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.
Jim, I look at it this way:
Not all gays have a distant father or overprotective mother. Some gays do. Therefore, the distant father/overprotective mother is not the cause of the homosexuality. It could, however, be the result of the homosexuality. This would make sense given that many gay males have straight brothers, even though the parents are the same. The parents take on the roles of overprotective or distant because they realize something is different about the kid. It’s the effect of the homosexuality, rather than the cause. If you try to make it the cause then you are left having the problem of why the siblings turn out straight when the mother and father were the same as for the gay kid.
If I remember right, psychs have found no difference in the childhood environments between gays and straights. Thus, the scenario you present just doesn’t hold water.
*So Jason you do agree with the triadic *
Let’s stop there. No, I don’t agree. I think it’s utter bunk. I think human sexuality is far too complex to be explained this easily. Straight men grow up in identical circumstances. There are gay men with wonderful close relationships with their fathers. It doesn’t explain lesbianism at all.
It strikes me as rather odd is that a nonsexual situation (overprotective mother/distant father) can have any effect on a sexual interests of a child. How does a parenting situation affect the sexual interests of someone when the situation itself doesn’t have anything to do with sex? I can understand how a distant father might make a boy have difficulty relating to his own gender, but that still doesn’t explain why he might like tab “A” instead of slot “B”.
Poking someone repeatedly with a stick is going to make them wary of sticks, afraid perhaps, or really angry with sticks and or people who carry them. Hanging out with Mom might make you more interested in the things Mom likes……but with a lack of a sexual situation being part of that experience, how and why would that sexual interest develop? My mother never told me her favorite sexual positions, her sexual history, or her taste in men, she certainly didn’t point out hot men to me, so how did I end up gay? I don’t seem to share any of my mother’s other interests, crochet, cooking, romance novels, so why would something she never talked about, never told me about, and I never saw or heard be the one thing I “absorbed” from my experience with her?
Let’s look at this slightly differently. Let’s say I have a piano teacher who secretly likes to dance to “Oops, I Did It Again” while wearing a banana split on his head. Now, this is a secret he never tells me and I never see any pictures, video, and nobody else ever tells me. By the same logic as this triadic syndrome, if I hang out with my piano teacher too much I might find myself someday with a banana split on my head, listening to Britney, and have absolutely no idea why — especially if nobody ever tells me not to put a banana split on my head and that Britney is a lousy performing artist!
It seems like people are connecting dots that aren’t even necessarily part of the same puzzle. I fail to see how this all connects, and I don’t see anyone laying out how these factors are anything more than a coincidence.
David Roberts,
Thanks for bundling those great stats, they are ones I have heard before, but it was ingenious to stack them all for a major Wow. I do believe hypothalamus and pheromone tests are adequate scientific data to determine the origins of homosexuality. Different brains, different effects, done deal.
Nick and Jason GReat points.
On other notes ……. this triuangular theory, now currently debunked by the psychological community. I have great respect for Freud, and in his defense etc…..
Jim Phelan …. Note I am not quoting you regarding Freud, these are simply some of my observations about Freud as a therapist …..
Freud was very meticulous about not aligning with moral judgements about homosexuality as he found psychoanalysis to be a science. Regarding the current culture war on the side of the judgements of the church folk via biblical text, Freud would most likely dismiss it as here say conjecture with no basis in fact.
Freud was very aware that he was working with disturbed gays in his practice and did separate functional productive gay people from those with deep personal problems. He states in his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality published in 1905:
“It [homosexuality] is… found in people whose efficiency is unimpaired, and who are indeed distinguished by specially high intellectual development and ethical culture” [138] and also because “[homosexuality] was a frequent phenomenon – one might almost say an institution charged with important functions – among the peoples of antiquity at the height of their civilization”
In other words, Freud was not anti-gay. And from his statement above, was very complimentary of gays in general. Some could construct this as pro-gay and I think in some respects would be right, as he was opposed to projection and attack through mis-science.
Freud also goes on to speak about the weak father theory as not to occur in all homosexuals he analyzed but some, and that it was one probability among many potential causes, not giving it high importance.
