GAYS NOT GAY OVER GOVERNOR PALIN'S CHURCH

"..the best route for a "gay" guy to take is to get out in the Alaskan woods and hunt, shoot, and field dress a moose. "

So you embrace the stereotype. What on earth would lead you to conclude that gay men and women aren't already shooting moose in the Alaskan woods? Did you think that we are all hairdressers?

"I must not get it. There’s so much antipathy in this country toward homosexuals and yet good people who want to end that antipathy by getting 'gays' to return to normal lives are castigated for trying to 'pray away the gay.'"

Gay people are already leading "normal" lives There is nothing to "return" to (as if they were once heterosexual). Being gay isn't a problem. Repression and ignorance are problems.

There has NEVER been a single piece of evidence published in a peer reviewed journal that supports the remotest notion that sexual orientation can be changed - by prayer or anything else. In contrast, there is substantial scientific research - published and peer reviewed that indicates that reparative therapy has greater potential to be harmful than to work. The dynamic becomes exceptionally toxic when a parent is wed to the (wholly unproved) that their kid can be made straight. Parents have no more influence over the sexual orientation of their children than they have over their eye color.

Of course, they paint the scientific findings as some sort of massive conspiracy by the left wing medical establishment.

The Religious Right has an inconvenient little problem. How can you condemn people if God made them that way? Solution: Pray Away the Gay. It's sheer bunk.

http://www.tips-q.com/content/why-do-they-hate-us-so-much

David,

I won't get into a debate with you over the normality of gays. I would only point to the suicide rate among gays, which is not entirely attributable to society's rejection.

Being "gay" was pronounced "normal" by the APA only after extreme pressure and agitation by the "gay" community. Look it up and better yet read my book! :)

I wish you well but don't try to hide behind lies and venom.

Ironically, "Little Peter" LaBarbera called the gay suicide thing a myth. In any event, there does seem to be a higher rate of suicide for gay teens. I suspect that this could be reduced with more parental and peer acceptance. To suggest that it is "not entirely attributable to society's rejection" is unsupportable. I also believe that there is a higher suicide rate among people who have gone through so-called reparative therapy. Since the people who should be researching this matter either don't - or don't publish the results, I have only anecdotal evidence.

The APA has nothing to do with the complete lack of evidence that would support a conclusion that reparative therapy works. Nor is the APA responsible for the peer reviewed, published research in support of the conclusion that it doesn't work.

The APA did not succumb to pressure from gay groups. The APA made a decision solely based on their own research. Were gay groups pressuring the APA to be scientifically honest? Sure. However, particularly considering the amount of money that therapists lost by no longer treating gay people, the decision was one based on research - not politics.

There is absolutely NOTHING in my prior post that could be framed as a lie! Venomous? That's in the eye of the recipient but was not my intent. At the core of my post is published and peer reviewed evidence about the ineffectiveness of reparative therapy and a complete lack of contravening evidence. That's an issue of fact.

It should be noted that the referee pool ("referees" are those who review articles for publication in respected journals) has never been larger or more diverse. The key to getting research published has nothing to do with the result; In contrast, it is a review of the application of the scientific method in sampling, experimentation and analysis.