Maybe we should harass, cajole and bully Christians into "correction" camps where they can pray the anti-gay away; see how they like it?

Hmm. Should people who exhibit unwanted Christian behaviour be allowed to seek a therapeutic cure? Could be a good idea for a business...

Are you a Bigot?

Sign up today for Ani & THWOTHS anti-arsehole conversion therapy.

or burn in hell for eternity, your free choice

Lion IRC wrote:

THWOTH wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:

THWOTH wrote:...Do you think a 'gay cure' is good thing Lion, and if so why?

Yes, for a person who wanted to modify their own sexual behaviour, porn ''addiction'', sex ''addiction'', sex ''aversion'', etc...

That would seem to suggest that a homosexual male has a 'man addiction' and a homosexual female a 'woman addiction,' and that kind of sounds like a clinical, or psychological judgement. And yet, I presume, you would shy away from flatly declaring homosexuality a clinical or psychological dysfunction - would you?

Yep. Because I think it is a voluntary preference not a medical "condition''.

I do not wish to put words in your mouth, but it seems you think people choose to be a certain sexuality and therefore can choose to be another if they so desire. Is that how it works for you Lion?

Lion IRC wrote:

THWOTH wrote:...And if you do shy away from such a flat declaration then why do you think a clinical or psychological approach to curing gayfulship should be attempted on those grounds?

I dont think it should be attempted. The person who seeks sex therapy does. And my point is that they CHOOSE to...for whatever reason. (Duress, preference, love, life style choice, dissatisfaction with the status quo....)

I think you are equivocating here, in effect hoping to report that gay people should be allowed to takes steps to not be gay if they want to in lieu of suggesting why it is, or might be, deemed necessary in the first place. It seems to avoid the thrust of my point; if you think this is a legitimate and valid personal choice, a choice-option that should be accommodated by society and facilitated by clinical practice, on what clinical grounds does, could, or should that proposed treatment take place? Do you think that clinicians should do whatever people ask them to do, for example; does an individual's right to choose authorises a clinician's obligation to act? I understand that you are reluctant to say whether people should or should not take the cure, but they should at least have the choice to if they wish - but that does not address the question I am asking. I find your statement that you don't think a cure should be attempted (presumably because its harms outweigh possible benefits) but people should still be free to undertake it (presumable because its benefits can outweigh its harms) somewhat confused and wholly unconvincing.

Lion IRC wrote:

THWOTH wrote:...Wouldn't attempting to modify peoples sexual proclivities by clinical and/or psychological means in circumstances where the individual was not clinically and/or psychologically diagnosed as dysfunctional amount to a kind of torture - even if the individual had either volunteered or actively sought out and paid for the cure?

No I dont think so. Its a choice. Heres a person, it's their life, they - for whatever reason - CHOOSE to explore the scientific menu options to ''treat'' their status quo ''condition''. The 2 questions are, a) can they choose to want to change and b) does medical science have the ability to modify (achieve outcomes) in relation to sexual desires. The plain fact is, that if I was a victim of rape trauma and my desired opposite gender attraction or libido was dysfunctional (in my opinion( then I could seek and probably obtain professional medical treatment. So why is SSA different to same sex aversion insofar as psychology?

So, for all intents and purposes, the sexual orientation of an individual is immaterial - this is a liberty issue, a rights and freedoms issue? Society has no obligations to ask and understand why a person does not want to be gay or lesbian, but society does have an obligation to help people to not be that which they do not wish to be.

Your point rests on categorising homosexuality being a dysfunctional behaviour again - here drawing a comparison between a traumatising reaction to sexual abuse and homosexuality. You keep coming back to this point, so I guess it represents your personal opinion.

Lion IRC wrote:

THWOTH wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:Everyone here knows how long the list of various types of sexual behaviour goes on for. (No need for an alphabetic list.)

The point I'm making is, people can and do decide to seek medical help to change to and from wanted/unwanted sexual behaviour. Why shouldnt they? Hands up everyone who is pro-choice here?

I have a slight problem with this, not least because it implies an implicit definition of homosexuality not as description of gender attraction but as a action, as behaviour, and specifically a dysfunctional behaviour that warrants clinical intervention.

What exactly is the difference between ''behaviour'' and the word we use as a definition of that behaviour - homosexuality?

Your question is not really relevant to my point, however, in answering it I would simply say that homosexuality is defined by gender attraction and not by behaviour/action, as the latter can only follow from the former; there are no specific or unique 'homosexual acts.' Would you now care to address the point I posed? Are you not relying on an implied definition of homosexuality which describes describes homosexuals in terms of having dysfunctional behaviours worthy of clinical intervention?

