Sponsoring legislation endorsed by the gay lobby to ensure that children only receive gay-affirming therapy is an act of childhood endangerment and an unconstitutional attempt to deny parental rights everywhere, but especially for parents in California and those in your Torrance district. Your bill will turn California into a nanny state by usurping the civil rights of parents who support their child’s right to receive therapy for unwanted same-sex attractions, especially when that child has been sexually molested. This smacks of fascism and ex-gay bashing. […]
You endanger youth by denying their right to receive therapeutic help, promoting homosexual behavior to sexually confused youth, and conveniently ignoring the facts about the psychological and physical health risks of sodomy. By your comments, it appears you lack credible knowledge about changeable sexual preference and that you have obtained biased information without consulting the ex-gay community.”
— PFOX, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (their affinity to “Gays” is dubious at best) in a statement against a California bill to protect children from the harms of ex-gay therapy, from ThinkProgress
Photo: PFOX.org
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Ogre Magi
Why is ex-gay an identity? Wouldn’t they just be straight?
Daez
Where exactly does this knowledge come from when EVERY SINGLE MAJOR psychiatric and medical organization not only, rightfully so, point out that ex-gay therapy not only does not work but can do serious harm to the mental health of a person that is attempting such treatment.
Obviously, it does not come from the programs themselves since even Exodus International has admitted it can not “cure” homosexuality.
These self-loathing closet queens need to realize that it is 2012 not 1960 and if you are a truly upstanding person no one really cares who you sleep with.
Atlas
@Ogre Magi: Because you can’t actually change you sexual orientation. You can just be celibate.
Steve
If the homosexual in question wants to willingly seek therapeutic help to rid themselves of their unwanted attractions, then by all means they have that right.
Unfortunately, I find it hard to give that right over to their parents who shouldn’t be able to control and decide every part of their child’s life.
And even then, you have the issue that conversion therapy has been smacked down by every respectable professional mental health association.
I have to wonder how many ex-gays are ex-gay because of their own free will separate from their parents, society, or religious influences.
Daez
@Steve: If the drug addict in question wants to willingly seek therapeutic drugs to rid themselves of their unwanted clear and unaltered mental state, then by all means they have that right.
–There is a great amount of legal precedence already set regarding the outlawing of controversial practices when they are deemed harmful to a person that is seen as unable to decipher that harm.
Also, I do not think anyone is really ex-gay of their own choosing. They are ex-gay because they are unable to resist the forces that are negatively affecting them. Their friends and family tell them they are worthless and wrong and they believe it. They are to weak to resist, so they go along with what they are told instead of telling people to fuck off if they do not like them how they are.
LittIe,Kiwi
isn’t it amazing that Jesus cares enough to, apparently, answer the prayers of resentful-homosexuals to make them crave pussy but doesn’t care enough about war, famine, starvation around the planet and children dying of cancers to answer their prayers?
LittIe,Kiwi
http://littlekiwilovesbauhaus.blogspot.ca/2011/06/ex-gay-confessionsliesapologies.html
check it out.
Daez
@LittIe,Kiwi: Thank you for sharing. I feel such sympathy for this young man. I spent 10 years in this position. It was not a great place to be. I was celibate for 10 years of my life (from 21 to 31) because I believe the lies others told me. Its very painful, still, to admit that.
Eventually, I realized that I had to chose between homosexuality and religion. Since I was born gay, the choice became more and more obvious…now I’m an atheist, in a healthy and happy relationship, and my life has NEVER been better.
El Guapo
There is no such thing as an ex-gay. As an ex-ex-gay I know this to be true. I did this because my church said I was ex-gay. I changed my behavior and everyone was happy except me. I wasted my 20’s and 30’s trying to please others. Just like Daez No. 8 I am now an atheist as well.
Richard Ford
Re “the psychological and physical health risks of sodomy”: anal intercourse is engaged in more times every day by opposite-sex couples than by same-sex couples. These are raw numbers (and yes, I know, raw asses).
David Norris
@Ogre Magi: Even the self-loathing Alan Chambers of Exodus International has admitted that he’s never met a gay or lesbian who successfully “changed” his or her orientation. Ex-gay is synonymous with Stockholm syndrome, tantamount to burying yourself alive and pretending that there’s plenty of oxygen six feet below ground.
