Psychiatrists Warn Church of England to Reject Reparative Therapy
A report recently presented to Anglicans in the UK has warned that therapy to change sexual orientation is based on unproven methods and can cause severe damage.
In its submission to the Church of England’s Listening Exercise on Human Sexuality, the Royal College of Psychiatrists wrote that therapists who attribute their clients’ mental health problems to their sexuality are likely to cause “considerable distress.” The report went on to say:
A small minority of therapists will even go so far as to attempt to change their client’s sexual orientation. This can be deeply damaging. Although there is now a number of therapists and organisation in the USA and in the UK that claim that therapy can help homosexuals to become heterosexual, there is no evidence that such change is possible. The best evidence for efficacy of any treatment comes from randomised clinical trials and no such trial has been carried out in this field.
No mention is made of the recent Jones and Yarhouse study, which also falls short of a full, randomized clinical trial.
The report, which also addresses the nature of gay and lesbian relationships, the origins of homosexuality, and the mental health of gay men and women, concludes by urging Anglicans to accept gays and lesbians fully into the life of the Church:
[There] is no scientific or rational reason for treating LGB people any differently to their heterosexual counterparts. People are happiest and are likely to reach their potential when they are able to integrate the various aspects of the self as fully as possible. Socially inclusive, nonjudgemental attitudes to LGB people who attend places of worship or who are religious leaders themselves will have positive consequences for LGB people as well as for the wider society in which they live.
But will the Church listen?
Tip of the hat to regular XGW commenter Jimbo.
Filed under: Change, Religion, Therapy
Excellent paper from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, clearly stated with appropriate references.
On the Charisma online forum where I post, J. Lee Grady has criticized the Episcopal Church for its acceptance of gays in the post There is Weeping in the Cathedral.
Some of the posters there are from England. When I mention that the American Psychiatric Association considers attempts to change one’s sexual orientation unethical, (section 1-GG) and the American Psychological Association says the same thing, they still maintain that “casting out the demon of homosexuality” through exorcism will turn a gay person straight.
While this RC statement wouldn’t change their minds, of course, at least it adds an English perspective to the American debate.
Thanks for presenting this information.
I seriously doubt the C of E will adopt an inclusive position on this. Homosexuality and the culture wars are raging there, just like in the Episcopal Church USA and Anglican Church of Canada though the C of E won’t schism because it is the State church.
And given that the demographics of the church are changing, where liberal whites are leaving and more conservative immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean are the growing presence, the C of E is likely to adopt more conservative positions on sexuality in the future.
Of course, in a number of cases forms of reparative therapy *do* work, so we are left asking “Why have the psychiatrists ignored this”?
Well, that’s their point, isn’t it? That no sufficient scientific evidence does exist, so there’s no “of course” about that “number of cases”.
And with all due respect to your personal choices (and I mean that - I really do respect your choices, your marriage, and wish you the best with the little “Baruch”), even your own story, which you hold up as evidence of change, doesn’t really convince (as we discussed not that long ago on here). For instance, you have alluded a few times to homosexual desires/temptations returning during times of stress or weakness. To me (to most of us, I expect), it sounds like the homosexuality hasn’t gone at all - it’s simply being controlled and ordered in a different way, perhaps, but it’s still fundamentally there. In fact, it sounds remarkably like my own experience when I was convinced I couldn’t be a Christian and gay.
Dave R,
Your critique of my story rests in an bi-polar assumption of sexuality that misses the Biblical perspective that gay/straight (and the continuum between those two points) are not prescriptive descriptors of humanity. That’s perhaps why there is so much conflict in this debate - so many people are working on assumptions about the prescriptiveness of one’s position along this continuum, whereas a Christian perspective rejects this humanistic anthropology.
If a drug addict doesn’t inject for 20 years, but still recognises when he is tired that he is tempted to shoot up, is he still a drug addict?
It seems to me we’re talking about the same object (”homosexuality”), but different interpretations. The problem is that when ex-gays describe the ex-gay process of change, they claim that the object has changed, when in fact it’s their interpretation/response that has changed. That is certainly what comes through strongly to me when I read your (and others’) stories. The basic object is still sitting there somewhere inside of you, but your relation to it has changed.
When ex-gays, then, talk about “change”, they’re taking advantage of that semantic gap. Most people in the western world, when they talk about “change” in this context, are referring to the object - a basic sexual attraction or proclivity towards the same sex. Whether they’re right in their interpretation of what that means for the individual is beside the point.
As for the drug addiction analogy, let’s be more specific and talk about alcohol.
Now, I hardly ever drink. I’ve never been drunk. I have never felt the temptation to get drunk. You could put me in front of a free bar all night, or leave me alone with a crate of spirits, and there’s just no realistic possibility I’m going to want or try to get drunk. Even if I had a glass, I would - and it would stop right there.
But say there’s a man who 20 years ago was an alcoholic. He hasn’t had a drink in those 20 years. But he can’t be put alone with the drink like I can. He can’t put himself in front of a bar in the same way. And he certainly can’t have a glass and stop at that one glass. Why? Because he still has that basic proclivity to abuse alcohol. He may not call himself an alcoholic, but it’s clearly there. He may identify himself differently, and he may stand in a different relation to that proclivity from how he stood 20 years ago, but the basic propensity is still there.
Oh, “C of E”…. and “homosexuality”… … and up pops Peter O.
An Eskimo couldn’t wish for a more inviting ice-hole, or a more willing seal.
Peter — please name who these ’successful’ cases are. Who has deliberately altered their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual through reparative therapy? That’s a wild claim, and you are expected to provide the evidence. Here.
(you don’t count. For the most obvious of reasons. Evidence for this “Christian perspective” that “rejects this humanistic anthropology” wouldn’t go astray either.)
In answer to the addiction question — as AA will tell you, “once an addict, always an addict’. This is why their people say “I’ve been sober for X years, and I’m an alcoholic”.
(which is what I think Dave R was getting at. )
Apart from that, homosexuality isn’t an addiction. Your reference (qed: direct comparison) to drug addiction is tasteless, baseless, rude, and a false analogy. As you already well know.
gd,
Why don’t I count? My sexual orientation and preferences are certainly nowhere where they were a decade ago. Do I not count because my self-reporting isn’t acceptable to your already predetermined assessment of the likelihood of orientation change?
