearing and not primarily for reasons of love and companionship will also change since it is not revelent in 2014. What I mean is that we marry for love (in the First World), not to populate the world.
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frobert
Guest
The implication is quite clear. Seek the appropriate counseling, i.e. the one that is more, not less, likely to help or put another way the one that is associated with the best outcomes. There is no implication that either type of counseling contributes to suicide.
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BrassAnkles
Guest
Apparently you missed my post - the results show that the confidence interval is too wide to claim religious counseling is associated with more suicide attempts. I posted this earlier.
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Pray_for_Change
Guest
When I was 18 years old, I went to a priest for advice about what to do about my same sex attractions. He told me that suicide would be less grave a sin than engaging in homosexual acts.
No matter what kind of treatment you seek out, there are good and bad counselors on both sides. I now wish I had been more careful about the treatment that I sought out. All I can say is if you go into reparative therapy, it better work or it will wreck you beyond repair.
No matter what kind of treatment you seek out, there are good and bad counselors on both sides. I now wish I had been more careful about the treatment that I sought out. All I can say is if you go into reparative therapy, it better work or it will wreck you beyond repair.
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WilT
Guest
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estesbob
Guest
Hopefully you have since then educated yourself and realize that this is not what the Church teaches.
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Rau
Guest
How can a church take no position on the matter? Did Jesus not establish a church to guide the people? Did he not give it authority to bind and to loose, to forgive and to retain? And your Church says - “well, it’s up to you guys”
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Rau
Guest
Thor
At least five Lutheran denominations view “homosexual behavior” to be sinful and claim that it is contrary to Scripture:
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod,
The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod,
The Association of Free Lutheran Congregations
The Evangelical Lutheran Synod
The North American Lutheran Church
Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ
Just wondering - what would you have done if you’d grown up in one of these denominations? Given up same sex acts, of changed churches?
At least five Lutheran denominations view “homosexual behavior” to be sinful and claim that it is contrary to Scripture:
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod,
The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod,
The Association of Free Lutheran Congregations
The Evangelical Lutheran Synod
The North American Lutheran Church
Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ
Just wondering - what would you have done if you’d grown up in one of these denominations? Given up same sex acts, of changed churches?
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Thorolfr
Guest
I actually grew up Baptist and when I was 21 and talked to a Baptist pastor about my same-sex attractions, he told me that I could not be gay and be a Christian and that I would go to hell if I didn’t change (for Baptists, I’m sure that just being homosexual is considered a sin). At about the same time, Jerry Fallwell’s Moral Majority was sending out mailings to people in my family stating that most homosexuals are pedophiles and are a threat to children. So I hardly stepped foot into any church for the next 15 years. But my partner of 17 years (who was raised Lutheran but Missouri Synod) and I found our way into an ELCA Lutheran church which is still the largest Lutheran denomination in the US. We have been welcomed there as a couple and are active members of our church.
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