So a common issue for discourse between social liberals and social conservatives is whether homosexuality is an inevitable characteristic, or whether it is a dysfunctional phase that one can overcome if one is to take the right steps. In other words, whether gays are gay for life, or whether they can stop being gay with the use of what is known as "ex-gay therapy".
Therapy to help/convince homosexuals become heterosexual is one of the most bitterly controversial points in modern politics, particularly in the US of America. Left-wingers and others who believe homosexuals are naturally so, state that ex-gay therapy is psychologically damaging and leads to a feeling of inadequacy, self-loathing and, all too often, suicide. Those who cling to the belief that homosexuality is an inherently unnatural state for any human to be in assert that trying to turn straight is the only healthy thing for homosexuals to do, and that to advise them otherwise is doing them a disservice.
Allow me to take you through why I think what I think about homosexuality.
There is vast diversity among all human characteristics, physical, mental and behavioural. As such, it is unhelpful to have the knee-jerk reaction of labeling any minority characteristics as "dysfunctions". We have to keep an open mind about all rarities, and assess all types of people fairly without automatically thinking a difference from the norm necessarily constitutes a deficit.
So, with that in mind, lets begin our assessment of homosexuality.
Homosexuality is the desire to form sexual or romantic relationships with members of the same sex as yourself.
This is open to two points of contention which could lead to it being declared a bad thing. Homosexual relations cannot produce children, and are interpreted as being condemned by certain religions.
The first argument states that either because a homosexual relationship cannot produce children, there is no point to it, or because people who engage exclusively in homosexual relationships cannot produce children, there is no point to them.
To say that people waste their lives if they don't produce any children is beyond ridiculous, as I have blogged about before. People can benefit the world and the human experience in many other and sometimes better ways than creating children.
And I don't think saying relationships are pointless if no babies are made makes any sense either. People are designed to bond sexually and romantically for a great many social and physical benefits, which help to advance the species and which have nothing to do with reproduction. And these apply to homosexual relationships as easily as they do to heterosexual ones. I don't think you can look at the natural world and possibly say that God/nature intended every single member of a species to make children; many animal species from insects right up to mammals have social structures where only a few individuals are required to produce offspring. And those who do not produce offspring have other responsibilities, which they are held to by their relationships with the other members of their social groups.
So the second point of contention was the religion thing.
Here's the deal. Whether you follow a certain religion is up to you. It's your choice. I don't think anyone can say that to follow all the rules in the Bible or Qua'ran is inherent in human nature. We don't have the innate instincts to stone prostitutes, marry the first person we sleep with or devote the final seventh of our week to prayer. And if following these rules was inherent, there would have been no reason to write them down and have religious leaders teach them to people. So where on earth do religious right-wingers get the idea that the Bible is a guide to innate human nature?
And remembering what this post is supposed to be about, ex-gay therapy, it is not up to anyone to use therapy to try and Christianise, Muslimify, or Hindufy you. Muslims don't counsel people to help them overcome their pork-eating tendencies. Christians don't provide therapy for anyone with the overwhelming desire to work on Sundays. Jews don't counsel people to eat kosher. Etc, etc, etc.
As such, I don't think there is anything about homosexuality which allows it to be considered a dysfunction or mental illness.
But proponents of ex-gay therapy will say, what's the harm? Why not try to help people turn straight if that's what they want?
Well, there's actually quite a lot of harm.
Ex-gay ministries tell gay people that homosexuality, which is part of them, is evil. They teach them that as homosexuals, they have fallen short of the standard required by human beings. Well firstly, this is a lie, as if we follow the logic above, we agree there is no harm in being homosexual. Secondly, it's an extremely harmful lie. The psychological damage caused by being told you are evil, inadequate, inherently harmful to the world, is immeasurable.
It might be some kind of okay if the therapy then proceeded to turn its patients completely straight, thus removing the burden it placed upon them. But, it doesn't do that. Because ex-gay therapy almost never, ever, actually works. Yes, there have been cases where someone has gone into a re-orientation therapy clinic and come out able to have successful relationships with women, but it is such a vast minority. Success rates are rarely cited as above 20%, and when they are, they nearly always collapse in the face of further research. And you have to consider how many patients were actually bisexual, how many are simply repressing their homosexuality, how many were never gay in the first place but went because their parents were concerned with "effeminate" behaviour, etc, etc.
So, what we have in the vast majority of cases with patients of reorientation therapy is this.
1. They are consistently told that homosexuality is evil and wrong.
2. They are consistently told that this therapy will work, that sexuality can be changed, that God's love will save them from their gayness, etc.
3. After weeks, months or years of therapy, they are still gay.
Can you imagine what a toll that would take on the ever-fragile (usually young) human ego? The failed therapy will open the floodgates to a thousand feelings of failure, self-loathing, even feeling rejected by God himself, perhaps. They will feel they are a mistake, that they are fatally flawed and evil. And that is entirely the fault of practitioners of re-orientation therapy.
Ex-gay therapy is damaging thousands of young people every year. It's practitioners impose psychological scars on people which often last for life. To be frank, it is wrong on every possible level.