The analogy to drug taking (or alcoholism) is highly useful when we’re discussing what “leaving homosexuality” or “post-gay” actually means. You want it to mean “isn’t attracted to men anymore”. I take it to mean “isn’t controlled by attraction to men anymore”. That’s a crucial difference and you need to recognise it.
Comparing human sexuality and desire for companionship with a destructive behavior is also a strawman. Take something benign (and universal in this case), equate it with something malicious, and then condemn them both the same. It could be done to make anything look bad.
You can count all you want, you’re just not in a position to speak for anyone else.
Then call yourself a recovering homoholic, so we all understand that your attraction to men was so raging and out of control that your life had become unmanageable.
Emp,
I’m not using it to show that homosexuality is “bad”. Rather I’m using it to demonstrate a different way to look at what “post-gay” / “ex-gay” might mean rather than the limited “now you’re straight” understanding which mis-understands the actual experience of those who also find that reparative forms of therapy work to a greater or lesser extent.
“isn’t controlled by attraction to men anymore”
Good grief, your language is dripping with animosity toward your own orientation. I’m not “controlled by attraction to men” either but I’m most certainly gay. It’s the same with gay or straight, Peter; morality is not restricted to the heterosexual population. You can be a wild and crazy straight guy (or girl), as spring break, Mardi Gras, swingers clubs, and the average stroll through a mall (just to name a very few) will demonstrate.
If you want to live like a straight man, more power to you. But don’t wrap up the experience and sell it as change the way the rest of the world would define it. That is what sets others out on painful struggles for impossible goals. It’s not your experiences that cause others pain, it’s the way you sell them. I don’t know how else to describe that other than dishonest.
As Dave said: “It’s not your experiences that cause others pain, it’s the way you sell them.”
The prefixes “post” and “ex” are definitive descriptors, and do not communicate a perpetual state of resistence to something. If you don’t want to have to explain your personal redefinition of those prefixes, don’t use them.
[…] 4, 2007 at 9:54 pm (General) Psychiatrists Warn Church of England to Reject Ex-Gay Therapy (22 November […]
David,
Your reply to me demonstrates exactly what I’m saying. Your reference to “your orientation” shows that you’re not engaging with what I’m saying. You see sexual orientation as something determinative and prescriptive. I, and many others, do not and that is the gulf that needs to be bridged. Despite anything I say or write, you keep bringing it back to “but are you still gay?” and in doing so you miss the whole point that it’s not about being gay, straight or anywhere in-between.
I remember a time in my life when I simply could not conceive of not being homosexual. To try and identify as something else would have be like stepping out into a void, not even knowing if there was anything beneath my feet. And then one day it simply clicked - gay and straight and that whole bi-polar spectrum was simply an entirely inadequate anthropology and it wasn’t even vaguely Biblical. That’s the moment when I became “post-gay” and chose to leave those labels behind and live as the “man” that the Bible described me as, not as the “gay” or “straight” or anything in-between man that you and others here seem so keen to pigeon-hole every single person as despite the fact you can’t qualify it biologically or genetically in any way (as you can white/black, male/female).
So, you and others will continue to label me as “a repressed homosexual”. You will pour scorn on my tale of transformation because it fundamentally challenges your socially acceptable but non-biologically demonstrable anthropology. Perhaps one day you will realise that saying that I “want to live as a straight man” completely misses what I have been batting on about here and my website, and at that point we can finally have a proper conversation where you take me seriously, not continue to mis-hear and mis-represent.
I see… then how do they know “This can be deeply damaging”?
Peter, as David said, you continue to falsely portray the views of others regarding homosexuality.
Who said sexual orientation is determinative and prescriptive — besides you? Who is controlled by their sexual identity — besides you?
I confess that your projection of your own issues onto others grows tiresome for me at times.
I find the employment of “identity” or “behaviour” as unhelpful. I’ll use our favourite alcoholic analogy, though not as a parallel for homosexuality.
Let’s say I attend AA meetings.
Let’s say I publically declare myself to be a recovering alcoholic.
Let’s say that I sometimes have a drink with a meal and then declare that I’ve slipped up.
So, I identify as a recovering alcoholic. I engage in behaviours of recovering alcoholics (attending meetings). I even feel guilt when I “backslide” by having a drink with a meal.
Yet, guess what? I was never alcoholic to begin with. I was never addicted to the stuff and it never interfered with my life. In no clinical or colloquial definition was I alcoholic. My “biology” never changed.
So, my point, if you wish to say you see yourself in a new way that doesn’t employ the terms used in society, then that’s great. Congrats. But don’t go around using those terms that society defines in another way to make people think something that isn’t true.
Changing your identification or behaviour does not change your underlying biological impulses. To knowingly lead people to think otherwise is not socially responsible in my mind.
Mike,
I was not the one who used the words “your orientation”. Dave was. To talk of “your orientation” is using gay/straight as descriptive and in context it was prescriptive as well. If Dave R didn’t think that being same-sex attracted was a determinative descriptor, why in any way would he assume it was my orientation.
It seems as though you are also stuck in this bi-polar model.
Peter O said:
I understand what you are saying, I simply don’t agree. And I find your private definitions for terms commonly known by other meanings to be dishonest. That has no bearing on how you live your life; we will only cross on this when you try to sell it to others as something it is not.
The rest of what you said has virtually nothing to do with any of my comments.
Peter O, thats what I keep telling my friend,” I am gay, but If i find it in myself to love and have a family with a girl, I will”. THen she answers, “don’t do that, you wouldnt give yourself to that person as entirely as if you weren’t gay”. My only answer to that question is, “i don’t know”, ex-gay ppl are the first thing that pop into mind and I come back to the first initial thoughts(that is, if i find it in myself to love and have a family with a girl, I will). If they can do it, maybe so can I.
I think I understand your point Peter O., but I see another side which you either cant or dont want to see or simply goes against ‘Love’, I think that if two men want to love, live together happily ever after and also want to form a family, they should and be respected for it.
Loving a SS person is VERY hard to merge with society and quite distressful where I live, so believing in the first paragraph gives me hope that I can forever enjoy a family without being with a man, and without the hassle that comes with loving a SS.
As for the term ex-gay…
First, I still find ex-gay to be a deceitful term cause it would really be a straight acting gay(ex-gay sounds more fanciful tho). Secondly i dont see how being a straight acting gay bars you from being gay.