Freud also did not emphasize traumatic incidents causing homosexuality, i.e. sexual abuse. He did say that a possible “sexual impression” could have been a cause at an early age lodged in the subconscious due to an over bearing mother causing a boy to take on a mother’s sexual inclinations to men. However, I doubt that would cause the hypothalamus to reduce in size and for male pheromones to start smelling attractive to young boys.
Because Freud defined his work as scientific, sweeping statements were not part of his resume. I believe if Freud were witnessing this current psycho sexual cultural war, he could take a stance of complete dismissal towards the religious right and their insistence on hell fire, sexual abuse and many other angles they seek as answers, perpetually advocating shaming neurotic behavior towards bi/homosexuals.
I do not say the word neurosis lightly. At the root of all religious based extremism, I have found a strong fear hatred anger model deeply placed and fully functional. This is neurosis in its most elite form. We are now seeing more and more public religious extremists uncovering themselves and their true conflicted nature of beliefs. It may be such they will find solace in deeply searching their own fears to realize the hardwire effects of neurotic western religious models, best done with a non biased therapist. Could this be Jim, why you are talking with us openly, to gain some insight on and for yourself?
As one who has practiced therapy for many years, I find it disturbing that therapists have found a need to galvanize a patient’s recovery with shaming models derived from external sources. I find it highly unethical. A formidable therapist brings a patient to sanity by remaining focused on their process, helping them reconfigure disturbing conflictive beliefs, and understanding the true reality in which they live. This model is not effected by a therapists’ transference of their own emotionally charged belief systems, potentially shadowing a patients mind with more distortion then the patient already experiences. Freud would NEVER approached a patient in such fashion. Lest it be said, I have found the number of truly gifted highly skilled therapists to be percentage wise, in very low numbers.
Shame is a nasty bed partner, and religion has the market cornered on such. As bi/homosexuals fend off the manifolds of shame barreling their way in the current cultural war, I can only hope any shame within, gets realized for its aberrant rediculosity, by viewing the stewards of shame heaving away, falling by the wayside into their own personal culture shock. I personally wish them well and a speedy healthy recovery, preferably dumping the shame model. In any war, both sides can dramatically lose along the way. God bless Mathew Shepard. And I hear Anita Bryant is shacked up in the mountains victim of a severe alcohol addiction. Bless her too, this need not be. These hard core negative beliefs are staggering in their effects.
In conclusion: Regarding a “triangular theory” Could it simply be that we as a world, live in an axiom of triangles? Right/wrong/indifferent rep/dem/ind mother/father/child hot/cold/warm north pole/south pole/equator, black team/white team/audience, earth/sun/moon? And could it be that in this world, bi straight and gay sexualities are actually the natural norm, based on this basic triad structure? But I already know, with three possible opinions, on goes the bullet proof vest. With three possible opinions and Freud’s famous triangular theory strongly afoot, we could hardly all agree on this new (ancient) reality as a reminder of fact, or could we?
Thoughts Mr Phelan?
Devlin Bach
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I actually don’t even think those are the best of what we have, but I look forward to any proof there is when we get it. Right now it’s still a bunch of intriguing indications, hardly a “done deal” lol.
Please try to be a bit more concise. Comments this long are really difficult to read and make the thread hard to navigate while keeping the topic flow in mind. Thanks.
Jim, it may seem that I’m harping on this issue. But I do so because of its importance to the thread topic: reparative therapy. At its heart, reparative therapy is based on repairing the gay man’s relationship with men from the damage inflicted by his father (and women by a number of possibilities). It is generated by this Freudian model.
Perhaps I need to use an illustration.
Suppose for a moment that this was 1963 and you wanted to create an experiment to prove a hypothesis. Let’s say you thought that homosexuality in men was caused by a smothering mother and distant father.
So you said, let’s remove the father from the home in 50% of the families. Assuming that our hypothesis is correct, we should see two things: 1) some number approaching 50% of all boys should become homosexual; and 2) nearly all future gay men will be traceable to the families without fathers.
But clearly this study would be unethical. Indeed, it would be morally reprehensible.
Ahhh, but what if the study happened naturally and on its own due to a combination of other social stimuli. Well then, you could test your hypothesis.
So let’s see:
Are something approaching 50% of all men gay? No.