Please, reader, protect the young people of the western world from being bullied and scarred by self-proclaimed "psychologists" trying to further a political agenda, and speak out against ex-gay therapy at every opportunity you get.
Therapy to help/convince homosexuals become heterosexual is one of the most bitterly controversial points in modern politics, particularly in the US of America. Left-wingers and others who believe homosexuals are naturally so, state that ex-gay therapy is psychologically damaging and leads to a feeling of inadequacy, self-loathing and, all too often, suicide. Those who cling to the belief that homosexuality is an inherently unnatural state for any human to be in assert that trying to turn straight is the only healthy thing for homosexuals to do, and that to advise them otherwise is doing them a disservice.
Allow me to take you through why I think what I think about homosexuality.
There is vast diversity among all human characteristics, physical, mental and behavioural. As such, it is unhelpful to have the knee-jerk reaction of labeling any minority characteristics as "dysfunctions". We have to keep an open mind about all rarities, and assess all types of people fairly without automatically thinking a difference from the norm necessarily constitutes a deficit.
So, with that in mind, lets begin our assessment of homosexuality.
Homosexuality is the desire to form sexual or romantic relationships with members of the same sex as yourself.
This is open to two points of contention which could lead to it being declared a bad thing. Homosexual relations cannot produce children, and are interpreted as being condemned by certain religions.
The first argument states that either because a homosexual relationship cannot produce children, there is no point to it, or because people who engage exclusively in homosexual relationships cannot produce children, there is no point to them.
To say that people waste their lives if they don't produce any children is beyond ridiculous, as I have blogged about before. People can benefit the world and the human experience in many other and sometimes better ways than creating children.
And I don't think saying relationships are pointless if no babies are made makes any sense either. People are designed to bond sexually and romantically for a great many social and physical benefits, which help to advance the species and which have nothing to do with reproduction. And these apply to homosexual relationships as easily as they do to heterosexual ones. I don't think you can look at the natural world and possibly say that God/nature intended every single member of a species to make children; many animal species from insects right up to mammals have social structures where only a few individuals are required to produce offspring. And those who do not produce offspring have other responsibilities, which they are held to by their relationships with the other members of their social groups.
So the second point of contention was the religion thing.
Here's the deal. Whether you follow a certain religion is up to you. It's your choice. I don't think anyone can say that to follow all the rules in the Bible or Qua'ran is inherent in human nature. We don't have the innate instincts to stone prostitutes, marry the first person we sleep with or devote the final seventh of our week to prayer. And if following these rules was inherent, there would have been no reason to write them down and have religious leaders teach them to people. So where on earth do religious right-wingers get the idea that the Bible is a guide to innate human nature?
And remembering what this post is supposed to be about, ex-gay therapy, it is not up to anyone to use therapy to try and Christianise, Muslimify, or Hindufy you. Muslims don't counsel people to help them overcome their pork-eating tendencies. Christians don't provide therapy for anyone with the overwhelming desire to work on Sundays. Jews don't counsel people to eat kosher. Etc, etc, etc.
As such, I don't think there is anything about homosexuality which allows it to be considered a dysfunction or mental illness.
But proponents of ex-gay therapy will say, what's the harm? Why not try to help people turn straight if that's what they want?
Well, there's actually quite a lot of harm.
Ex-gay ministries tell gay people that homosexuality, which is part of them, is evil. They teach them that as homosexuals, they have fallen short of the standard required by human beings. Well firstly, this is a lie, as if we follow the logic above, we agree there is no harm in being homosexual. Secondly, it's an extremely harmful lie. The psychological damage caused by being told you are evil, inadequate, inherently harmful to the world, is immeasurable.
It might be some kind of okay if the therapy then proceeded to turn its patients completely straight, thus removing the burden it placed upon them. But, it doesn't do that. Because ex-gay therapy almost never, ever, actually works. Yes, there have been cases where someone has gone into a re-orientation therapy clinic and come out able to have successful relationships with women, but it is such a vast minority. Success rates are rarely cited as above 20%, and when they are, they nearly always collapse in the face of further research. And you have to consider how many patients were actually bisexual, how many are simply repressing their homosexuality, how many were never gay in the first place but went because their parents were concerned with "effeminate" behaviour, etc, etc.
So, what we have in the vast majority of cases with patients of reorientation therapy is this.
1. They are consistently told that homosexuality is evil and wrong.
2. They are consistently told that this therapy will work, that sexuality can be changed, that God's love will save them from their gayness, etc.
3. After weeks, months or years of therapy, they are still gay.
Can you imagine what a toll that would take on the ever-fragile (usually young) human ego? The failed therapy will open the floodgates to a thousand feelings of failure, self-loathing, even feeling rejected by God himself, perhaps. They will feel they are a mistake, that they are fatally flawed and evil. And that is entirely the fault of practitioners of re-orientation therapy.
Ex-gay therapy is damaging thousands of young people every year. It's practitioners impose psychological scars on people which often last for life. To be frank, it is wrong on every possible level.
Please, reader, protect the young people of the western world from being bullied and scarred by self-proclaimed "psychologists" trying to further a political agenda, and speak out against ex-gay therapy at every opportunity you get.
No comments:
Post a Comment