I just have a beggin request to all the ‘ex-gays’, plz stop condemning gays that can find it in themselves the love and courage to cherish and stand up to social standards. Not everyone wants do it, and like me… I’d prefer to live up to social standards then have to go through all the hassle that being with some man comes with. Does it bother, sadden, disappoint and at times, depress me? yes. Do I think society is right? No, loving someONE is a BEAUTIFUL thing, not something to be ashamed of. Is this world perfect? No. Would I fight to be with and love a man if accidentaly or coincidantly it would happen? probably even though it initially wouldnt seem like it.
Is being gay an obstacle to love a woman and live up to social/religious standards? I dont think so. Is uniting orientation with love the best option for someone? Quite evidently not for ex-gays and their allies; and quite true for the rest and their allies.
And last but not least, if a straight acting gay exists, then so can gay acting straights…. I’ve heard of the straight women that get so tired of men that end up not lesbians, but in sexual activity with women and even end up living together(gay acting straights come to mind). Then theres the belief that sexuality is fluid, conscribed but not determinative.
K.. ill stop now, hopefully this made some sense.
David (and Mike and others),
If you self-identify as “gay” then a huge part of your identity, conscious or subconscious, is wound up in defending a bi-polar sexual orientation anthropology. That’s why you find it so hard to move beyond it (and it’s also the reason for me sharing that part of my story in the second paragraph of what you thought was unrelated to your comments). You and others on this thread will continue to move back to this bi-polar model and make it determinative because to admit otherwise would injure the paradigm of prescriptive gay/straight orientation that you need to support your life-style choices.
The real Peter comes to the surface. Tell me again, who is the one using a bag full of pseudo-clinical terms to defend their “life-style choices”? You really do project yourself heavily onto these debates. It’s astonishing that you don’t see that.
Live your life as you see fit, Peter, but don’t freak out when someone calls you on deceptions, even self-deceptions, if you try to sell it to others.
Peter O
This isn’t a post about you, per se, but hope dear Editor will indulge us.
Why don’t I count?
Again, to repeat ourselves to you, to be perfectly honest, from our perspective, and since you asked…
Mainly because your “homosexual experience” consists of the sum total of finding one guy on one occasion on MTV … temporarily snoggable. And that’s as extreme as your passion got, according to you. (and please don’t tell me it was the lead singer from Blancmange… ick)
You were an young adult at the time, and a very emotionally and sexually immature one at that. You’d never been so much as touchingly intimate with real live guy. Or girl, for that matter. You’ve described a home life that (of itself) would fail build up self-sufficiency in a child.
You seem the perfect dork from what you’ve described, and like the perfect dork… got talked into something you are not. You may say you “were a homosexual”, but… my dear… everything says you were/are not. If you’d come to us, first, instead of Mario, you wouldn’t now be ex-gay.
Because we’d have told you you weren’t gay in the first place.
A friendless dork, sure, from everything you describe. Possibly a loveable one, in your own odd Dr Who loving way [A]. Possibly a little autistic. But… eggs as eggs… just a dork.
And not gay.
Be aware, there’s one other side to the dag-of-a-kid turned into an nerdy adult: you’ll find you love it when all eyes turn to you when someone says (as example) “he used to be gay, but now he’s not”. That delight at attention is Revenge of the Dork. Many have this affliction. You blush, but you seek it.
Is that clear enough for you; why “you don’t count”?
Feel free to correct us, but rest assured we will check back and see if what you say now is compatible with what you’ve said before. The last thing you want to be is both a dork AND a liar.
————————————————-
As for the “isn’t controlled by attraction to men anymore”
Well, that suits us just fine. We never were. And are not now.
We are no more “controlled” by being gay than our straight mates are “controlled” by being not-gay. There was initially a basic attraction to someone else, mutually, and therefore we — like them - are now settled with someone who we have all gone on to find is a rather more complex, frustrating, desirable, and loving person than we could have ever imagined. We’ve all eventually become “We” instead of “I”.
The “not controlled” also doesn’t alter the fact we are 100% gay by one single iota.
Peter, you have a very warped perspective of pair-bonded gay couples if you imagine we, like others, are much different to straight couples.
Apart from the number of brands of “feminine products” in the bathroom cupboard — we currently have 14 varieties! [B] — we are boringly, blandly, lawn-mowingly, gutter-cleaningly, path-sweepingly the same as straight couples.
Guess what? : except when naked… we don’t frighten the horses.
Or neighbours.
————————————————-
[A] nb to self: (repeat) : there is NOTHING wrong with being a fan of Dr Who. Even if James Dobson reminds one of Stavros.
[B] we live inner-city: near night clubs. We constantly have guests who leave things “for next time”, like toothbrushes… and tampons and pads. We still laugh over a pack that promises a “waterproof outer layer” — surely not all over?, otherwise… how does it work??? Also laugh remembering explaining to straight make that his girlfriend’s pads are not applied adhesive side to skin side. (mind boggles!!!)
/snort… it took us 4000 words to say what David said in very few.
David, you remain the editor. For now. /double snort
Should have just said “We are gay, it’s not an identity. And you never were gay, Peter.”
Peter O,
A biblical perspective? You are using an ancient text to address the topic of sexual orientation?
It is beyond absurd. Its is 2007 and human knowledge and science has grown substantially since the time the bible was written.
Sexual orientation is a scientific/biological issue not a biblical issue. If you want to study the bible that is fine - but I would not build a rocket based on the information contain therein.
Why are we even debating with these people???
It is like debating reality with a pyschotic. It is a waste of time.
gd,
Please make up your mind. Either I was never gay in the first place, or I’m a repressed homosexual. Either way, you’re stuck again within that bi-polar anthropology aren’t you?
Peter,
What about a man who can’t honestly say that he isn’t attracted to women any more, but who isn’t controlled by attraction to women any more? How should we describe him? Ex-straight? Post-straight? (And do you feel, by the way, that an analogy to drug taking or alcoholism could be highly useful if we were discussing what “leaving heterosexuality” or “post-straight” actually meant?)
Or would it be better just to say that such a man has moved beyond a bi-polar sexual orientation anthropology and to leave it at that?
