Gay Conversion Therapy in California

Recently, the blocking of a ban on "reparative therapy" often used by parents to convert gay children to being straight has made the news.

There's been a lot of discussion as to whether this is a First Amendment issue or not.

What I'd like to address with this thread, however, is something a little different.

For those of you supportive of repealing this ban, would you support the allowance of therapy used to convert children to being gay?

 

For what purpose? Population control?

 

Neither work so why abuse your kids that way?

 

I'm just trying to see who's consistent and who isn't. If you allow one, you have to allow the other. If you ban one, you have to ban the other.

 

Show us the centers where people take their kids to turn them gay and I guarantee you they will be closed and banned.
Just need the names address's and the organizations that run them, thanks.

 

Not necessarily. Look at Russia. They have a negative population growth. By 2012 without a lot of new births they will hit a level that is unsustainable. In that case, I can see where they would want people to take on for the team and if conversion worked, asked people to either marry and/or have kids.

If there is a purpose for gay conversion therapy, like we're hitting China level of population, and parents wanted their kids to be gay then I'd say...sure. China needs more gay people.

What would the purpose be to convert people to being gay versus being one half of a breeding pair?

 

Apples and oranges. Heterosexuality is the default. It's what keeps every species on the planet replicating. The jury is still out on the official cause of homosexuality. And as long as that's the case, I don't think it's responsible to push for conversion to the latter from the former. I think the motives for doing so would be entirely emotional rather than rational and would be more about fulfilling an egalitarian compulsion than about what's actually best for the child. And I can't support something like that.

 

That would be like giving medicine to cause people to get sick. Doctors are forbidden by the Hippocratic oath to harm their patients.

 

I see what you are doing there... it is quite clever.

It forces people to say that "being gay is bad" as a pre-requisite to waging an argument against the fundamental reasoning behind your question. It also presumes that "gayness" is never learned behavior... or environmentally influenced behavior. This will immediately scope creep as arguments go, and end up back at the nature vs nurture argument which is constantly waged, and never resolved, because the fact is we just do not know... however there is significant evidence that it can be... and also enough to suggest that it certainly is not always.

So... first problem first. Is it "better" to be gay?
An argument I hear a lot, from gays, is that being gay is difficult, especially due to stigmas etc, and that they would never "choose" this lifestyle, so it is not a choice.
There is also a LOT of evidence that suggests that an in tact family, with both a mother and a father, produce healthier environments for children.
Children with a biological normalcy combined with a societal normalcy during very important times of childrens social growth makes things a lot easier I think.

I do not see a "benefit" to trying to turn a kid gay... just on the surface. I do not see how it is in the "best interest" of the child to prevent them a family and make things harder on them.

As to the nature vs nurture... a lot of very "straight" men end up having very "gay" relationships when women are removed from the environment... such as prison.

Looking at ancient cultures such as the Greeks... either you must accept that they were all predisposed genetically to homosexual relationships... or that the societal influence might have had SOMETHING to do with it.

Ok... Now I think your arguments are unsound... and we can chase those if you like... but I would offer a different question.

Should we stop raising young women to be slaves? Should we ban the conditioning which has them cooking and cleaning and child rearing so that they, one day, can serve some man? Does anyone think that this sort of conditioning is appropriate for human beings? Putting them in dresses... not teaching them really to use their minds... not teaching them to do the things we teach our boys to do... hunt, play chess, engineer things etc...

Let us ban "girl" conditioning as well.

 

Which is why it was banned in CA and should be across the nation.

 

But that's already in place. The "ok to be gay" culture is in our schools, our movies, and has become the axiom of society. You seem to have no problem with a society that applies this kind of pressure on kids toward bi-curiousness, but you object to any pressure to be normal and straight? Seems like you're the one being inconsistant.

 

That just means that they need to encourage more immigration.

My argument is that we have to be consistent in our perception of freedoms and limits for them. We can't treat one different from the other without inherently suggesting that homosexuality and heterosexuality aren't equals.

Again, the purpose doesn't matter. It's the principle that matters.

 

Population growth isn't an issue. The developing world more than makes up for our continuance as a species.

