That’s a huge relief. I can think of places where the kid would be in serious danger now.
This one line still gets me though…
“Officials from Love In Action appealed for tolerance …”
Help! I’m being opressed! See the injustice inherent in the system! :rolleyes:
brickbacon], Wow. Are you still being an apologist for this crap? What on earth is wrong with you?
How am I being an apologist? I had the same opinion as the guy protesting this camp, yet he’s a hero and I’m an asshole. All I’m doing is asking people to use their brains. There is no child abuse going on there. You may hate the idea of a camp like this (as do I), but to claim his parents are evil monsters, and that the camp is brainwashing and abusing him is not supported by the facts.
Trying to turn someone “straight” IS evil and abusive.
Even if the child welfare authorities don’t recognize that.
I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic, but just because someone’s within the law doesn’t mean they aren’t abusive. Just ask my best friend in high school. Her parents weren’t breaking any laws, but they were definitely abusive.
I wasn’t being sarcastic; I wanted to emphasize your point. The authorities can define abuse to exclude, say, coerced prayer and attempted sexual reprogramming, but that would still be abusive.
Okay-I wasn’t sure. Sorry 'bout that.
brickbacon, I get the feeling that you are straight. Given that, I propose an experiment. I will subject you to several weeks of conditioning with the express goal of making you want to put my penis in your mouth until I ejaculate. At the end of that time, you can say if what was done to you was abusive.
Presuming his mouth isn’t full of your cock.
Zach’s father has outed him in an (completely self-serving) interview on Pat Robertson’s pet network, CBN. We even get an appearance of Paul Cameron’s laughably inaccurate “homosexual lifespan” numbers straight from the ass’s mouth.
Oh for Christ’s sake. Grow a pair and take some goddamn responsibility for the things you’ve said. You are the very definition of an apologist, as you’ve been “writ[ing] in defense of” this group for the whole thread. I don’t know why you think this is okay, or why being legal should justify it, but stop hiding and just admit that you’ve been defending this group. If you don’t want us holding you to your statements, then retract them. If you don’t want to be cast as a defender and supporter of these idiotic ideologues, then stop defending and supporting them. I can’t believe you would talk out of both sides of your mouth this way. Not only are you defending the indefensible, but your dishonesty is disgusting.
Hmmm. Hadn’t thought of that. Looks like we could also see if hetero to homo reorientation could works as well. I am hoping that to be the case, as we could then finally start to justify the fears of the Right wind scolds.
Are you, like, totally illiterate, or merely functionally illiterate? Because Polotsky isn’t agreeing with you about the parents at all. Not anymore, at least. Try reading the sentence right after the one you bolded. But, nice to know that you support the father outing Zach to the nation against Zach’s will. Yeah, you’re all about the compassion for this kid, aintcha, you goddamned tool?
Uh huh. Zack has a mind of his own, and is free to think whatever we tell him. Got it. All options available to him. Got it. All the options (really just one option) that we will allow him to have. God given gift, but don’t dare use it to think for himself.
Whatever is left (not much). In other words, conform or else. No priviledges until you knuckle under.
It’s the damn Brain Police.
I’ve had my own run in with Ex-Gay ministries. A few years ago my church hosted a conference on human sexuality and the E-G caught wind of it and got a spot on the agenda. They trotted out a poster boy who spent much time in gay bookstores and porn theaters crusising for sex and contracted HIV, this of course before they “fixed” him and turned him straight. Later in group discussions the poster boy’s handler was assigned to our group and I have to admit I was pretty rough on him. I asked him that if poster boy hadn’t been ostracised for being gay then he may not have sought anonymous sex as a substitute for normal affection. In the end I think it was all rhetorical as I don’t think I got through to him.
This is an important topic because of what my family went through when my brother came out. I was already away but my family went to a southern baptist church. The family went into counselling where they learned my brother was gay because my mother had a dominant personality (she balanced the checkbook) and she worked outside the home unlike a good Christian wife. I don’t have to tell you what impact this had on my brother.
It was no accident I went to the church I go to no. I just found the one nearest to my apartment when I decided to start going again and found a reconciling in Christ congregation. That is they accept anyone regardless of among other things sexual orientation, marital status and living arrangements. About half our congregation is gay and lesbian including many committed couples. One of my hopes is that every church who professes to be Christian will be more like this.
>There is no child abuse going on there. You may hate the idea of a
>camp like this (as do I), but to claim his parents are evil monsters,
>and that the camp is brainwashing and abusing him is not supported
>by the facts.
I’d bet every queer person who’s read Zach’s story has done what I did-- get a cold chill on their skin and think “there but by the Grace of God go I…” Basically he’s been put in a 24/7 facility, is subjected to some incredibly horrific lies about gay people, has to conform to some incredibly strict rules and has no way to present any kind of counter-argument or to leave on his own accord. To me that sounds like imprisonment, and at the age of 16 I would have considered seriously abusive. It seems to me like the only thing this poor kid did wrong was to tell his folks about his feelings.
I don’t think his parents are “evil monsters” per se, but they are completely closed to any other information except that which reinforces their world view. From the standpoint of a gay kid who just came out and had zero input on what was going to happen, I would certainly label them as “insensitive.” I would certainly feel that they did not have my bests interests at heart, nor did they know or wish to know who I truly was. What they have essentially done is taken one of the most vulnerable moments in a gay teenager’s life and shut him down completely. I don’t think I would trust my parents ever again after this.
As for cites about reparative therapy, there are very few studies As Polycarp pointed out, it ranges from 66% to 0% depending on who is doing the talking. This study:
shows that of 202 subjects interviewed, 87% considered conversion therapy a failure. 9% stated that they could “contain” their same-sex desire. 4% reported conversion, but the researchers noted that of the 8 people in that 4%, two refused follow-up interviews and 7 worked as ex-gay counselors at the time of the interview.
That actually made me laugh (in a good way). I don’t think this is a particularly good analogy, but it is very funny… and no I don’t have any cock in my mouth.
I have. If you actually read what I’ve said, I’ve mentioned several times that I think the camp is retarded, and that his parents are misguided to think it would work. I’m not defending them, just pointing out that acting like a raving lunatic after hearing about a camp, calling his parents evil, and saying the camp is abusive is not supported by the facts.
Shithead, did you miss the last part of my post where I said the only difference is that he feels the dad shouldn’t have spoken out? I acknowledged that the guy thinks the dad shouldn’t have done that, and that his feelings have changed now. However, the point remains that the guy organizing protests was willing to give the parents the benefit of the doubt, yet when I do it, I’m an apologist and a homophobe. It’s a ridiculous double standard.
The father didn’t out anyone. The kid had a public blog. The media picked up on it. He had a picture, presumably of himself, on his site, which many media outlets linked to. To claim the kid was anonymous is crazy. The father is responding to the attacks, not “outing” his son. Do you think for a second that the people in his real life had no idea about the camp, and the fact that he is gay? CNN did far more to out this child than his father did. While I think his dad is terribly misguided, saying he outed his son is ridiculous.
I think we all will agree on one thing, “evil monster” aside. Daddy is an ignorant idiot. Besides which, he is spending money on a “cure” that will not work. He may be able (worst case) to turn his son into a miserable, lonely, nonsexual psychological eunuch, but there is no cure for Teh Gay. It’s not a virus. It’s a trait people are born with.