Thinking back to my teenage years, when I was still hoping that I wasn’t really gay - owing partly to my religious upbringing, and partly to the common desire to conform - I realise that I might well at that time have been attracted by an ex-gay ministry or by a reparative therapy programmme. If it had been explained to me, however, that I would not thereby cease to be attracted by other guys, but would merely no longer be controlled by this attraction - leaving out of account that I don’t believe that I was controlled by it to any greater extent than my heterosexual contemporaries were controlled by their sexual attractions - or that I was being given the opportunity to move beyond a a bi-polar sexual orientation anthropology, I know what my answer would have been: “I don’t think I’ll bother.”
I for one am losing my patience with those on the religious right and the ex-gay program.
Lies, denial, and stupidity should NEVER be held up as a value.
Take responsibility for your own behavior and happiness and stop blaming it on your inborn sexual orientation.
The religious right has unprecendented political power in this country and in places like the Middle East. This makes them very dangerous to the values of truth, intelligence, and knowledge.
Peter O.,
Lifestyle choices?
An unintelligent statement if ever there was one.
My lifestyle consists of going to the gym to stay fit, working 12 hours a day, writing on the side and setting goals and acheiving them, spending time with friends and relatives, traveling.
My sexual orientation is 100% homosexual. I did not choose it and it is not a lifestyle. I am sexually and romantically attracted only to other guys. I have absolutely no romantic or sexual interest in women and never have.
How is that a “lifestyle”? Are you making assumptions about my behavior? That - I think - is called prejudice.
Should I assume that all hetersosexual men frequent strip clubs and prostitutes?
The issue of gay civil rights and acceptance is at the heart of the issue of religion versus science.
The disconnect is that those on the religious right refuse to accept the scientific fact that people are born gay.
I had a happy childhood and never had any sexual experiences until I was 22 - although I knew from an early age that I was different.
What a crime it is to attempt to make those born with a different sexual roeitnation feel like they are sick.
It is a crime and should be treated as such.
Ah yes, Peter O at his finest… arguing what “is” is.
Claiming what is, that is not.
We said you are not gay, or homosexual. Ever. Read it out loud, that may help you.
You, an easily influenced nerd, got talked into thinking you were gay by someone who was selling a “gay-go-away” product. And — amazingly — it worked! It was bound to, on you.
We also accept the idea of the Kinsey Scale as accurate. People range from gay to straight. We’ve always said that. Prove we’ve ever thought otherwise, or belt up.
So, politely, you may take your latest invented and again baseless term-of-abuse for gay people (”bi-polar anthropology”) and shove it back up your Kinsey from whence it came.
What a rude man you are, even for a pompous CofE conservative.
Peter said:
False. Few gay people believe someone is either gay or straight — they accept one variation or another of Kinsey’s half-century-old 1-to-6 scale. You are the one who is wound up in defending your identity — which, by the way, is based not upon what you are, but upon what you are not.
False again. Your strawman arguments — projections of your own obsession, perhaps — are imo willfully dishonest and anti-Christian.
False yet again — you are the only one defending a bipolar model. You suggest that being honest about one’s same-sex attractions requires one to be behave according to behavioral stereotypes. Ridiculous. Being predominantly attracted to the same gender — a.k.a. “gay” — has little bearing on one’s sexual behaviors or lifestyle.
It is sad — no, immoral — that you advise impressionable same-sex-attracted persons within your milieu that, should they identify as gay (aka predominantly same-sex-attracted), they must conform to your prescribed model of self-destructive, self-defeating and dishonest behaviors.
Peter Ould has achieved his objective — he has disrupted a discussion of the Church of England with strawman arguments and baseless accusations against those who oppose the harmful effects of reparative therapy.
While he lobs strawman arguments at critics, Peter O has failed to offer constructive evidence that reparative therapy works for anyone, much less the small handful of people (gay and straight) who — coming from broken families with gender confusion or insecurity that complicate relations with both sexes — benefit from gender-role-oriented therapy.
And Peter O has failed to demonstrate how a hypothetical potential to help a handful of people justifies deliberately deceiving, confusing and harming the majority of people whose predominant sexual attractions are unrelated to gender-identity disorders or abuse.
Delightful, in the same thread I am criticised for attempting to diagnose others yet no-one has picked up grantdale for exactly the same thing. I’m now labeled as someone who was never really gay. Who cares whether I tell you that for years I was never sexually attracted to a single female. That form of self-reporting doesn’t interest grantdale and the defence of my story doesn’t interest anybody else here, because it doesn’t fit your preferred story of human sexuality. Of course, if someone was to come on this site and say that they’d never ever been attracted to someone of the opposite sex, you wouldn’t disbelieve them or challenge them because that fits the paradigm you want to defend.
I stand by what I’ve written. If you didn’t need to defend the bi-polar prescriptive model of sexuality then you wouldn’t have created Ex-Gay watch in the first place. Why worry about sad little nerdy dorks like myself? But because your identity is wound up in “gay” you need to destruct any possibility that gay might not be a true description of a human being, that there might be something beyond it, that heaven-forbid, people might not actually have to have their emotional lives dictated by their instinctive responses, whatever the root of those are.
It’s not that I don’t respond to your questions, it’s just that you simply don’t want to hear the answers.
You mean it’s not even established that Peter has ever been gay and yet we are debating this OT rubbish?
What a waste, let’s get back to the topic.
This thread has been about you long enough Peter — the topic never was. You have a habit of dropping by when there is something related to the Church of England - fair enough - but it always ends up with this same discussion about you and your sexuality, and how the world could learn from it. From now on, just keep a link to this discussion handy and post it in a comment whenever the urge strikes again to sidetrack another thread.
[…] get into conversations all the time ( for example today here) about how God moved me from homosexuality to a happy marriage (with baby on the way). I wrote back […]
Peter O
How dare you set yourself up as an example, and then complain when you are questioned.
I doubt few here would dispute bisexuals exist, or that that are people who are to greater or lesser extent attracted to one or both sexes. Nothing at XGW would give anyone that impression, factually.
That doesn’t sound like “we” are wedded to your nonsense about “bi-polar sexuality”. You’ve offered no evidence: you’ve simply claimed that such a way of thinking exists. You say “we” think that way — so prove it.
I’m putting it to you that you are (ultimately irrationally) so tied to your religious viewpoint, you cannot accept the facts of life. Homosexuality is real, and human, and neutral. You’re not the first to be mistaken.