Are nearly all gay men from single mother homes? No.
So we must conclude with one of two possibilities:
A: the triangular model is not very strong; or
B: whatever social stimuli brought about the increase in single parenting also brought about a reversal in homosexual incidence, i.e. the triangular model is not very strong.
Perhaps its time for the ex-gay movement to let go of this model (what we could call the “Dr. Dobson Drop Your Baby On His Head Model”) and move on to something that hasn’t been shown to be contrary to observation.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists is right. There is no evidence to support that reparative therapy or other reorientation therapies change sexual orientation, yet some therapists insist that their treatments lead to sexual reorientation. It really is time after all these decades for the advocates of reparative therapy or any other form of reorientation therapy to present strong evidence of effectiveness or just stop their activities. Under the current circumstances, it just seems really unethical to continue to take money from someone and hold out some false hope that they can change their sexual orientation.
Thoughts? Yes, Devlin. I am glad you are acquainted with Freud’s work as I. (The pool of people being so, is unfortunately diminishing). One can’t not be so acquainted and say Freud was anti-gay. I knew, and I know that. Sigmund Freud referred to homoeroticism as an inversion. Although many of his colleagues outright condemned homosexuality, Freud did not. He theorized that the etiology of the male homosexual occurred as a result of a rejecting father and a close, binding mother, which intensified the oedipal rivalry as to inhibit the choice of a female partner. Freud felt that given these circumstances, homosexuality (inversion), in some cases, could be successfully treated (Freud, 1920a, 1920b). Suggesting psychoanalysis, Freud offered that a homosexual could change orientation if desired; however, he felt it was not always predictable or necessary (Freud, 1951). But as many have pointed out, Freud was rather pessimistic, about the possibility of a full reversal from exclusive homosexuality to exclusive heterosexuality.
Although Freud found the homosexual person, in most cases, to be intelligent and highly talented (e.g. Leonardo da Vinci), he found that homosexuality was, in and of itself, a “fatal deviation”. Homosexuality was found to be an inversion of normal sexuality and homosexual impulses were found, in most cases, to be considered outside the norm.
According to Freud, homosexuality resulted from an infantile arrest of normal psychosexual development, due to disturbance within the oedipal complex. For the male, that being, an over-involvement with the mother, and an emotional detachment from the father. Freud found that the homosexuals’ object-choice lied closer to narcissism than heterosexuality. The homosexual narcissism facilitated a path toward the homosexual object-choice (Freud, 1920, 1922).
Freud (1940) correlated “fixations of the libido to conditions in earlier phases, whose urge, which is independent of the normal sexual aim, is described as perversion. One such developmental inhibition, for instances, is homosexuality when it is manifest” (pp. 26-27).
To summarize Freud’s view on male homosexuality, alot can be learned from his work in Leonardo da Vinci: A Study in Psychosexuality (1910), whereas he stated:
In all our male homosexuals there was a very intensive erotic attachment to a feminine person, as a rule to the mother, which was manifest in the very first period of childhood and later entirely forgotten by the individual. This attachment was produced or favored by too much love from the mother herself, but was also furthered by the retirement or absence of the father during the childhood period. Sadger emphasizes the fact that the mothers of his homosexual patients were often man-women, or women with energetic traits of character who were able to crowd out the father from the place allotted to him in the family…
The love of the mother cannot continue to develop consciously so that it merges into repression. The boy represses the love for the mother by putting himself in her place, by identifying himself with her, and by taking his own person as a model through the similarity of which he is guided in the selection of his love object. He thus becomes homosexual; as a matter of fact, he returns to the stage of autoerotism, for the boys whom the growing adult now loves are only substitutive persons or revivals of his own childish person, whom he loves in the same way as his mother loved him…By repressing the love for his mother he conserves the same in his unconscious and henceforth remains faithful to her. When as a lover he seems to pursue boys, he really thus runs away from women who could cause him to become disloyal to his mother. Through direct observation of individual cases we could demonstrate that he who is seemingly receptive only of masculine stimuli is in reality influenced by the charms emanating from women…but each and every time he hastens to transfer the stimulus he received from the woman to a male object, and in this manner he repeats again and again the mechanism through which he acquired his homosexuality. (p. 79).
