Texas GOP argue over proposed therapy to turn gays straight

[MelissaWV]

And again, if someone comes to you asking for help in changing a behavior, your saying "Okay I will help you" is not chastisement. I've been both the person asking for help and the person who has been approached by someone wanting help. Not on this particular issue, but why should it matter? Not judging is not judging. If offering someone help who came to you asking for it is somehow judging or chastising, then psychology and counseling as a whole should be abolished.

I think most of the controversy with this is not about adults. Adults seek counseling for all sorts of things, and this would be one of them. The gray area for me is when someone plunks their kid into a "program" along these lines because little Bobby got caught playing with dolls, or their teen daughter was kissing another teen girl, and the parent freaks out.

 

[jmdrake]

As for the GOP, if it is useless and stupid for social conservatives to highlight the homosexual issue by going into details in their platform, then it is useless and stupid for social liberals to highlight the homosexual issue by going into details in their platform. It's a cultural war, because two parties are fighting it. Why do some libertarians here treat social conservatives like Palestinians, where only their bad actions get attacked, but not the 'Israeli' social liberal actions that provoked them? How is it imposing an agenda if one advocates for the concept that one can become a former homosexual, but not imposing an agenda if one seeks to ban or demonize the concept?

From the libertarian stand point this should be simple. If libertarians are, for the most part, willing to say that the government shouldn't tell private businesses that they can't discriminate, then those same libertarians should be willing to say that the government shouldn't be able to tell counselors what conditions they can and can't treat. If there is a particular method of treatment that is obviously harmful, than that method of treatment shouldn't be allowed regardless of whether it's to treat sexual orientation or insomnia. But taking the position that the government shouldn't be allowed to protect blacks from private sector discrimination, but that it should protect teens from the "evils" of the Bachman's attempting to "pray away the gay" is hypocritical and asinine. (And if everyone here in favor banning gay conversion therapy regardless of how it's done is also in favor of the entire 1964 Civil Rights Act than I withdraw that particular point. But I have to then ask, is there any limit to what you feel the government out to be able to regulate in the name of "protecting the children"?)

There are several decades of psychiatric case studies to back up the notion, from the decades prior to the APA becoming politically compromised on the subject in the '70's, and from alternative research in the decades following. We should acknowledge this issue shoots Democrats in the foot as well, when they insist social moderates in their party march in lock step to every single dogma of the social left.

For the sake of this argument I'm willing to accept as fact that gay conversion therapy never works. It's still wrong and anti-liberty to ban it per se.

 

[jmdrake]

I think most of the controversy with this is not about adults. Adults seek counseling for all sorts of things, and this would be one of them. The gray area for me is when someone plunks their kid into a "program" along these lines because little Bobby got caught playing with dolls, or their teen daughter was kissing another teen girl, and the parent freaks out.

Oh sure. I realize that the law is aimed at people under the age of 18. And that does not at all change my position. I don't think it should be illegal for parents to take their children to their pastor to "pray away the gay." I don't think it should be illegal for a parent to take their children to a licensed counselor or psychologist to "pray away the gay." There are a lot of things parents do that someone else might not like. It's anti liberty to support laws banning everything a parent does that you might not like. What's next? Laws against parents freaking out? If a parent forbids his child from dating someone from another race, as repugnant as that sounds, should that be freaking illegal? I would think most people here would say "No. That should not be illegal". But somehow when sexual orientation becomes involved libertarianism seems to take a strange and unrecognizable, to me at least, turn.

Edit: And I was specifically addressing Ender's point which did not make the adult/child distinction. Either offering counseling to someone who asks for it is "judging" and "chastising" or it isn't. It doesn't suddenly become "non judgmental" once the person making the request is over 18. In every state in the union, including California and New Jersey, licensed counseling for porn addiction, for example, is perfectly legal. I don't think that means the porn addict is necessarily being judged. Should mommy and daddy freak out when little Johnny is caught on the Hustler website? I don't think so. But I don't think their freaking out and doing something about it should be banned.

 

[MelissaWV]

jmdrake : My only point there is that the person doing the asking is not always the person subjected to the "therapy." Sometimes that person is just fine with it, but others conspire to imprison them and reprogram them. It depends on the program. It does fall into the category of things that should be handled by a community --- which will often have godawful results, but better than when the Government handles them.

 

[Christian Liberty]

There it is - the thing that unites all of Christianity. No agreement about the important stuff like salvation, but in lock step about the gay. Are you sure you guys have your priorities straight (edited to add: pun not intended)?

The thing is that its just so obvious Biblically that homosexuality is a sin. There isn't really a Christian collective. But there's pretty much no way to hold to Biblical infallibility and also hold that homosexuality is not a sin. That's why there's such broad agreement on it.

I have never said, nor will I ever say, that opposition to homosexuality is the MOST IMPORTANT issue. But it is pretty much non-controversial for Christians. It just is what it is. Personally, I kind of wish opposition to soldiers, cops, and government control was universally shared as well, but it just isn't. I'm not in control of that.