Shadeaux
They just want to be in the news. No one is thinking about them. We have too much to worry about than to worry about a person in the closet, who came out the closet to seek therapy and help to go back in the closet. We’re too busy trying to get rid of DOMA, get marriage right, fight religious (sinners) Opps… I mean LEADERS, and elect officials who will help us obtain what is our due. Just an FYI to “them”.., “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he…” Proverbs 23:7. Thinketh about that.
cam
So once again, Queerty doesn’t bother to write about gay marriage gaining ground in MD. or about the bill itself in question. But rather Queerty runs a P.R. statement from the anti-gay Ex Gay group.
Seriously, did people who hate gays buy this site?
JON
One who has become an “ex-gay” is really only switching the type of plumbing they prefer.
Hyhybt
Parents, no matter their beliefs, are not allowed to refuse emergency blood transfusions for their children. Why, then, should they be allowed to put them in conversion therapy, regardless of who is doing it?
David Norris
@JON: It’s not a matter of changing “preference.” I don’t prefer my boyfriend over a woman. I have no desire for women. To be “ex-gay” is to attempt to bury that desire so deeply that you can “learn” sexual attraction towards women by “praying away” the gay. A person isn’t changing anything. It’s basic Stockholm syndrome.
David Norris
@JON: Oops – I meant to say that to be “ex-gay” is to attempt to “learn” to be sexually attracted to someone of the opposite sex. All a person is doing is aping heterosexuals in an effort to be heterosexual. That’s the worst and saddest kind of poser there is.
Dennis Velco
Thanks for this article and your reporting. What you do is appreciated.
I posted it to my LGBT Group on LinkedIn to spur members to read your article and to make comment. I also scooped it at Scoop.It on my LGBT Times news mashup.
Link to group >> http://www.linkedin.com/groups/LGBT-Gay-GLBT-Professional-Network-63687/about
All LGBT+ and community allies…. please come join me and 15,000+ of your soon to be great connections on LinkedIn. The member base represents 80% of the world’s countries. As well as the down stream in my LInkedIn personal connections that reach over 24 million potential live stream viewers on LinkedIn alone.
The group is strictly professional office friendly dialog, posting and profiles / profile images. I’ve been told by many that it may well be one of the best run / managed groups on LinkedIn.
You can be as out or private as you like and I provide instructions on how to set those preferences (In the Manager’s Choice area).
It’s core value is – Visibility can lead to awareness which can lead to equality. Come stand with us and increase our visibility on the globe’s largest professional networking site. Be a professional who just happens to be LGBT – or a welcomed community ally.
Dennis Velco
Interesting article… Thanks for this article and your reporting. What you do is appreciated.
I posted it to my LGBT Group on LinkedIn to spur members to read your article and to make comment. I also scooped it at Scoop.It on my LGBT Times news mashup.
Link to group >> http://www.linkedin.com/groups/LGBT-Gay-GLBT-Professional-Network-63687/about
The group is strictly professional office friendly dialog, posting and profiles / profile images. I’ve been told by many that it may well be one of the best run / managed groups on LinkedIn.
You can be as out or private as you like and I provide instructions on how to set those preferences (In the Manager’s Choice area).
All LGBT+ and community allies…. please come join me and 15,000+ of your soon to be great connections on LinkedIn. The member base represents 80% of the world’s countries. As well as the down stream in my LInkedIn personal connections that reach over 24 million potential live stream viewers on LinkedIn alone.
It’s core value is – Visibility can lead to awareness which can lead to equality. Come stand with us and increase our visibility on the globe’s largest professional networking site. Be a professional who just happens to be LGBT – or a welcomed community ally.
RevJames
Who wrote this? Jonathan Merritt, Haggart, one of the myriad closet cases who think they lock the door forever with public pontifications of hatred disguised as religious opinion?
John
@LittIe,Kiwi: wow, well said. It’s such a ego thing. “God cares about my sexuality”- YEAH RIGHT!
Jorval
This is more about money than anything else. Those places make tons “helping” insecure messed up people. They slap on their religious crap to mask it and their motives, but it’s really not about helping anyone but their own pockets.
Hephaestion
“Ex-Gay” does not exist. They are liars. So of course we ridicule them.
B
No. 1 · Ogre Magi wrote, “Why is ex-gay an identity? Wouldn’t they just be straight?”
Being an ex gay is like having a pencil balanced on its point. Eventually the inevitable will happen and the pencil will fall over. The ex gay will similarly become an ex ex gay.
