Gay 'cures' don't work but banning them helps nobody

Sensitively argued, but I think it may benefit specific people who now won't be sent to ex-gay camps by their parents.

 

and we're worrying about therapy to turn people straight and not like, therapy to turn criminals in prison to be more civil and rape people less, or steal less..

(so they're born raper/murderer?)

//totally not related

 

This is ridiculous. The point of the ban isn't to win anyone over, it's to make them stop hurting people. And in that vein, yes, yes we should ban those other harmful therapies.

 

"It could even backfire, further convincing religious conservatives that they are under fire from an increasingly secular and liberalised culture"

I don't think that's a problem. The whole point of banning it is to send them the message that what they are doing is unacceptable. That's not a backfire - that's it working exactly as it's supposed to.

 

Yeah I can't agree with this article , Children have no say in what happenes to them because they are minors, so banning something is exactly what needs to happen to keep children safe and show them there is nothing wrong with them.

 

The article makes sense if you're talking about adults. If I, as a consenting adult, want to spend my time talking to a therapist who thinks they can make me straight, that should be my right (although I do think the therapist shouldn't be accredited). But, for children, this is an amazing law.

 

I don't agree. "Reparative" therapy is demonstrably harmful and should be regulated for everyone, not just children.

 

The argument made by Christopher Ferguson collapses on multiple fronts.

First, he assumes that banning so-called "reparative" therapy is designed to win over detractors and supporters of the practice. This is false. Whether or not they change their minds is irrelevant, as he points out himself the practice doesn't work and has proven to be dangerous.

It should be noted here that this dangerous therapy has only been banned for children - individuals under the age of 18. Adults who wish to subject themselves to it are still allowed. Adolescents do not have a choice and are forced to engage in this dangerous quack therapy by their parents, who are often pressured or coerced by religious leaders.

Since this therapy is known to be dangerous, and particularly dangerous to children, this was the only logical outcome.

Second, Christopher argues that the studies of this practice could be wrong. In other words, in the future we may come to learn that this quack therapy is not only not dangerous, but potentially beneficial. He doubts this, as he notes, but he throws it out there as a possibility.

He wrote: "I believe government must be careful when tackling social issues, especially when using social science data. ... Consensus at any point in time is largely irrelevant. Today's scientific sure thing is tomorrow's junk science."

Let us assume, then, that new and future studies begin to show that this quack therapy is not harmful at all. Let us go further and assume that future studies begin to show that it works.

It then opens the door for a new question: If it isn't dangerous and it works, should we "encourage" parents to send their children to these therapists?

My response to that would be no, because there is nothing wrong with being gay. The underlying premise for this type of therapy is that something is "wrong" and needs to be "fixed". I'm saying nothing is wrong, that nothing needs to be fixed, and the individual is completely healthy. It's the equivalent of forcing a perfectly healthy child to have their appendix and gallbladder removed because the child might have trouble with them in the future.

No, it does not matter what their parents and other people believe. Let's simply flip the situation around. Let's assume that I have children all of whom identify as straight. This upsets me because I really wanted my children to be gay just like me. So I force them to undergo gay-conversion therapy. I even force them to date (and possibly even have sex) with individuals of the same sex. In an inversion of what the gay-to-straight therapies do, I begin to assault my children's gender identity by forcing them to act as the opposite gender. Boys are forced to act feminine, and girls are forced to act masculine. If they refuse to do it they are punished. It is of little doubt that this would be harmful to my children. However, does my desire to have gay children outweigh my children's right to their own unique and separate sexuality? Does my desire to have gay children outweigh their mental well being? Of course not. Since doing this isn't acceptable, why then is forcing someone who is gay to try to become straight acceptable? It should be no less wrong or appalling.

Finally, addressing Christopher Ferguson's direct point - which he is basically invoking the slippery slope fallacy - the mental health community, if we want to consider mental health a science, needs to police itself. If practices are shown to be harmful and detrimental to those who engage in them, then those practices need to be evaluated.

If the mental health community cannot stop harmful practices, then who else exists - aside from the government - to step in and put an end to it? In the case of many of these therapies - and this is particularly true of "conversion / reparative" therapy - they do not work. Since they do not work a fraud is being perpetuated on those who undergo the therapy as well as those who pay for it.

An exchange is being made: A doctor, or someone acting as a doctor, is telling someone that they can "fix" them. Money is exchanged in anticipation of being "fixed". The "fix" doesn't happen, because the therapy doesn't work. That's fraud.

The government has always had an active role in fighting against fraudulent practices. If the system were working correctly, then those who undergo these therapies would be able to sue those who engage in them both for the money they spent (sometimes on the order of tens of thousands of dollars), as well as for the mental and emotional damage incurred.

A ban of any sort would not be necessary, because they would go out of business.

 

i kinda get what he means with boot camps ect.often they are done with no conclusive studies or follow ups.and i worry that putting kids in these programs is really saying to the kids something is wrong with you we dont hold you very high.he didnt sound like a apologist to me the first part was a good condemnation of conversion therapy.he was reasonable i can respect his thinking.his ideal seems to be a culture where gays are accepted . i just think his logic is wrong about not intervening with these programs when it involves kids being forced in these programs.

---------- Post added 31st Oct 2012 at 12:19 AM ----------

the back fires can also help us more.i remember how much civil union support in nz went up after the destiny church rally.

 

The California law only bans this practice for children and I fully agree with that. Although I strongly advise against it, adults can seek this type of counseling if they want to. Now whether the counselors will be acredited by the appropriate medical association is another issue. People who want this type of counseling probably won't care if the person is actually licensed by the state or has any facts/proof behind the methods. They only care if they say they can help them change their orientation. For that matter, a pastor of a church can try to help someone supress their natural orientation and pretend to be straight. I find it sad, but for these people, indoctrination is hard to break.

 

Yes, although as I said I class that as it doing exactly what it was supposed to, not as a backfire .

 

i think it really is just designed to protect the rights of minors who, without the ban, would have to unwillingly do something they didn't consent to by their parents