I think that was meant to read category (4)? Anyway, your meaning is clear.
Another thing. Using fear to try to modify behaviour in dogs is known not to work. All dog training now is positive reinforcement. For anybody to suggest using it on PEOPLE, to basically torture them into “changing” is inhumane on top of being unnecessary and ineffective. You wouldn’t do it to a DOG.
Yes, sorry about that, messed up the whole point.
No, it didn’t, because you went into further explanation which made it clear. I’m just a “go back and look at the reference” type.
Not at all. By the way I’m not avoiding replying to you, so much as mulling it over. I sorta half agree, half-disagree and I’m none to certain which half is the more rational one ;).
You make a good argument, but it may be your claim that the damage being psychological is irrelevant is part of my hangup( and I expect that might be the more irrational part of this on my part ). After all what might cause suicidal ideation in one person might well cause only mild cognitive dissonance in another. Also you kinda dismiss indirect damage but if we are going to allow some poor moron to treat their malaria with homeopathy, what really is the difference? Plasmodium falciparum cares nothing about the placebo effect.
Well, just thinking aloud mostly. I dislike restricting individual agency for adults, but if I agree there is a line ( do I? ), I’m not 100% sure where to draw it.
But there’s always variance among patients, that’s not unique to psychological effects. There’s random variance among patients in the physical harm caused by drugs too. We assess both drugs and talking therapies based on the statistics - expected efficacy vs expected harm.
Typically someone’s “life partner” would be someone that they love and may want a (real) sexual relationship.
I think you’re being disingenuous.
Lou Reed was definitely given ECT, and he believed it was because of his gay urges, although his sister stated otherwise. Whatever the reason, it does sound like the doctor was behind it more than the parents.
Back before I got married, my girlfriend’s daughter used to complain with excessive frequency, “That’s not fair!”
We worked very hard to explain to her that “Fair” doesn’t mean “advantageous to Jenny” but, rather “equally advantageous (and disadvantageous) to everyone involved.” I suspect that, even today, she still doesn’t comprehend the nuance.
In a similar vein, it seems political Christians interpret a loss-of-support for historically Christian advantages and ideals as an attack on Christianity as a whole. Telling them they can’t engage in “re-education” efforts in support of their dichotomous concept of gender/sex/sexuality is an attack on a facet of their faith. As with any slippery slope argument, they predict “Next their will be…” legalization of something like cannibalism or bombing churches.
Please help me if I’m relatively uninformed about this but the bits and pieces I’ve read about on this issue make it seem like the Gay Conversion Therapy industry is exclusively a Christian industry, based on Saul/Paul’s anti-gay interpretations of Christian literature. Is this correct, or are there GCT facilities run by Hindus or atheists as well?
So if Jeff, a devout Zoroastrian, went in to a GCT facility with the earnest intention of changing his sexual preference, would he have to convert to Christianity (and learn all that from scratch) in order to accept the basic idea that there’s a single omniscient omnipotent infallible God who is offended by Jeff’s confused libido?
This reminds me of the 1800’s efforts by benevolent Christians to send missionaries to Indian reservations and/or pull children off the reservations and have them adopted by White families. Their rationale was that it wasn’t that the heathens were inherently bad, they just needed to become Christian. Then everything would be okay. :dubious:
My point is that a law that forbids forcing adherence to mores and values that are Christianity-based is not a law designed to attack Christianity. It’s a law made to recognize that there are views, values, and religions in this world that might not conform to Christian ideology but are, nevertheless, equally valid views, values, and religions. Christians might consider it an attack on their religion because it could ultimately reduce Christianity’s dominance over politics and society, but that’s very much like a four-year-old saying a loss of personal advantage is a reduction in fairness to the world.
–G!
Open up the gates of the church
and let me outta here
Too many
people have lied
in the name of Christ
For anyone to heed the call
[COLOR=“White”]…–Stephen Stills (CSN)
…Cathedral[/COLOR]
I’m guessing there are no Hindu GCT centers*. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some run by Orthodox Jews. In fact, the only reason I doubt is that Orthodox leaders generally refuse to admit there are gay Jews, and Orthodox families refuse to admit they have gay relatives.
LOL – Insurance companies hire people who specialize in finding rationales to deny coverage for actual medical treatment; why on earth would they cover woo-woo nonsense?
This, we don’t need. I am ashamed but not surpised.
My insurer covers woo nonsense. 
(It’s different down here, private insurance is sort of optional, they try to get people to take it up, and covering nonsense can be attractive)
Sadly, your guess would be wrong, at least if you are willing to accept “formal medicalized programs of ‘gay conversion’ treatment” as falling into the category of “GCT centers”.
Short version: Wrong, sorry. Despite some ancient traditions in Indian culture reflecting some degree of acceptance of “third sex”, homosexual, and other non-cishet-binary identities, there is a very large amount of institutionalized homophobia in modern Indian society. Though to be fair, some progress is being made in social attitudes.
I’m confused, but mostly sad and horrified.
It is complicated. But just as the widespread acceptance of certain types of same-sex sexual activity in classical antiquity doesn’t prevent entrenched homophobia in the societies of modern Italy and Greece, the presence of “hijras” and some other non-cishet-binary categories in pre-modern Indian traditions doesn’t automatically result in gay-friendliness in modern Indian culture.
Nicely done!
I’ve not heard of any conversion therapy that didn’t have a religious antagonist. It preaches how awesome and God-worthy being opposite sex married and going forth to flourish is, and how evil and selfish and disease ridden the same sex life is. Presumably, anyone seeking therapy would have to accept that they and their desires are an abomination and will bring them an eternity of damnation.
A few are noted in this decade-old thread. But I think the best response to “are there non-religious gay conversion initiatives” is this:
“Gay Conversion Therapy” is based on the assumption that being gay is an emotional disorder and perversion, not a natural state of being from birth. Homophobics constantly hammer on the belief that homosexuality is a “choice”, which is absurd. As a heterosexual, I realize that I couldn’t suddenly “choose” to be a lesbian, so why in the world would I believe the opposite scenario to be true?