Freud (1922) also decribed a mechanism in certain cases of male homosexuality where the homosexual relationship respresetned a defense against an earlier state of affairs when the individual felt intense jealousy and hostility toward rival brothers.
For the female homosexual, Freud theorized that she became disillusioned with and angry with her mother. He also theorized that other traumas turned her away from her father. As in the case, “A psychogenesis of a case of homosexuality”, Freud (1920) said that the patient turned away from her father, thus all men altogether, and regressed to a female lover who replaced her mother.
In an appraisal of the research on Freud’s theories and therapies Fisher and Greeberg (1977/1985) said, “…there is a cumulative impact in the fact that the empirical findings for both male and female homosexuals tend to be in accord with Freud” (p. 253).
Jim – You are quoting from the 1977 version. The 1996 version gives a different rendering of the research. For those interested and can get a copy of the Fisher and Greenberg book, the relevant section is pages 134-141.
Regarding male homosexuality, Fisher and Greenberg said on page 139,
Nor is there is a need to limit theorizing to thinking that poor fathering causes homosexual attractions in some way. When sons recollect poor relationships with father, the questionnaires infrequently specify when the bad relationship occurred. For many men, I have spoken to and worked with, the bad relationships that are reported came after the emergence of homosexual interests, often in young adolescence. Furthermore, a sizable number of homosexual men report no such disruptions ever. Without the Oedipal theoretical underpinning, it seems to me that reparative drive theory is considerably weakened. The observation that many SSA men and women exist with no recollected or experienced parental disruption is another blow.
Fisher and Greenberg also apply similar analysis to the topic of lesbianism. I intend to excerpt more of the Fisher and Greenberg book on my blog later today…
Jason, can’t argue with you on that. It’s something I’ve suspected as well, but didn’t articulate well here, if I did at all.
At any rate, more than a few times, I’ve brought up, and so have others the issue of the parental arrangements in black homes. Many of which feature single mothers and absent or distant fathers. And there is no predominance of homosexuality among those black households.
Your article certainly asserts the reality that INTERESTS and the lack of mutual ones between parent and child affects the strength in those relationships.
Parents speculate and hope before a child is born what traits they will have. Who they will most resemble in looks and temprament.
And often will try to manipulate interests prior to birth.
Parents don’t WANT to speculate on the sexual orienation of their child, or take it as a given that homosexuality is a possibility without ALSO trying to manipulate the interests of the child away from what their idea of a gay person’s interests are.
Intervention to prevent or redirect sexual orientation starts early and often. Something that Joseph Nicolosi believes is possible.
And as if this isn’t a long tradition that’s been disastrous.
Why not stop all the manipulating and interventions? Why NOT let a child’s homosexuality take it’s course? There isn’t as much known about what the results of NOT intervening would do.
That’s some research I long to see happen. Don’t you?
The reason the APA dropped homosexuality from its list of mental disorders was that there was absolutely no evidence that being gay is a mental disorder. They had a definition of mental disorder, but to make it stick for gay people they had to ignore their own definiton, and say that “Of course. Gay people are mentally disordered BY definiton. Just not THIS definiton.” It could not hold up to any kind of scientific scrutiny. The really homophobic psychiatrists, like Bieber and Soccarides (father of a gay son!!!), the ones who earned their living “curing” gay people, tried to force a referendum on the APA, but it also failed. The whole procedure underlined that prejudice was really the defining issue, not homosexuality, and certainly not science, as is often the case on this particular issue. (Not surprisingly, religious reactions to gay people are very similar). First, a whole category of people is defined as mentally ill (or particularly sinful) with no scientific or experiential (or biblical) reason to do so, only a cultural and religious prejudice. They they have a vote, and presto-change-o, a whole category of people are “cured” overnight. Then, the people who whose livelihood depend on the the “mental illness” issue try to make another vote to make all of those people “sick” again. Clearely, not a matter of good science or good medicine, just prejudice. You might call it the politics of diagnosis. There is a great book on the whole fiasco called “Homosexcuaility and American Psychiatry” by Ronald Bayer. It’s a great read.