You’re also tied to a public persona you’ve adopted. You’ve made public statements you need to continue to support. You recant at grave risk, and huge loss.
Us, on the other hand? No loss is possible. Gay or straight, we are accepted by those who matter. Our jobs, our egos, our friendships are not dependant on being one sexuality or the other. We’re not gay because we have to be, nor do we ‘remain’ gay because we need to be. And, frankly, we don’t give a bugger about what you do: except for on those occasions when you use your public self to attack people.
It’s always about you, isn’t it Peter? Perhaps that should be something to ponder in between dodging questions about the efficacy of ex-gay conversion.
We give up.
David: What a waste
Luckily, pixels are inexpensive
Which is more than I can say for our continued attention! We’re done.
Peter O,
My identity as a person is not wrapped up into being gay as you put it. My sexuality or sexual orientation is only one part of who I am - but it is not an insignificant part for anyone gay or straight.
You state: “……………..gay might not be a true description of a human being, that there might be something beyond it, that heaven-forbid, people might not actually have to have their emotional lives dictated by their instinctive responses, whatever the root of those are.”
What a sad man you are - trying to shame others because they have a different sexual orientation than the majority.
I know one thing for sure - if religious right wingers and other conservatives stopped bashing gays - we would be alot less conscious of our sexual orientation.
They are the ones that make it an issue.
Heck - if it were not for anti-gay bigots we would not even need a gay civil rights movement. You right wingers give rise to the very thing you object to - but then you are not intelligent enough to see that.
G you hit the nail right on the head!
If people weren’t opposed to homosexuality, if it was an accepted variation on human sexuality and romance guess what would happen?
Well, quite frankly all our lobby groups our supporters our civil rights groups would have a heck of a lot of free time. The gay ghettos would get less gay, and the rest of the world would get just a few more gay people moving nearby.
But no, people HAVE to have things their way. They have to descriminate and hate, and so we had to have a Pride Parade. We have protests, we have rallies — we wouldn’t be doing any of this if it weren’t for some people who really think we should all be straight, or at least try to be straight.
Ex-Gay Watch exists because of the harm and lies that the ex-gay industry has perpetuated. It exists as a watchdog to keep them from using misinformation and deception without someone speaking up.
If the “ex-gays” merely called themselves “straight” and went about their business — Ex-Gay Watch, Truth Wins Out, Box Turtle Bulletin —- these people would have time to do something else! But do the ex-gay do that? No, of course not. They try to submit themselves as evidence that we don’t deserve equality — and then get surprised when we do something about it.
If black people started getting surgery to change their facial features and skin color, and then went about telling folks “you don’t have to be black!” and then went and tried to get laws passed, amendments started to oppress black people, you can be damn well certain that the NAACP would not stand idly by.
And that’s what the ex gay thing is. It’s Plastic Surgery Soup for the Guilty Gay Soul. It’s Extreme Makeover: Reality Edition.
I meant to say— Extreme Makeover: PERSONAL Reality Edition.
A post with the word England… A great number of comments… Oh no! Peter O.
I’m glad Peter made his comments. This is one of the clearest examples of the way the ex-gay movement thinks. The ex-gay movement does not believe in objective reality.
As illustration, Peter believes that if you think differently about some thing that it then changes that thing - if sexual orientation is viewed in a different light, then it becomes something other than what it was.
I counter that if you think differently about things, you yourself can change, but that thing still remains what it was before you started your mental exercises.
Suppose, for example, I decided to think differently about deodorant and chose to believe that bodies are designed to smell naturally and that this is a beautiful thing. I suspect we’ve all met someone who thought this way.
Of course they didn’t “stink” by their definitions. They smelled how they were supposed to smell, you know.
But objective reality is that their body produced an odor as a byproduct of sweat and that this odor was unpleasant to other people.
Peter can talk around the anthropological bi-polar model of orientation, but when it comes right down to changing attractions and the internal directions of ones desire, his arguments don’t pass the smell test.
As an FYI,
when Peter talks about a bi-polar view of orientation, he IS talking about Kinsey. Bi-polar simply means that the item measured is either one thing, another thing, or somewhere in between those two opposites.
Peter is simply choosing to say the scale doesn’t exist. That heterosexuality and homosexuality are not on opposite ends of a scale. He believes that his attractions are completely irrelevant to his identity and his behavior.
This is much like someone who is partially lactose intollerant deciding that they don’t have to see the world in terms of lactose tolerance v. intolerance and that this does not have to have any impact on their identity or behavior. It’s all fine and good on paper, but you still don’t want to go on a car trip with them after they’ve eaten cheesecake.
I fear the USA conservative churches will simply dismiss the Royal College’s report out-of-hand.
In my observation, our churches are filled with ‘average’ maturity in Christ, which continues to exalt in ‘the call to battle’. Even though Christ taught that the ‘call to reconciliation’ must dominate the various ‘calls to battle’ in Matthew 5:23-24.
This Royal College report could help so many, if they were mature in Christ… because then they could carry the report in one hand along with the words of Christ in the other hand:
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” And His earlier statement, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” [Matthew 5:23-24; 5:9]
The Royal College report would then be another wonderful reason to continue the call to reconciliation.
I think that the scripture is not the problem; the words of Christ are not the problem; and the Royal College report is not a ‘problem’; — the problem remains the average spiritual maturity that is the mental filter of Conservative Christian leaders. Many Conservative Christian leaders in the USA do not wish to reconcile with their LGBT brothers and sisters; rather, they wish to defeat them.
And through that mental filter – the call to battle – they interpret all evidence, all scripture, and all reports
Sadly, several LGBT leaders listen, read, and speak with the same mental filter. We are all too terribly human, at times.
In the silence of this evening, I wonder in the USA who dares to hear the words of Christ, and will attempt the hard and difficult work of reconciliation? Who hears the call to be a ‘peace-maker’ and will sit at the table with their opponent and work out the ground rules for discussions? Who desires to be called ‘a son of God’ and will sit with the leaders of Exodus, and endeavor to draft even the smallest of joint resolutions? I read the history of the early church, and wonder what happened to the concept of the ‘Jerusalem Council’ of Acts 15? Who is foolish enough – or is it brave enough, to obey His words? I have so few answers… I type endless questions…. But two questions haunt my mind:
Who rejects the calls to battle? Who hears His call to reconciliation?