 

[jmdrake]

jmdrake : My only point there is that the person doing the asking is not always the person subjected to the "therapy." Sometimes that person is just fine with it, but others conspire to imprison them and reprogram them. It depends on the program. It does fall into the category of things that should be handled by a community --- which will often have godawful results, but better than when the Government handles them.

Imprisonment should be wrong for whatever reason. Again, if someone is a bed wetter he shouldn't be imprisoned over it. Now say if someone is a bed wetter and is fine with it. Should that person be "forced" to go to therapy if he/she is under the age of 18? I dunno. Perhaps no counseling should be allowed if the person says he/she doesn't want it? I didn't want to stop sucking my thumb. I wasn't given counseling for it, but a lot of other coercion was used. In retrospect I wish it has been successful sooner as I wouldn't have needed braces. I didn't want to stop looking at porn as a kid. I retrospect I wish I hadn't started. It seems to me, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that people criticizing gay conversion therapy are putting it in a "special category" and wouldn't feel the same way if a parent was seeking treatment for his/her child for any other thing. At the end of the day, if we are to remain a free society, we have to allow parents the freedom to do somethings that we might not do and might even think are harmful. Again I bring up interracial dating. I think it would be wrong for a parent to forbid a child from going to the prom with someone of another race. But I would be against a law forbidding the parent for forbidding.

Okay, I'm re-reading your last sentence several times over and....I'm not following you. My whole point is that I don't want government involvement in this area. I neither want government mandating over "gay conversion therapy" like the Nazis did, or government banning of it like California and New Jersey. I agree that such government involvement brings "godawful results". And yet....you seem to be disagreeing with my position...and I don't understand why.

 

[jmdrake]

The thing is that its just so obvious Biblically that homosexuality is a sin. There isn't really a Christian collective. But there's pretty much no way to hold to Biblical infallibility and also hold that homosexuality is not a sin. That's why there's such broad agreement on it.

I have never said, nor will I ever say, that opposition to homosexuality is the MOST IMPORTANT issue. But it is pretty much non-controversial for Christians. It just is what it is. Personally, I kind of wish opposition to soldiers, cops, and government control was universally shared as well, but it just isn't. I'm not in control of that.

I could be a gay atheist and I would still not want the government telling parents they couldn't seek conversion therapy for their gay kids nor would I want the government telling professionals they couldn't offer the services. If any particular treatment was seen as particularly egregious and abusive, it should be banned regardless of the reason it was being done. But to ban therapy outright just because you disagree with the desired outcome is wrong.

 

[Christian Liberty]

I could be a gay atheist and I would still not want the government telling parents they couldn't seek conversion therapy for their gay kids nor would I want the government telling professionals they couldn't offer the services. If any particular treatment was seen as particularly egregious and abusive, it should be banned regardless of the reason it was being done. But to ban therapy outright just because you disagree with the desired outcome is wrong.

Agreed. Unfortunately, despite the fact that this is the thread topic, Voluntarist was saying something different entirely, hence why I replied.

I of course agree with you.

 

[NIU Students for Liberty]

Because some people are so anti-liberty as to pass laws telling people what kind of therapy they and can't have. I haven't read through this multi-page thread, but I'm sure if it's like the last time it's full of BS histrionics that pick out the worst examples of "gay therapy", like one example which may be urban myth that clients were being made to strip naked and beat pictures of their mother, and use that to dishonestly justify banning any voluntary counseling for someone who might not like his/her same sex attraction. And I say dishonestly, because it's dishonest to lump every possible type of action into one extreme example. If there is a psychologist who prescribes stripping naked and beating a picture of your mother in order to stop bed wetting, ADD, insomnia or anything else, that psychologist should lose his/her license regardless of the aim of such therapy. And while there may be bigger fish to fry, this is not something the government should be banning or mandating.

With all of the anti-liberty actions that the Texas state government commits and funds that affect a great deal of people, gay therapy should be at the very bottom of the GOP's concerns.

 

[jmdrake]

With all of the anti-liberty actions that the Texas state government commits and funds that affect a great deal of people, gay therapy should be at the very bottom of the GOP's concerns.

One tenant of liberty is that people have a right to choose their priorities. For some people preserving parental rights to choose the medical treatment they wish, including counseling treatment, is important. Some don't feel medical marijuana or hemp is important, some do. I would be willing to bet that is some state were to ban hormone therapy for minors that eventually wanted a sex change, some of the same people here aghast at what the Texas tea party is doing would rush to support someone seeking to strike down or prevent a such a ban.

 

[Guitarzan]

Exactly.



I haven't read through this multi-page thread, but I'm sure if it's like the last time it's full of BS histrionics that pick out the worst examples of "gay therapy", like one example which may be urban myth that clients were being made to strip naked and beat pictures of their mother, and use that to dishonestly justify banning any voluntary counseling for someone who might not like his/her same sex attraction.

Yeah, like the old "sniffin turds" therapy. heh