Yeah… where are Sydney Bristow and Vaughan when we need them?
Cecil’s Corps of Commandos: Saving you from Salvation since '73
(I mean no disrespect to respectable Christians who believe in salvation through Jesus or his teachings. I mean tremendous disrespect to the people who think such salvation takes the form of ex-gay camps.)
I’ve been wondering what would happen if he, or any of the other gay teenagers being forced into that bullshit program, ran away. Would he be allowed to stay away from his family, or would the law require that he be returned to them if they wanted it because he wasn’t in physical danger?
Some jurisdictions have a mechanism which allows a minor child to petition the court for emancipation. I have no idea whether this is a workable option for the young man in the OP.
No, I’m thinking commando-style. We go in silently, like ninjas, using agents on the inside. We take over the camp.
When the next load of fucktards calls the camp up, we show up in our stolen uniforms and vans, tazer them into unconsciousness, and bring them back to the camp, where they can be properly educated. We can also bring along the kids, for family counseling and the like.
Who’s with me?
Are you really comparing sending your kid to a dumbass camp to molesting a child or murdering someone? That’s a really stupid comparison to make. Here’s the definition of evil.
1 a : morally reprehensible : SINFUL, WICKED <an evil impulse> b : arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct <a man of evil reputation>
Is sending your kid to this camp morally reprehensible? Maybe. If your moral code (like many Americans and others around the world) is based on the Bible, then such actions are probably not morally wrong.
Is sending your kid to this camp a decision which arose from bad character or conduct? Maybe. We don’t know these people so it’s really hard to tell. All I’m saying is that evil is a stretch. Why do people have to demonize others when being wrong is more than enough? We don’t know anything about these people, and we don’t know their motivations.
Also, if I can play devil’s advocate for a minute, what if the camp works? I know they have terrible success rates, but what if this turns out to be good for him? These camps must work for some people.
A lot of me hopes that the kid just does what I think I would do - simply state clearly that he has no intention of cooperation, and then systematically break every rule he can. Except I wonder what his parents would do. I’m glad that - from his blog entries at least - it sounds like he is not confused but has an identity which is firm, and as creepy as this place is, it’s a two-week day camp. And it doesn’t involve physical torture like some of these programs do. He’ll get through it. But I doubt he’ll ever have a decent relationship with his parents. I hope he has a supportive network of friends in real life, because obviously he’s not going to get any help in his future from his parents. I suppose the best we can say is that they didn’t just kick him out of the house - that’s not uncommon with this kind of people.
Reread Liberal’s posts in this thread.
Oh, forgot to mention: not in most cases. Many of them claim ridiculous success rates - 90 or 95% sometimes, which is facially ridiculous when you consider the success of drug treatment and other similar programs. In most cases, these “successful” programs have very few “clients” who complete the program - 20% is a figure I’ve seen tossed around - and success is usually conveniently defined to include celibacy.
So, no, there’s no chance that the program will be successful. Forgive me, but is this just an attempt to rationalize the parents’ actions? Or are you ignorant of the nature of these programs (and, for that matter, of human sexuality)?
I like your thinking, robertliguori, but sooner or later, it’ll fall apart.
Instead, set up your own camp, charge slightly lower rates, and work up some seriously “stricter than thou” literature. That ought to bring the intollerent and ignorant in by the truckloads… And once the 'rents roll away, secure in the knowlege that Jr. is being brainwashed in the best oppression money can buy, that’s when the party starts!
I figure after about six months of serious socializing & relaxing with like-oriented fellow ‘inmates,’ supervised by tollerant and caring staff, you can send the kids out into the world happy and well adusted. If the 'rents complain that ‘Johnny has gone gay’ again… Well, bring the kid in for a repeat session! You could run the ‘deprogramming’ party practically forever, and the parents would thank (and pay) you for the privilege!
They work for the parents, because they remove the sinful child from the judgemental eyes of the community, so people won’t talk about what bad, unchristian parents they must be.
And it’s not just homosexuality for which they do that, either. I know of places in the US where they still send pregnant teenagers, so that their ‘condition’ might be hidden from society.
:mad:
I realize that they lie about their success rate, but I think we can both agree that is above 0%. If a person goes in, and comes out as a heterosexual functioning person, then the program was a success in their eyes. Surely this happens to some people. How do you figure I’m ignorant of these programs or human sexuality?
Please define “functioning.” Do you mean having heterosexual sex? Or “emotionally, mentally and physically well adjusted human being”?
brickbacon, I am trying to get where you are coming from, and am just having a difficult time. To be honest, your post here is sort of a perfect example of something that has been annoying me for some time now.
See, to me there is really no gray area here. Either you believe that doing this is OK, or you believe that it is a form of Child abuse. When I see posts like yours that are nit-picking because you don’t like the fact that someone called this evil., I can not help but think that what is really going on is that you actually agree with what the parents are doing, but don’t quite have the sack to come out and state your position with clarity.
There is also Biblical support for beating children, yet I doubt that we would see this sort of pedantic nit-picking if the thread were about Fundamentalists that were beating their kids.
I will state, so that there is no misunderstanding, that I believe it to be true that a person’s sexual identity is a fundamental and inherent part of who they are as a human. I will further state that sending a child off to have that fundamental part of their being squashed is nothing less than a form of child abuse, and that (surprise!) I think that child abuse is evil.
I get that their intent is good, and that they are trying to lead their son to salvation. That fails to prevent the results of their actions from being evil.
None of this is to deny that evil is on a spectrum. That, in other words, some acts of evil are more evil than others. This is why your post is so bizarre to me. It is like if I started a thread complaining someone stealing from me, and calling that person evil and you piping in all scandalized that I am calling that evil because the Nazis used to steel the gold from people’s teeth in Auschwitz.
There’s no evidence to support your assertion, not that I’ve ever heard, anyway.
Two of the most prominent founders of the ex-gay movement went ex-ex-gay. Together.
Furthermore, this young man is clearly fine with who he is - if an adult wishes to change, and voluntarily enters such a program, well, it’s their perogative. If you believe it would be okay if it worked, for a parent to get their teenage son’s sexuality altered to suit their own needs, then I don’t know what to say. That’s a sick attitude. However, there’s no evidence that anyone has ever been ‘converted’ by these programs, and again - you don’t understand much about human sexuality if you doubt that.
This is a hot issue. I discussed it with an acquaintance earlier who is a christian. I made the mistake of saying something like they were born that way, didn’t choose it. Now I have been told I have permanently commited the unforgivable sin and have no chance at Heaven. Woooo.
I thought God was all about forgiveness. What’s the unforgivable sin? Advocating GLBT rights? I simply can’t remember where in the Bible it says that.
brickbacon, it’s statements like:
“These camps must work for some people.”
that make it appear you don’t quite get it when it comes to human sexuality.
If I were whisked away to a camp and converted to homosexuality, it didn’t “work.” It’s simply a human abomination. One doesn’t just reverse one’s natural sexual orientation. Not for real, and not for long.
The Book of Good Farming 72:11
And the good Fishermen said unto the gathered bleating sheep: Yea, it is easier Anal Bead of Unusual Girth® pass through the sphincter of an oxen than it is for an advocate of equal rights to enter the kingdom of Og.