Sincerely; Caryn
At this point I’m wondering whether it would be fair to consider projection, deception, delusions and a persecution complex to also be some of the potentially harmful effects of ex-gay therapy.
the addiction model is bunk. I should know because I’ve had at least two addictions in my life. Cigarettes and alcohol.
I was just gargling with listerine, it has alcohol in it. A year or two ago, I wouldn’t dare do something like that, for fear I’d relapse. Now I can do it with no problem. Swish and spit.
My partner is a smoker, and often smokes around me or in the other room, and I don’t have any cravings. In fact, until I smell the cigarette, I often don’t notice he’s smoking. If he’s downwind, he’ll get halfway through a cigarette before I notice. I had to develop the habit of pausing before entering restaurants and stores, just to see if he was still smoking — that’s how far I had come in beating the addiction.
I go into bars with friends, I can even be left alone with someone’s drink while they go to the bathroom without being tempted.
If being gay were an addiction, then I wonder where the person who’s completely lost their “cravings” is, as no study has been able to find them.
And even if it were possible for one person to completely change from gay to straight, that’s one out of how many?
Someone put it perfectly when Rev Haggard was Outed they said something to the effect of, “Here we have someone who has prayed and prayed. One of the holiest of the holy. A pillar of righteousness, someone who has served the lord for decades. One of God’s right hand men, and he STILL can’t shake homosexuality. If God won’t “fix” one of his most devoted followers, if a Man Of The Cloth can’t become straight —- what does that tell the rest of us?”
Now contrast that with me, an agnostic who’s not sure about the existence of God, and I managed to kick both smoking and drinking. God seemed to have no problem with helping me. In fact he did so well that I haven’t had a craving in over a year!
Seems to me that God may not think that being gay is something that needs to be changed.
I followed Peter O’s link back to his essay on his blog.
Subtle…
“A possible 2-dimension axis:”
| Chaste| *||―――――――――――|―――――――――――――Gay | Straight|||| Porneai
“The Healing 2-dimension axis:”
| Chaste| *||―――――――――――|―――――――――――――Far from | Near toGod | God||| Porneai
According to those axes, someone who is strongly same-sex-attracted and chaste is effectively damned to hell, while an emphatically heterosexual sleazebag is as saved as saved can be.
That model also affirms an adolescent view of Christianity, in which people are “near” or “far” from God (as if God were in a specific geographic location), the distance being conveniently based on an elitist or cliquish pecking order which is rooted in conformity to ex-gay gender and sex stereotypes.
But ummm, I fail to see how that relates to the C of E or the expert psychiatrists who have detailed the harmfulness of so-called reparative therapies. Reparative therapy and ex-gay therapy are not synonymous. Reparative therapies misportray all homosexual expression as an effort to repair a childhood break with masculinity (in the case of men), and seek to address the break by various methods. Ex-gay programs that target men commonly (though not always) replace sexual and atypical masculine activities with nonsexual and stereotypical masculine activities while relabeling the latter as somehow “mas macho.”
Que es mas macho? Lightbulb or schoolbus? — Laurie Anderson
It’s adolescent to believe we can be close or far from God. Really? If it’s good enough for the psalmist to exclaim “Be not far from me, O God” (Psalm 71:12) then it’s good enough for me.
Luke tells us the same thing in Acts 38:20-22
“God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.”
It seems to me that you are morphing the axes into a gay to straight axis and a “saved” to “not saved” axis That’s pretty adolescent. It’s not what they say at all.
It’s adolescent — and elitist — to dictate how close or far others are from God, especially when the speaker is smugly and intentionally deluded about the values and faith of those whom he is judging. It is also theologically weak to speak of someone being far from God when in fact God is close and they are simply unaware of it.
As for the axes, if someone dies today and they happen to be “far from God” on that axis, then yes, Aftab, in a conservative Christian mindset they are damned to hell.
Did you have something pertinent to say about the C of E or reparative therapy, Aftab?
Jason….thanks for this…I was going to comment much the same but found this little blurb in response to one of Peter’s statements about the existence of XGW..it bares repeating…
I could only add: “….and to provide a measure of accountability toward therapists who misuse their positions of trust within the XG movement.”
Aftab, I think you miss Mike’s point when he challenges the assertion that nearness to God is specifically “rooted in conformity to ex-gay gender and sex stereotypes”.
Of course, nearness to God is a matter of faith and a matter for the heart; it is not a matter of biology or politically-driven behavioral psychology. (Not that I wish to elevate Peter O’s theories to the level of peer-accepted behavioral science.)
We recently had the story of Mother Teresa, one of God’s most selfless and obedient servants if there ever was one, given to God and Biblical teachings. And her own diaries, released after her death, reveal that she felt “emptiness”; she felt not the presence or the love of God for the better of 50 years. Was she “near to” or “far from” God? Now this I actually understand. This is grown-up faith. Not some arbitrary “axis” based on homophobic religiosity. And to the topic at hand, this is the context in which the C of E needs to consider the report of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
It’s Peter O’s equation that is adolescent, namely that “Gay” is to “Far from God” as “Straight” is to “Near to God”. In other words, “gay=brokenness/separation/rebellion” but “straight=whole/in harmony”. That’s not bipolar; that’s political. That’s “us and them”.
If the people to whom you are sexually attracted are members of your own sex, then that’s the way it’s going to be. If there is any chance of that changing, then it is, at most, no better than your chance of winning first prize in a “Spot-the-ball” competition.
You may preoccupy yourself with repudiating bi-polar, tri-polar, n-polar models of sexuality and drawing elaborate diagrams till you’re black in the face, thus providing yourself with an intellectual distraction from reality, but it won’t change your sexual orientation one whit. As the poet Horace observed, “naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret” – “you may drive out Nature with a pitchfork, but she will always come running back.”
I’d love to tell you something pertinent that you’d accept without suggesting straight away that I’m deluded. The history of this thread suggests otherwise.
Go right ahead and tell us, Aftab. You’ll never know unless you’ve given it a try, will you?
I’d suggest to you, Aftab, that possibly you are beginning to be able to see things from a different view point than your own and you are able to logically predetermine the course the conversation will take based on what pertinent information you have to offer.