David,
In transferring data from an email format to this format, paragraph breaks were effected, will watch for that. Your comment is duly noted.
As far as the hypothalamus and pheromones data, I believe one should not be quite so dismissive as they are biological and chemical templates at birth that have full effect on sexual attraction. And they are raw accurate data. My gut tells me that DNA may never turn up a smoking gun.
DB
Jim,
You state:
“My inclinations toward you are in all due respect. But where you say, gays’ stress is more a function of society’s attitudes toward them, I have to correct you and say that that is not supported by empirical data.”
Jim – it is VERY true – was for me and for many gay people I have known over the years – the gay youth that are kicked out of their homes by their family – the high incidence of drug addiction among gays – the gays that feel forced to get married and then end up lying and cheating and feeling terrible about it – the list goes on and on……
Yes, Warren, I already made mention to this is a previous post. The studies since 1997 lessened, thus harder to support the mother factor, however the father factor stays strongly supported. Even my thesis at Marywood supported the father factor in 1994. A gay researcher at a Texas college also just found the same thing.
Finally, where F&G say, “conjure up…” says it all…and that’s what the folks on here do and so do others if you keep reading, which I know you do and will. All the best, Jim
The last defense of the indefensible.
Jim – Could you provide the reference to the researcher at a Texas college?
So this father factor is about what? The reparative drive theory is not a social learning theory. RT posits a mother component that precedes the father factor. What is the father factor without the Oedipal crisis you have been banging on about?
The father factor is “about” several things in correlation to the homosexual condition, here is the short 101 version for dummies:
1. Distant father doesn’t provide son role model, his sense of masculinity, often results in Gender Identity problems, and as we know that leads to homosexuality (ask Ken Zucker about that).
2. Distant or hostile father leaves boy hungry for male love = boy looks for love in other males = homosexuality.
3. Same father is often poor mate to mother, hence mother overr simulates the boy. More inclined to Gender confusion. Mother imposes an incest taboo, boy translates to all females (see my article on Jonah). Poor couple = poor role model for heterosexuality.
Warren, about the reference:
Title: THE FATHER SON RELATIONSHIP IN HOMOSEXUAL
IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL
STUDY. St Mary’s University,Ronald Jay Monachello, M.ED.
San Antonio, Texas, March 2006
Come on Jim! Explain to me how is it that the kids I grew up with that had a very dysfunctional family home with only a female parent and the male children turned out straight? Explain to me the kids that grew up in a same sex family environment and the kids they raised are straight? How stupid do you think some of us are here?
These studies are so inconsistent its laughable. I don’t know how many times I hear this from the anti-gay side and I have to scoff at it because I know that it is all bunk.
“1. Distant father doesn’t provide son role model, his sense of masculinity, often results in Gender Identity problems, and as we know that leads to homosexuality (ask Ken Zucker about that).”
Gender Identity has nothing to do with homosexuality. I’m not confused about my gender. At no point did I ever wish I was a girl, I have never longed for a vagina and a pair of breasts, this alone sounds rather ridiculous.
Seems someone is suggesting that the only way I could be interested in men is if I think I’m a woman, that I could not possibly do so without that being true. That a man who knows he’s a man, would not be interested in other men.
How does this explain the propensity for gay men to want to look their most “manly” (working out, growing a beard) these are not the activities of someone who is or wants to be a woman.
A homosexual may also suffer from Gender Identity issues, but they are not the same thing.
“2. Distant or hostile father leaves boy hungry for male love = boy looks for love in other males = homosexuality.”
Love and sex are not the same thing, I still don’t see how this “looking for love in other males” becomes sexual.
And if this were true, wouldn’t satisfying that craving end the homosexual thoughts and desires? In effect, the moment we fall in love with a partner, shouldn’t we stop being gay?
This is all rather ridiculous and suggests that left to their own devices, with no supervision, boys would think they were girls and girls would think they were boys, and all would be some level of homosexual or bisexual. It’s as if our sexuality and gender are entirely socially constructed. That there is nothing internal that guides our sexual choices, and or gender identity.
Since a distant or absent father and an overbearing and protective mother is the status quo for quite a number of species out there, why isn’t the animal kingdom overcome with homosexuals to the point of near extinction? Why would something that seems to work fairly well for many species be a homosexual nightmare for us?
