Closing "Reparative Therapy" Programs

FSB again (see two prior posts).

On Lawn said, “I’ve rarely seen such animus towards one segment of society marrying another as I’ve seen here in arguing that gays that get married are living a sham (as in they don’t really love their spouses) and calling them, as you did, hollow shells of individuals.”

I have no animus against persons who make the mistake of marrying someone they don’t love, only against those who willfully encourage them to do so knowing the harm that it does to the individual, the spouse and any children they have.

I will gladly acknowledge that “love” is manifest in many ways. I loved my grandmother and my sixth grade teacher, Miss Bolte, but that doesn’t mean I would want to marry either one. If a mixed orientation married couple came to me saying they wanted to stay together, I would do my best to help them achieve that goal.

As the NY Times article Silverside linked to points out, “Gay and bisexual men continue to marry for complex reasons, many impelled not only by discrimination, but also by wishful thinking, the layered ambiguities of sexual love and authentic affection.”

“Sexual love,” “authentic affection,” add any and all variations of the theme that you wish. It is my contention that it is far better to find all these types of love in the one person one chooses to marry.

If some gays are impelled to enter into the disaster of mixed orientation marriages due to discrimination, then we need to eliminate this discrimination by acknowledging that the love that two gays have for each other is as valid as any other and allow their marriage to be honored and respected like yours or like mine.

If some gays marry persons of the opposite sex due to “wishful thinking,” the idea that their sexual orientation might change if they just work hard enough at pretending they’re straight, then we need to make it clear that this change is not possible. Those who play to the insecurities of vulnerable youngsters or the fears of discrimination (or damnation) that their concerned parents have by saying, “Change is possible, just enter your child in our six weeks pre-homosexual reorientation defaggafication program and we’ll straighten him out! (That’ll be $6,000 please.)” need to be called out for the charlatans that they are. Considering the great harm these people do (see previous comment), the sooner these groups can be sued out of existance, the better.

The Tennessee Health Department as shut down a portion of Love in Action’s “treatment” center in Memphis, so we are making at least some progress in this area.