I admire you for refraining if that’s the case. You are at least able to allow opinions/attitudes/worldviews that differ from your own to exist peacefully with yours. As you can see, there are others who come to the same impasse but continue fruitlessly to bang their heads against the same wall over and over.
Actually, that view varies greatly even in the most conservative Christian circles.
It’s Peter O’s equation that is adolescent, namely that “Gay” is to “Far from God” as “Straight” is to “Near to God”. In other words, “gay=brokenness/separation/rebellion” but “straight=whole/in harmony”. That’s not bipolar; that’s political. That’s “us and them”.
I think you’ll find that replacing one axis with another was NOT a direct claim of equality of the ends of the polls. In fact, if you’d read the comment connected to the second diagram you’d have seen the very opposite argument.
But please don’t let what I actually wrote get in the way of what you think I actually meant (obviously something different) when i wrote it.
Copying two diagrams from my website, removing any of the description and comment surrounding them and then claiming that they argue something that the very blog post you have lifted them from actually argues against is not a very high standard of dialogue. But then, it is on the same thread where people have hurled insults at me (”stupid”, “bigot” etc) with nobody even batting an eyelid.
Let’s just have one final example of exactly why this conversation has descended to where it is. William wrote:
If the people to whom you are sexually attracted are members of your own sex, then that’s the way it’s going to be. If there is any chance of that changing, then it is, at most, no better than your chance of winning first prize in a “Spot-the-ball” competition.
You may preoccupy yourself with repudiating bi-polar, tri-polar, n-polar models of sexuality and drawing elaborate diagrams till you’re black in the face, thus providing yourself with an intellectual distraction from reality, but it won’t change your sexual orientation one whit. As the poet Horace observed, “naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret” – “you may drive out Nature with a pitchfork, but she will always come running back.”
William has come to the debate with an a-priori assumption that sexual orientation doesn’t change. When any comes with a personal testimony to the contrary, it is challenged, stamped upon, spat at and thrown out, not because it might not actually be true, but because it simply doesn’t fit his assumptions. The fact that I used to be exclusively homosexual in my desires and now am not isn’t the issue. What William believes to be true about all humans must take priority and anything that contradicts that assumption must be eliminated.
Peter,
It doesn’t matter that William has that assumption. His assumptions don’t change your reality and vice versa. The “debate” goes sour when you put your assumptions onto entire groups of people. When you include in YOUR opinions things like “Biblical perspective” and “Christian persepctive” as if those worldviews belong solely to you and all Christians with a Biblical perspective are going to line up in lock-step with your take on things…well….it just all disentigrates from there. I personally believe some guys change to some extent (all relative terms that i’m perfectly comfortable with) and some not at all. The bottom line for me is that you choose to live your life in a certain way and I respect that. As I’ve stated before, you could call gays or ex-gays polka-dotted turtles for all I care. At the heart of it, I respect the committment you’ve made to your wife and children. I also respect the committments of others who disagree with you and EVEN sometimes me!
But then, I’m pretty sure I’m probably bi-polar or some other polar that you’ve described here so I don’t count in your view. Good grief.
Peter,
Actually I did read your essay, and just now I read it again, just to be sure I had every chance to “get it”.
Rather than repost a large section of your essay, I referenced it, and your link to it higher up this page. People know how to use a web browser. I encourage everyone to read Peter’s essay for context if you haven’t already.
I posted the visuals because, even after reading it in context, it left me with exactly the impression I stated.
The only way I can see that I have misunderstood you so completely is if you have committed a non-sequitor. Surely your second axis (removing gay-to-straight) is still written in the context of reparative therapy. Surely you did not suddenly decide, in the context of the essay as a whole (PLUS your participation here which creates a companion context), that gay-straight is irrelevant.
It makes me think of all the personal witness stories of so many clergy and other religious leaders who lived lives of total denial concerning their sexual orientation. Like Bishop Gene Robinson, who sought reorientation therapy. Who got married. Who had children. And then finally, after years of emotional and faith crisis about this (and feeling “far from God” no doubt), consulted his wife and family and ended (mutually) the marriage in the most kind and amicable way you could imagine. As a result of accepting who he was, he experienced God’s grace anew and is now living in serving God in peace (”near to God”), and his faith and ministry are vital and abundant. Doing the pastoral ministry he always wanted to do, no different than any other pastor/bishop who is neither obsessed with or dogged by others who are obsessed with this biological trait that in the big picture has very little to do with personal faith and service to humanity.
Are you admitting that your “far from God”/”near to God” axis applies to Bishop Gene’s renewal of faith?
No, Peter, you’re wrong: I didn’t come to the debate with an a priori assumption that sexual orientation doesn’t change. My experience - not my assumption - is that it generally doesn’t, and in fact I don’t myself know anyone whose sexual orientation has changed (although I know a few people who have tried and failed), but I allowed for the possibility that there may be such cases when I wrote, “If there is any chance of that changing…”
I’m not arguing solely on the basis of my own personal experience, however. The history of the ex-gay movement - which I have been following now for quite some years - suggests that, if there are any instances of change in sexual orientation, then they are quite exceptional. Spitzer’s study, even if taken at face value, confirms this, and Spitzer himself admitted as much.
Furthermore, to say that something may change doesn’t mean that you can make it change, even with God’s help. My hair has markedly changed colour twice during my lifetime - and I don’t mean by using hair colourants. Does that mean that anyone can make the colour of their hair change if they try hard enough? I think not.
If you tell us that your own sexual attractions have changed, then I am not in a position to dispute your claim, even if some of your own words lead me to be somewhat sceptical. I do dispute the wisdom of your presenting your own experience as though it were a path for others to follow, and I do see your talk of bi-polar models and their (in)validity as a simple prevarication.
I’ve said it before, if you tell me you dropped a brick and it fell to the ground, I’m not likely to challenge your claim. But if you tell me it floated into the sky, I will want some more proof before taking it seriously. This is what keeps a person from falling for everything that comes along - healthy, intellectual skepticism. It’s also the driving force behind the scientific method.
Even what may arguably be the best information we have yet (which should not be taken as praise), the Exgay Study by Jones and Yarhouse on behalf of Exodus does not bear out your claims, Peter. There is nothing approaching what you say happened to you in the results of that study, quite the opposite in fact.
