LGBT bill to ban therapy for youth on sexual orientation issues is stalled in Mass.

Well it isn't a mental illness, it doesn't fit the definition.

 

How can you draw all that from me asking a question of another poster?

 

Well at least they aren't condoning mucking about with something that people don't understand.

What do you think the "real" objective of the APA is? What I see is that it pays no lip service to religion, it shouldn't.

What do you see?

 

Okay....what is the "difference" between a Klan member who wants America to be white and Protestant....and a non-Klan member who wants America to be white and Protestant?

 

He does this often. It's called preaching. It's lack of argument.

 

I outlined quite clearly what I thought.

I'm arguing for a government that promotes the tenets of a free society governed by the individual. I don't think the government has any business making these choices on behalf of people. In the end government isn't some external entity capable of seeing all angles and all sides of an issue. It's just people. People make decisions, not government. So the best people to make the decision whether or not they wish to seek therapy, or medical treatment, or no treatment at all are the people who are actually seeking treatment. They are the group of people with the greatest interest in making sure that the service they receive is appropriate and serves their individual interest.

 

And just to be clear, I think allowing people to determine appropriate medical treatment on their own is an entirely different proposition than a hypothetical snake oil merchant selling a bottle of rat poison as a miracle panacea. That would be an example of fraud & abuse that I think is in the public's interest to distribute information about & directly adjudicate if the consumer has some injury or harm that requires compensation. But even then we don't need a law against selling rat poison, or snake oil for that matter.

 

So you do believe we shouldn't make things illegal because people are just going to do them any way.

I was just trying to confirm that and thanks for confirming that.

So this is just a long drawn out way of saying it shouldn't be illegal because...what exactly? People should have the right to torture their children with this (*)(*)(*)(*)?

FYI, In a constitutional republic the people are the government.

 

I'm a libertarian also. So I get the individual's rights angle.

Perhaps you simply don't have enough information. This so called "therapy" is worse than selling arsenic as a magical cure.

It's inventing diseases in order to give people false hope. The damages are psychological. That doesn't mean they aren't real.

 

Some people do not read for content.

Instead they read for agenda.

There can be no communication with someone unwilling to receive.

You confirmed for yourself what you wanted to confirm regardless of what I wrote.

If you have an honest interest in my opinion, perhaps you could re-read what I wrote. If not, have a great day.

 

While that may be your opinion, I see no objective reason why that opinion should be imposed on the entire population.

 

I think his point's a little more subtle than that. That we should just do away with state licensing completely and let the market decide.

I kind of lean toward that when I say it should be OK to sell this as faith healing, even if the "treatment" is exactly the same thing. I think kids would feel a lot less pressure to "succeed" if they knew they were dealing with a "faith healer" rather than a licensed doctor.

At least, IMO, he's consistent in his views. What I object to (and they tried this with creationism dressed up as "intelligent design") is religious people and organizations promoting belief dressed up as scientific process.

If they believe that god can cure their kid of homosexuality they should be proud to accept this as "faith healing" and go to a "faith healer" to get it done. God's better than all that sciency stuff anyway, surely? Why seek the validation of science when you berate the scientific community when it disagrees with your religious views?

To me that's hypocrisy and I don't think the poster you are responding to is being hypocritical even if I don't agree with his position 100%.

 

Maybe if people like you would stop giving us a hard time we'd enjoy being alive a bit more.

Unfortunately, we face mass scorn, hatred from our own families, and other such nasty business just for existing.

Good job spreading that Christian love.

Or, you know, because a large number of us were disowned and beaten for what we are.

Wouldn't expect you to get it, but being queer will cause homophobes to do a lot of traumatic things to you.

You've got cause and effect backwards. It's pretty well known that reckless hedonism is just another symptom of the psychological side of societal repression. Take any group hated by high society and you'll find the same kind of thing.

The spirit doesn't exist and psychology takes my side of the argument. Freedom won't come from some ignorant homophobe sitting in a chair and demanding that you change your spots. Freedom will come the day that the last homophobe dies.

I agree. It's a pity that evangelical christianity has caused such a thing.

 

There doesn't need to be a mental illness to receive psychiatric therapy.

 

I posted from the APA's own findings that such statements as "100% failure" are false.

 

Okay, sometimes my message gets misunderstood. Sometimes I have to correct it so that people understand exactly what I am trying to explain to them. People being different individuals sometimes requires me to better communicate my message. Now if they ask me if my message ment something that it didn't, I'll stop and explain to them what I ment. That's called good communication.

I don't need to make up false agendas. I don't need to blame the receiver. All I can do is try and explain.

So, now I've given you feedback twice. Honest feedback to make sure I receive your message properly. I'm thinking the message I received has to be wrong, you can't possibly believe that.

I can't possibly make it more obvious that I'm interested in honest discussion of your opinion. Can you please clear it up? Did I indeed receive your message incorrectly? I read it again, still kind of fuzzy. Shouldn't it be easier to remove the doubt?

 

Is a man seeking a transition treating his chromosome assignment as if it were a disease? Should someone be telling him to accept his anatomy for what it is, and nurture him to be a man?

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Quit being pretentious. There is no "evidence available" to support any scientific explanation for orientation. I posted that from the APA's website, too.

 

So the apa found that a person's sexual orientation can be changed to be the complete opposite of what it was? Interesting, where did they state that?

 

No! It's unethical to profess to know it's A) innate, and B) unalterable!

 

So then you agree, treating it as though it is a psychological disorder is unethical then correct?

 

It's a giant leap from asserting it's not a mental illness to it's something that should ONLY be nurtured and never attempted to change.

 

I see it as a fervent anti-religious, government sponsored, politically correct bunch of horsesheeat that's potentially dangerous to a lot of people.

 

I've never argued it's a mental disorder. You don't need to have a mental disorder to be treated by a psychiatrist. Sometimes people are just going through life stuff, which includes sex issues, because the sex organs and brain organ are very much connected, and not just through stimulation.

 

But it isn't unethical to assume it is unchangeable. We don't know if it's mutable. So applying treatment without knowing whether the outcome will produce desired effects or adverse effects when the case can be made that it causes adverse effects in people whose sexual orientation could not be changed, is unethical.

The first ethical principle in treating people is, "First, do no harm." It is the burden of those applying the treatment to prove they are doing no harm.

 

If you read carefully through the APA's info I posted, you'll discover there are a lot of over exaggerated claims of doing harm and inefficacy of conversion therapy. I'm afraid you may subscribe to some of these over exaggerations.