And considering that child-rearing has been traditionally “women’s work” with men out in the field for 12-18 hours a day, or spending days apart from family hunting and gathering, or spending months fighting in this or that war or conflict — it seems we’re rather lucky there are any heterosexuals at all!
why on earth would nature and our own societal structures select against a supportive heterosexual model and in favor of one that supposedly fosters homosexuality?
And what of orphans, does the lack of a mother and father make most of them asexual? Since the childcare industry is dominated by women, shouldn’t most orphans be asexual with homosexual leanings?
Ken, believe it or not, that quote is essentially NARTH in a nutshell (no pun intended). Once you have the model, you go out and try to find anything that might fit and reject the rest. It is the antithesis of scientific research.
Jason said of himself: “I have never longed for a vagina and a pair of breasts, this alone sounds rather ridiculous.”
Yes, I agree, this does sound ridiculous!
Jim,
You have got to be kidding?
[1. Distant father doesn’t provide son role model, his sense of masculinity, often results in Gender Identity problems, and as we know that leads to homosexuality (ask Ken Zucker about that).
2. Distant or hostile father leaves boy hungry for male love = boy looks for love in other males = homosexuality.
3. Same father is often poor mate to mother, hence mother overr simulates the boy. More inclined to Gender confusion. Mother imposes an incest taboo, boy translates to all females (see my article on Jonah). Poor couple = poor role model for heterosexuality.]
This is an uneducated, ignorant approach to understanding sexual orientation.
Sexual orientation is NOT pyschological – it is biological.
I know many gay men whose parents are still married and they have also had good strong relationships with their fathers. I know many straight men who were raised without fathers.
Do you really believe your post or are you playing around?
You are ignorant – that’s it. I am ignorant sometimes when it comes to racial minorities – so I know ignorance when I see it.
Be man enough to work on your personal issues. You are essentially disrespecting an entire group of people.
Ken said: “Explain to me how is it that the kids I grew up with that had a very dysfunctional family home with only a female parent and the male children turned out straight?” That’s already been discussed. Keep up.
Ha, Ha, Ha, very funny, David.
G,
I know we disagree, but if I can’t say Sexual orientation is pyschological – how can you say it is biological? Both are theoretical at this point, correct?
Jim, Jason was making a point in response to your statement. Stop deflecting legitimate debate with useless comments like that. If you wish to enjoy the privilege of participating here, do not ignore legitimate inquiry about your claims. This continued disruption will not be tolerated much longer.
If you something germane to add to the discussion, do so. But stay out of Junior High.
Edit: In the time it took for me to write this short comment, you posted 3 more inane comments, Jim. You’ve got one more chance here. Any further comments of this type will be deleted.
No problem Jim. But first let me sift through all your psychobabble first to find the answer to my question.
Jim,
Kindly direct me to where you addressed this question. I (and aparantly Ken) missed your answer – unless it was that vague “external feature fills the roll” comment.
Jason,
Animals are not exculsively homosexual, at least that’s what most researchers find. Animals, unlike humans, do not follow a moral code, just a survival instinct. Homosexual beh. in the animal world happens not as a rountine but as a mistake or unusual situation, ie. low hormones, over domestication, error, mistaken identity, captivity, non-availablity of opposite sex, catalyst for mating, expression of dominance (looks sexual but its really violence), callow sex play, etc.
And that moral code that you state Jim must be the one conservative Christians claim everyone must follow because they have the truth and God on their side.
Timothy,
Not much has been studied on why some survive, but we have to conclude, due to lack of evidence that protective factors took over. Just like in the situations in trauma, when in the cases where 2 people are faced with trauma and only one goes on to exhibit PTSD symptoms.
Finally, is that to say they are absent of the condition, no, maybe they just hide it? Maybe they don’t have it? Noone may really know.
Jim Phelan said:
Back it up or recant, Jim.
Ken,
Moral code does not have to mean Christian. I know some non-christians, who share some of my same morals.
-Jim
Good God Jim! You make it sound like those that are gay are somehow in a life and death situation. Survivors must be the ones that end up straight while others are deemed as going under and drowning because they end up gay.