I do not think you can have this argument both ways and say that people should be afforded the rights and freedoms to not be gay but there is no reason why they should choose to do so. If personal preference and the liberty to express it was the only driver here than we would also allow people to have functional limbs removed if they desired it, or to sell both their kidneys, or to have their anus stitched and their lower colon removered - or whatever else they wanted - and clinicians would have no ethical issues to deal other than how much to charge them for it.

Lion IRC wrote:

THWOTH wrote: I know you couch this in terms of 'choice,' but even in those who might choose to partake of this proposed medical intervention to modify their behaviour the question still remains as to why an individual -- or anybody else -- might consider the expression of a specific gender attraction as a problematic, unwanted behaviour that could or should be curbed by medical .

And theres the crux of the issue. I am not asking why a person might want to seek treatment for their misogyny, sex addiction or sex aversion or impotence, or anti-social fetish or...---> insert sex meme here<---

I am making an argument that personal choice actually exists in relation to these issues.

Yes, I believe this is the crux of the issue, you equate a specific gender attraction with misogyny, sex addiction, sexual aversion, impotence, and any and every other sexual dysfunction you can imagine that might require 'treatment,' and yet you do not appear to have the courage or the personal integrity to actually come out and say why you think homosexuality is a sexual dysfunction - you simply declare that it is.

Why are homosexuals sexually dysfunctional Lion? (Just because," is not an acceptable answer btw)

Lion IRC wrote:
I dont think it should be attempted. The person who seeks sex therapy does. And my point is that they CHOOSE to...for whatever reason. (Duress, preference, love, life style choice, dissatisfaction with the status quo....)

Oh, fuck me.

You don't actually understand what homosexuality is, do you?

A person choosing sex therapy that will change which gender they are attracted to... because of LOVE?

Lion, put bluntly, a homosexual man will not fall in love with a woman. They can be friends, yes. The woman may fall in love with the man. But the gay man will not fall in love with the woman.

Same applies for lesbians.

And preference? Their preference IS the same gender.

"dissatisfaction with the status quo"? What does that even mean? How?

"life style choice"? Not to put words in your mouth, but you're telling me you can make the choice to either stay straight or turn gay? You're quite special, because I can't do that.

"Duress", which is only there because of homophobes. I fucking hate homophobes. I said why last time and I'll say it again. Gays and lesbians don't need to put up with this shit. Nor do they deserve it.

Why do you think there's a clause in our FUA against posting homophobic content?

And homosexuality is not a choice. I ask you again, did you make a choice to become attracted to women?

Maybe "disordered" means gays and lesbians are incapable of reproducing?

In which case, sperm banks.

And surrogate mothers.

Lion IRC wrote:Yep. Because I think it is a voluntary preference not a medical "condition''.

It is neither. Homosexuality is an involuntary trait you are born with. You can't choose whether to be or not be a homosexual. If it was that easy, all those homosexual kids committing suicide because of the harassment caused by people like you would now be heterosexual, and alive.

What exactly is the difference between ''behaviour'' and the word we use as a definition of that behaviour - homosexuality?

Homosexuality is something you are, not something you do. The only thing homosexuals have in common is that they fall in love with the same sex. Anything else has got nothing to do with homosexuality. Some homosexuals fall in love and settle down with their loved one. Other homosexuals try to deny themselves and often become anti-gay activists (numerous anti-gay Repugnicans who have been caught red-handed with a dick in their mouth come to mind).

I am making an argument that personal choice actually exists in relation to these issues.

You don't get to choose who you fall in love with. Have you ever tried to choose not to be in love with someone you are in love with?

Lion IRC wrote:And theres the crux of the issue. I am not asking why a person might want to seek treatment for their misogyny, sex addiction or sex aversion or impotence, or anti-social fetish or...---> insert sex meme here<---

I am making an argument that personal choice actually exists in relation to these issues.

You continue to conflate two completely different meanings of the word "choice".

An African-American person might wish he was born white and, if it were possible to change that, he might "choose" to do so.

That doesn't mean he actually has any choice over whether he is African-American.

swiatlo wrote:

type something that makes sense in the English language

Sorry for that.
I will try to rephrase it.

Even if you rewrote it in perfectly understandable english, you'd still be wrong.

Corke wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:
I dont think it should be attempted. The person who seeks sex therapy does. And my point is that they CHOOSE to...for whatever reason. (Duress, preference, love, life style choice, dissatisfaction with the status quo....)

You don't actually understand what homosexuality is, do you?

oxforddictionaries.com wrote:
Definition of homosexual
Adjective : sexually attracted to people of one’s own sex.
* involving or characterized by sexual attraction between people of the same sex: homosexual desire

Noun : a person who is sexually attracted to people of their own sex.