It’s almost a law of nature, the only stable states in this case are the ones with an even number of “ex” modifiers.
PTBoat
Um, I don’t think that gay people can be accused of bashing or bullying ex gay people any more than they could of the same behavior against Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny; none of them exists.
Alex
I agree if the child wanted to do it then by all means. Which isn’t likely. But since children don’t have a voice their parents speak for them it would cause so much abuse. When I came out my parents took my to a therapist and asked for a pill to fix me. I had no say in it. He told them to gtfo and pay his receptionist and that homosexuality wasn’t a mental disorder fortunately for me up until they disowned me for it.
Biting Truth
Misguided though it may be, I really can’t fault them for trying.
Cam
Since even most “Ex Gay” groups have admitted that conversion therepy doesn’t work can we actually start calling them by a more accurate name?
Something like “Closet Cases who hate themselves” will do nicely.
FunMe
@Cam: Perfect! “Closet cases who hate themselves”
Kirk
There is only one way I could be convinced that an “ex-gay” actually exists. Show me your computer hard drive! No doubt the “ex’s” go places an “ex” should no longer have an interest in….Prove to me just one is “clean”
franxp
I can believe that before a guy didn’t like the women and later suddenly he feels sexual attraction for women but I don’t believe that his sexual attraction for men can disappear, it is impossible.
Besides, if we are talking about honest changes, I think a change since gay till straight sexual orientation (if anything, it would be rather a bisex orientation with a straight sexual preference) is impossible. The gay people suffer a lot, growing in a hostile world (reject, discrimination, lonely feelings…) but despite it, we have not resigned our honest feelings, so we are quite clear about our feelings. However, I can believe a heterosexual guy can experience gay feelings later, because these feelings could not appear until he was prepared for facing it.
But the gay guys do not repress any straight feelings; this was clarified during our hard growth in this hostile context. The desertions happen previously but not when the guy is adult, and anyway this deserters are repressing a feelings that sooner or later it will appear (in a positive way: acceptance; or in a negative way: more repression and more suffering).
KARUADAM
@Hephaestion: What is Ex gay? I wish we had Ex Christian, motherfuckers. I am HOMO and have six children they know I am HOMO and I am happy.
KARUADAM
VIVA GAYSUALITY..
brad
@Steve: They have every right, but that does not mean I have to agree with it. Personally, I think being an “ex-gay” is ludicrous and unbelievable.
LadyL
There’s also the thought that some “ex-gays” were never actually gay to begin with but deeply unhappy straight people with serious and complicated relationship issues (i.e., a woman who’s been repeatedly scarred by the men in her life taking refuge in a series of same-sex relationships).
Bobby
Don’t we have laws against therapies and surgeries proven to do harm with no benefit? So it may not actually be a matter of everyone having a choice of going to therapy; if we can prove it’s psychologically damaging, can’t we make it illegal much like electroshock therapy or lobotomies for homosexuals?
David Norris
@Bobby: You’d think. But because religious groups scream persecution if anyone interferes with their torture of innocent people in the name of (you guessed it) God, the government backs away and let’s them brutalize people for the purpose of turning them “straight.” (It’s the same with groups like the Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses refusing blood transfusions for themselves and their children, even if it means death.)
Never mind if someone gets depressed. They just need to read their Bible and pray more. Never mind if they still have “thoughts” about someone of the same sex. More Bible reading and Jesus! If they succumb to temptation then they didn’t try hard enough. If they commit suicide out of despair over their lack of “change,” they gave up (and it’s one less fag in the world to seduce the children).
tazz602
Ok – give me a second, if you claim to be “ex-gay” – then either you shed your sin and you are now straight, which means you need no protections – OR – you are admitting you were born gay and now have abandoned your natural sexual identity and are now ex-gay and need protections just like gay people do.
I have been thru several “ex-gay” ministries in my years of fighting with my natural desires and ALL – Every Single Person I have ever met at any of these ex-gay ministries have eventually come back out and are living a gay lifestyle, either openly or in secret. It’s a lie – all of it. But of course we know that.
jack512
There is no such thing as an Ex-Gay. Sit any of those who claim to be “cured” of their gayness down and have them view some gay porn – then check the size of their erections.
Dumdum
Being ex-Gay is like Michael Jackson being ex-Black. A leopard cannot change it’s spots.