You really need to work on your words.
Actually, a thought based observation might conclude instead that the lack or correlation was a clear indicator that the presumptions about causation were incorrect.
Jim,
Your premise, if I understand it correctly, is that male homosexuality is CAUSED (in most if not all cases) by a psychological response in the child to an absent or distant father (perhaps with an overbearing mother).
Your response to evidence of a massive increase in absent fathers without evidence of any correlating increase whatsoever in homosexuality is that “protective factors” took over.
Your position is that because your original assumption is correct, then any evidence, no matter how compelling, is to be ignored and written off.
You do realize, don’t you, that this response makes your argument appear to be dogmatic rather than thought driven?
And “whose” moral code is acceptable to you? Morality is defined differently for different people. Not everyone agrees the same way. So what “moral code” is acceptable? Is there only one moral code that we must follow? Seriously, I’m curious to know.
Jim, I know you’ve admonished one commenter to “keep up” so forgive me if you address this in later comments. I grew up in a deeply religious, two parent household. My parents celebrated 40 years of marriage this past year. Both my parents are ministers in an evangelical, some would say, fundamentalist denomination. In response to the “father theory” points you’ve listed, I speak for myself when I say:
#1: Doesn’t apply – my dad wasn’t distant growing up; provided a great role model as a loving, caring, masculine husband and father.
#2: Doesn’t apply – see response to #1
#3: Doesn’t apply – 40+ years of marriage that is as good behind closed doors as is exhibited on Sundays at church (I know…grew up with it). Further, the relationship exhibited by my parents was also exhibited by both sets of grandparents (both 50+ years of marriage before death separated them) – who I was around much during my formative years (lived next door to paternal grandparents for many years – often spent time during summer with maternal grandparents).
Is this “father theory” something you actually buy into? I’m curious because my own experience and observations (admittedly non-scientific), indicate that these points you’ve listed are simplistic at best and don’t speak to a majority of gay people’s experiences. Certainly they don’t speak to mine.
j.
Jim,
You state
“I know we disagree, but if I can’t say Sexual orientation is pyschological – how can you say it is biological? Both are theoretical at this point, correct?”
That is incorrect – they are both not theoritical.
There is credible evidence indicating that it is bioloigical. There is no credible evidence to indicate that it is psychological.
This has been covered over and over again on this site – re-read some of the links and the studies therein.
I would go further and say that many so-called christian values are in fact IMMORAL.
The American religious right certainly is immoral. Lying is immoral, adovacting unjust wars is immoral, torture is immoral, oppression is immoral, prejudice is immoral.
The religious right is highly immoral.
Jim,
Dick Cheney and his wife have a gay child. Alan Keyes and his wife have a gay child.
Your theories are outdated. They are based on stereotypes that we now know not to be true.
You need to keep up.
This may seem a little off-thread, but I think it is very much on thread.
The flurry of comments and counter-comments surrounding Jim Phelan is, to my mind, very indicative of what is actually going on here. I am not attacking Jim Phelan here. I don’t know the man and don’t want to. But I think it is a waste of time to get into an argument with him, as it is with so many anti or exgays. The value in all of this is that people who are at least open on the subject of the place of gay people in society are getting logical expositions of facts and arguments.
The whole debate on whether animals are actually or situationally gay is a very good example. For anyone interested in the subject, a great book called “Biological Exuberance” surveyed the literature and dealt with the subject thoroughly, including the socio/psychological aspects of a number of researchers REFUSAL to recognize same sex sexual and courtship behavior among birds and mammals.
We are told that being gay is not natural for animals and so is not natural for humans, either. We point out the results of Biological exuberance, which indicates that yes, in fact, it is natural. Not to mention common, widespread, and statistically normal for thousands of years in all cultures.
We are then told that we should not use animals as our guides. We are far better– or worse– than that.
Jim’s comment: “Animals are not exclusively homosexual, at least that’s what most researchers find.” and blah blah blah. This indicates he has not read biological exuberance and doesn’t hang around animals very much, at least according to my farm-raised friends.
As timothy pointed out, and which I am getting to, is that maybe this is really a lot more about ideology than it is about dispassionate pact and reason.