It doesnt say compulsion. It says "desire".
There's no mention of "born that way."
It doesnt say "permanently attracted to.."

Doesn't say it's a fucking choice either.

Well, the Oxford Dictionary couldn't possibly be inaccurate or incomplete, so it seems the gig is up!

Lion IRC wrote:It doesnt say compulsion. It says "desire".
There's no mention of "born that way."
It doesnt say "permanently attracted to.."

But it is permanent, and you are born that way. That's a fact.

Corke wrote:Maybe "disordered" means gays and lesbians are incapable of reproducing?

All too often, "disordered" is an evasive way of saying "doesn't conform to my petty little bigotries", as a means of trying to avoid being associated with filth such as Scott Lively and Fred Phelps. Because at bottom, the only opposition to the long-overdue dispensing of proper human rights to gay people comes from hate-filled bigots. The rhetoric and propaganda emanating from the Christofascist Right on this issue bears the same stench that hangs around Julius Streicher's Der Giftpilz. It's pure hate speech, designed to whip up murderous hatred, and we all saw what happened when Streicher deployed the same propaganda methods in 1938.

Indeed, some of the Christofascists have been open about their intentions. They want to see Uganda-style hate legislation in place, so that they can start mass murder of gay people. Several of the creepy Dominionists are pushing for this. So, anyone who wants to peddle the idea that it's all about "curing" something, has a big problem on their hands, courtesy of this large body of evidence. Indeed, the verminous and pestilential Scott Lively has openly boasted of "detonating a nuclear bomb under the gay agenda", with respect to his pushing Ugandan government officials into enacting hate legislation, which now makes being gay punishable by death in Uganda. When uttering this boast, Lively was manifestly proud of the fact that he had blood on his hands over this issue, and revelled in the thought of gay people being "executed".

Of course, Lively is now trying desperately to back-pedal over this little exercise in hate crime, because campaigners are now pushing for Lively to be indicted under the Alien Tort Statute, which provides a means of redress against US citizens engaging in criminal activity overseas, including the promotion of human rights violations contrary to international law.

Corke wrote:In which case, sperm banks.

And surrogate mothers.

Oh, that would probably cause Rick Santorum to burst a blood vessel.

Oh, and for those who need this, here's an apposite article: Ten Anti-Gay Myths Debunked,, courtesy of the Southern Poverty Law Centre.

EDIT: I point everyone in particular to this:

MYTH # 6

Hate crime laws will lead to the jailing of pastors who criticize homosexuality and the legalization of practices like bestiality and necrophilia.

After dealing with the pseudo-arguments peddled by the Christofascist Right, the article states this:

THE FACTS

The claim that hate crime laws could result in the imprisonment of those who "oppose the homosexual lifestyle" is false. The Constitution provides robust protections of free speech, and case law makes it clear that even a preacher who suggested that gays and lesbians should be killed would be protected.

Neither do hate crime laws — which provide for enhanced penalties when persons are victimized because of their "sexual orientation" (among other factors) — "protect pedophiles," as Janet Porter and many others have claimed. According to the American Psychological Association, sexual orientation refers to heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality — not paraphilias such as pedophilia. Paraphilias, as defined by the American Psychiatric Assocation, are disorders characterized by sexual urges or behaviors directed at nonhuman objects or non-consenting persons like children, or that involve the suffering or humiliation of one's partner.

Even if pedophiles, for example, were protected under a hate crime law — and such a law has not been suggested or contemplated anywhere — that would not legalize or "protect" pedophilia. Pedophilia is illegal sexual activity, and a law that more severely punished people who attacked pedophiles would not change that.

EDIT 2: In addition, we have this:

MYTH # 8

Gay people are more prone to be mentally ill and to abuse drugs and alcohol.

Which is addressed as follows:

THE FACTS

All major professional mental health organizations are on record as stating that homosexuality is not a mental disorder.

It is true that LGBT people suffer higher rates of anxiety, depression, and depression-related illnesses and behaviors like alcohol and drug abuse than the general population. But studies done during the past 15 years have determined that it is the stress of being a member of a minority group in an often-hostile society — and not LGBT identity itself — that accounts for the higher levels of mental illness and drug use.

Richard J. Wolitski, an expert on minority status and public health issues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, put it like this in 2008: "Economic disadvantage, stigma, and discrimination ... increase stress and diminish the ability of individuals [in minority groups] to cope with stress, which in turn contribute to poor physical and mental health."

So I think we can toss this "disordered" bullshit into the bin where it belongs, don't you?