I would argue that the bolded part is also true of converting children from being gay to being straight.

The purpose of our lives has ceased to be procreation a long time ago.

 

Then what you're saying inherently is that being gay is an illness. That's a popular outlook, no doubt, but it's contrary to the concept of treating gays as equals to heterosexuals.

 

Freedoms are not determined by their merit. If that was true, then we'd still have a ban on alcohol, since drinking has no benefits to society.

I think this brings up good points.

My personal stance on this was originally in favor of the gay therapy ban back when it was first proposed.

Now, I'm actually against the ban myself, but I would also be against banning its opposite, because ultimately, parents are the keepers of their children.

More often than not, parental rights supercede child rights, because otherwise, you end up with ever-encroaching government in people's personal lives.

See above.

 

Why????

 

Because parents are ultimately their child's keeper.

If we go down this road, it leads to more and more government intrusion.

 

- Benjamin Franklin
Drinking makes us happy. Drinking makes us more social. That is founding father pursuit of happiness stuff. Merit is a relative scale however... I really like your question, the more I think about it, because I think that it strikes a fundamental (if not fundamentalist) nerve.

How cool would MOST on the left feel about that?
Conditioning your children to be gay? Conditioning a child to be gay while their brains are still wiring... I mean... I realize that there are those out there that believe that it would never work... that you simply are or you are not...

Would there be an ethical problem with conducting a study?
What would that ethical problem be?

 

I guess my whole view is that something should be free to do by default. The government should only limit things when it is proven that a given freedom harms someone other than the person making the decision him/herself.

With parental rights over children's rights, the issue becomes muddier, but I generally err on the side of parents most of the time.

But yeah, political biases show themselves pretty quickly with this issue. The left is touchier about the premise of converting gays to heteros, while the right is touchier about the opposite concept.

I'd rather just let parents make their own decisions on this sort of thing.

 

Homosexuals can and do reproduce.
I would agree that they do have significantly less unplanned pregnancies though

The same ill effects homosexual children suffer from when attending such treatment centers would happen to heterosexual children being shammed into being homosexuals. It is not healthy to make a child feel so bad about who they are naturally when the issue does not harm themselves or others. I do not agree with any wacko centers that would abuse children this way, nor any parents who would subject their children to them.

 

Yes, let's talk about consistency....

Few are more inconsistent than the GLBT crowd....who are surely behind this crap. The (*)(*)(*)(*)ing hypocrites scream bloody murder about governments prohibiting their choices (marriage, openly serving in the military, prancing about the SF commons nude, etc...), then employ government courts to prohibit another's choices.

 

Sure, I can agree with that.

I'm just saying that bans aren't the answer.

I think both therapies should be allowed.

 

Is that perception based on the concept that being gay is "OK" because you couldn't care less in restricting their freedom to like what they like?

Is conditioning a child to be gay a detriment to them? Depriving them of the fundamental concept of family which is a mingling of DNA to create and raise a child made of those parts? Do you love your adopted children so much it is incredible? Yep... some people love their puppy dogs the same way. Would I show an adopted child as much love as I would my own? Of course. Is it the same? No. Do you "need" that to be happy? Dunno... why do gays want to adopt? Some unfulfilled biological imperative? Not to mention there ARE still social stigmas etc. Is it in any way for their benefit... you can avoid that... well done... is it to their detriment?

IS there an ethical problem with doing a study using children... or is there not?

 

These types of programs have been shown to have ill effects on the "subjects", kids commit suicide because it doesn't work and just makes them feel even worse about themselves. Just like constantly berating your child is considered child abuse so should this.

I would be ok if these programs were limited to 16 and over and with a kind of informed consent on the child's part. Or better yet just wait till the kid turns 18, becomes an adult, and they can freely choose to enter the scam programs.

 

For the most part, yes. It's not my child, therefore, it's not my business. Would I send my own child to this stuff? Of course not.

I think most evidence shows that trying to force a child to be different from who he/she really is innately (whether gay or straight) is generally detrimental.

There's only an ethical issue if the study is done without the permission of the applicable parents.