So what am I trying to say here? It doesn’t really matter whether animals “do it” or not. It doesn’t matter whether there are weak fathers and strong mothers, or not. none of it matters because it is not what this is about. It doesn’t matter whether the bible bans, hates, loves, encourages, allows, or admits homosex, because it isn’t about religion either.
It is clear from all of the comments here that there is not one thing that you can say that is true about gay people as a group (I’ll leave out bi people) except that they prefer members of their own sex for dating, sex, romance, or family. Just like you cannot say anything about heteros as a group except that blah blah.
Therefore, it seems to me that this is about one thing, and one thing only: either you think that being gay is OK, and that being gay means that gay people should be treated differently, or you don’t. That is, I think except for room for gray area, as fair, dispassionate, and accurate a description of reality as I can come up with.
(Left to my own devices, this is what I actually would say: It is about how much the very existence of gay people bothers some straight people. It is about ending a prejudice that says we can be treated differently because of that prejudice. If it were not about prejudice, given its very thin veneer of respectability by religion, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Segregation in the old South was very much supported by law AND by religious belief. Yet we now see it as prejudice, and not divine rule, or moral behavior, or anything like that.)
There are a lot of filters through which these two basic positions get expressed: religion, fear, political power, career, money, self-hatred, ideology, self-protection, self interest, fear of self, fear of sex, ignorance willful or otherwise, and on and on and on.
The prominent change-your-gay-ways researched cited throughout this thread have all stated that even if gay were found to be completely biological and/or genetic, we would still need to change it. Perhaps because they have determined, in conference with the almighty himself, that it is not a part of his “plan”.
So again, it doesn’t matter whether it is nature or nurture, it is whether you think gay is OK or you don’t. Everything else is an after-thought. I applaud this website and others for their insistence on intellectual and factual rigor, because it helps to illustrate what this is really about. Insistence on fact and reason is not enough; fact and reason must actually be present, which is what Phelan’s comments seem to lack.
I am willing to admit that I am, in an ideological sense, absolutely OK with and committed to GAY IS OK. But then, I am a gay man in a happy and gay life, and so perhaps that is to be expected.
Can Jim Phelan and those who agree with him admit the same?
Jonathan: You say, “…don’t speak to a majority of gay people’s experiences. Certainly they don’t speak to mine.”
Not according to the research.
As for your story, thanks for sharing. But, it doesn’t give weight to the body of empirical data.
Yes, David, sorry.
Jim,
While I don’t hold a Doctorate from an on-line study program, I’m not exactly a dummy. Paul Cameron’s research aside, I’d like to see a bit of that “research” you tout in your response to me.
j.
Back it up or recant, Jim. Your comments will be moderated until you deal with this and your last unsupported statement.
Thin ice.
David, yes. The text I mentioned earlier reviews hundreds of research. As for the animal research, those are in the article I cited previously. I appreciate tight standards, I respect you for them, but remember others are also claiming things uncited. Thanks.
Good points, Ben. It’s not easy to maintain a safe space for intelligent debate, allow diverse points of view and filter out those who would disrupt that with a lot of noise and distraction disguised as “just another opinion.” We may not be perfect in our attempt to juggle these things, but we try.
Now and then we get what amounts to a sexuality/morality pundit, without a desire to listen and learn. Not everyone on the other side of the ideological spectrum is like that, so perhaps I would take your words as a general guideline acknowledging that exceptions exist. We have some of those exceptions right here.
Someone voiced concern that we would sift through all those who disagree with us and leave only the like minded. A few days spent here should dispell that notion for all but the free speech purists, or anarchists. We thrive on debate, iron sharpens iron, but a mob teaches nothing. The one thing we require is that all are willing to listen, to learn and debate civilly. So in that respect, yes we do require like-mindedness.
I’m not attacking Jim Phelan either, but his OT comments, unsupported assertions, distractions and avoidance of direct questions have been a great, unproductive disruption to otherwise legitimate topics. The quality of debate, and therefore this site, has gone down since he started commenting here. That can’t go on much longer.
Ben
I heard your comment suggesting I had not read, biological exuberance. I did read it when it first came out years ago and in fact reviewed it for The NARTH Bulletin at the time.