Lion IRC wrote:

Corke wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:
I dont think it should be attempted. The person who seeks sex therapy does. And my point is that they CHOOSE to...for whatever reason. (Duress, preference, love, life style choice, dissatisfaction with the status quo....)

You don't actually understand what homosexuality is, do you?

oxforddictionaries.com wrote:
Definition of homosexual
Adjective : sexually attracted to people of one’s own sex.
* involving or characterized by sexual attraction between people of the same sex: homosexual desire

Noun : a person who is sexually attracted to people of their own sex.

It doesnt say compulsion. It says "desire".
There's no mention of "born that way."
It doesnt say "permanently attracted to.."

Damn, I love being right.

You don't know what it means.

And then you dump a definition from a non-rigorous dictionary here, as if it constitutes some axiom of the universe.

Here's what you should have found if you were honestly looking for a definition of homosexuality to further your understanding.

The prevalence, incidence, and acquisition patterns of homosexuality have been studied extensively.[11] [12] Despite these studies, truly reliable data regarding the epidemiology of homosexuality are few because of 2 methodological hurdles. The first involves the definition of homosexuality. Since a firm demarcation between homosexual and heterosexual individuals does not exist, surveys differ in the characteristics of individuals considered to be homosexual. The second, and perhaps insurmountable, obstacle is the reluctance of many individuals to disclose information about their sexual orientation because of the realistic fear that disclosure could be damaging to them.[13] Thus, incidence and prevalence parameters of sexual practice and orientation cannot be defined in the same sense or within the same confidence intervals that have been ascertained for psychiatric disorders through studies such as the Epidemiological Catchment Area Program.[14]

I bolded the important bit.

Also of note in the same paper is this:

Homosexuality is not a medical or psychiatric disorder, but is a condition associated with certain medical risks. Homosexuality has long been recognized both in human and animal populations. Despite the relative frequency of homosexuality, it remains misunderstood and controversial to much of society. Homosexual individuals who choose members of their own sex for sexual relations and domestic partnerships are often targets of prejudice and may even be discriminated against by health care professionals.

Again, my bold.

The term gender orientation refers to an individual's desires and preferences regarding the sex of intimate partners.[3] Like gender identity, gender orientation is based on deeply held conscious and unconscious psychological constructs.[4] As Kinsey and others have shown, gender orientation is more of a dimension than a category.[5, 6] That is, individuals tend to have a range of preferences and desires rather than falling into neat, mutually exclusive categories.[7]

And this means it's not a fucking choice.

My source? The reference section on Medscape. This paper was authored by Patricia H Bazemore, MD. Link here. Much better than using a fucking dictionary to gain understanding of a subject.

With all this talk about "choice", I began to wonder about the position of organizations like NARTH, which claim to be doing no more than defending people's rights to "choose" their sexual orientation, on the whole issue of choice. Statements like this, from the NARTH website, provide a pretty clear answer:

Stripped of all their pseudo-merit, gay activists' arguments in support of same-sex "marriage" boil down to one unspoken "fifth argument," which happens to be a classic non-sequitur known as argumentum ad misericordiam, or the "argument to pity." Applied to "gay rights" issues, it goes something like this:

Gay people have suffered emotional torment because society does not smile on their "sexual orientation." Gay activists complain loudly about this "oppression." Therefore, society "owes" gays suspect status, marital status and all accompanying benefits, to redress injuries done to gays and to make them feel better.

Or, as one observer has put gay activists' position more colloquially, "We feel bad, we shout loud, give us 'perks'!"

Of course, injured feelings per se offer no compelling reason to bestow favors on anyone. If they did, every child's tantrum would be rewarded. Doubtless many imprisoned criminals feel bad because they are behind bars. This fact alone does not entitle them to automatic release. Nor do gay activists' hurt feelings alone entitle them to get away with perpetrating massive Civil Rights fraud.

I see. So people should have the right to "choose" to be subjected to ineffective, discredited, dangerous treatments in attempt to stop being homosexual, but they should not have the right to "choose" to remain gay and get married.

IOW, NARTH is just a hate organization that deals in hypocrisy and lies. "Freedom to choose" is the last thing they are concerned about. No surprise there.

Indeed. Christofascist liars for Republican Jesus peddle lies. In other news, bears shit in the woods. Film at 11.

Another howler courtesy of said Christofascist liars for Republican Jesus:

From the NARTH FAQ page:

5. Is NARTH a religious organization?

No. It is a scientific and professional organization that includes highly qualified academics and fully licensed mental health professionals.

Elsewhere on their website:

http://narth.com/news-watch/theological-issues/