So don’t be perplexed when others do not accept what you say just because you say it. That’s the kind of nonsense that gave us generations of people trying to “fix the gay” because they believed a lie - complete change of orientation is possible, or even desirable.
Not to be flippant here, but it seems the ex-gays who push reparative therapy the hardest seem to fall into one of two categories:
1. Had a few passionate crushes on high school or college friends and freaked out about it. Reparative therapy “cured” them since they likely were never really gay in the first place. Of course, they now opine a vast understanding of the psychology of a gay community they never experienced. Peter O seems to fall in that category. As does Anne Paulk.
2. Were hellbent on sleeping with anything that moved, since their entire life revolved around sexual pleasure, which just so happened to be gay. Drugs and unsafe sex were their aphrodisiac. Now, they have the reasonable self-control over their sex lives that most people have. Obviously, because their lives were wildly out of control, they project on other gay people the unbalanced life they lived, since that’s all they experienced. You know, like James Hartline.
I rarely–if ever–hear an ex-gay say, “Yeah, I had a nice boyfriend and we got together with other couples and went to the theatre a lot. And we toured Napa Valley with some good friends of ours.” You know, like the normal, healthy gay people I run into all the time. Well, there’s Stephen Bennett, but nothing about his story can be verified. As opposed to, say, John Paulk.
Anyway, that’s just something I’ve noticed. Is it just me?
Very good point, and the key to much of this I think.
While I do not recall such testimonies of stable gay relationships coming from ex-gay activists, I do recall some testimonies by former ex-gays who, under the advice of ex-gay leaders, reluctantly dumped their long-time partners. For all intents and purposes, they were told by the activists that divorce was God’s will for them (albeit a gay divorce).
I also recall several parents on PFOX’s discussion list who griped that their adult children were in stable gay relationships. These parents wished that their healthy and faithful children would sink into a morass of promiscuity, sickness, and depression, so that they would come to view the parents’ angry god as their only hope.
Unfortunately, you are correct — and it’s quite a frequent lament from people in that group.
I think you need to be careful in claiming that those of an opposite view have an “angry god”.
David and Chris…Pete Knight, who authored Proposition 22 had such a lament regarding his gay son. Who he’d been extremely proud of (his son is a decorated fighter pilot), but once his son came out, and revealed that the long, LONG time roommie was actually his lover, that’s when Pete disowned him and began the anti marriage campaign.
Damned if you do or don’t. But, a parent supporting their child in a stable, committed life with adopted children and a fruitful career….seems like the lesser of the issues that they would worry about.
It IS and would be strange to PREFER a difficult life for your child TO satisfy the believed stereotypes instead of the reality.
Even more strange and sad…that believing conjecture from other straight people is preferable than asking your own flesh, that you know and love, what YOU can do for them and what their needs are.
That a parent is really considering their OWN needs and standing in the community over their child’s is selfish. And reveals that selfishness in ways such parents wouldn’t admit to.
So Michael is right, and I’ve seen it too.
I have met people who think that gay people are being deceptive when they say they have stable relationships. The couple have to be having sex outside the relationship or they are together to prove that they are legit–a way to promote a “lie.” Where do people get these ideas? From speakers at churches who tell them that this must be true or will be true.
Peter, I agree(or at least makes sense to me) with your view on sexuality and behavior , I do not agree, however, with how you exercise your ‘love’ towards them. Assuming its the same ‘no rights for the same-sex couple, God told established so’ thinking. I know, as an ex-christian, that faith is crucial and that expressing God’s ‘love’ to everyone is fundamental . It doesnt matter what obstacles one may find in the way(like a queer tolerant world), if one’s in Christ, one must and will not flail(like the unconditional ‘love’ the westboro baptist church professes).
I believe that sexuality is fluid. How fluid? *shrug, I couldn’t care less. Although i do think its somewhat conscribed. Ah that’s right… this dont matter, you ARE gay, your just living in God’s grace atm. Good for you! Im glad your happy, it’s just so sad ppl cant be equally happy(or happier) in a very similar, yet different way because many believe its god-unapproved. As if… as long as ppl keep feeling god’s love and power in their daily lives, this will probably not stop, who can blame them… there are such things as abstract words, like love, hate, envy… etc.
I’ve got to say,whenever I hear a gay christian speaking, its like seeing and hearing a blind person crying out, I see!, I see!.
Aftab,
I didn’t claim that opposing sides believe in an angry god.
I said specifically that many parents on the PFOX list believe in an angry god. And they do — I have seen them portray their god as angry, merciless, and impatient.
You know its true for most of the evangelical/fundamentalists I have met. They shake their bibles in your face and claim that if you don’t accept their version of God that God himself will smite you. Scare tactics to bring them to Christ. Nice. Which, btw, seems to be their MO for the most part. I use to buy into their tactics until I really searched and prayed to God to talk to me. Well, he did, still does, and it is wonderful feeling. A feeling of freedom from bondage that Christ himself preached. I no longer feel anger towards anyone nor do I have a seriously ill will thought towards others. While I may dislike someone I still love them. It’s easy to read the bible and proclaim to believe in every word written in it but its another thing to actually have those words written on your heart and feel sparks of compassion and love for others, especially those that hate or dislike you. This is something I constantly pray for. To love all.
Their words no longer have any affect on me. Their condemnations go in one ear and out the other. I suddenly began to believe that God was not the God they were claiming him to be.
“I really searched and prayed to God to talk to me. Well, he did, still does” You know what annoys me of this?… the same way you portray god talking to you is the same way anti-gay christians say god talked to them.
Either there are two gods, or ppl just want to hear what they want to hear imho.
Heres an example I recall from the top of my head. There was this one person that said, “while I was driving on my way to work, I passed by a church and saw a few men talking and having a laugh. In that moment god spoke to my heart and he told me the wrong that homosexuality is”.(Those werent his exact words, but that was the essence of it).
I wonder if ‘inspiration’ is as relative as what color ppl prefer. If the church does not want to listen… who can blame them, they are responding to a much higher power(you know, the ones that invented hurricanes, earthquakes, famine?)… or so they think/feel/know.
That voice…As a former Mormon missionary, almost everything is dependent on that voice. I do not believe that god speaks (well, as an agnostic, I have a problem with the god part too) to people because as a former Mormon, everything goes back to how one feels. Missionaries can manipulate that voice pretty easily and make people believe they are feeling someth