Yes, NARTH has entered the blogosphere. Alas, there’s still a long way to go before they truly enter the 21st century.
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Yes, NARTH has entered the blogosphere. Alas, there’s still a long way to go before they truly enter the 21st century.
It’s heavily monitored. you can’t post even a reply unless it’s approved. How sad, they know they’re lying so much that they can’t stand the thought that people might openly take them to task.
Shouldn’t they be doing peer-reviewed research before blathering on blogs?
Xeno said:
Shouldn’t they be doing peer-reviewed research before blathering on blogs?
If you notice, they aren’t really expounding on anything, just posting pro-exgay or anti-gay articles from the usual sources. Considering their rather desparate response to Timothy’s recent post, I think this blog is a direct result and/or challenge to XGW.
For those who might have ever confused our attempts to keep things civil with censoring ideas, NARTH’s blog might give you a genuine taste of that. When moderating is used to regularly and strategically cripple an opposing member during an honest debate, that is truly wrong – particularly when the debate is perfectly civil.
Case in point (and we will see if this remains so), I gave them the benefit of the doubt and posted over there earlier today. My first comment was indeed posted after a short pause, but my follow-up has not yet appeared. If they leave it as is, then the blog is little more than a dishonest instrument of propaganda. If they do release it, well we shall see if they allow genuine intellectual debate to continue. For the record, my follow-up post that remains unposted is as follows:
[post from NARTH blog]
Sojourner said:
Homosexuality is not a civil rights issue.
A majority in many Southern States did not believe African American rights to be a civil rights issue at the time either. But at least we can agree that the majority is not always right and therefore rights of any kind should not necessarily be curtailed on that basis.
I have no problem with those who strive to alter their behavior because of their personal or spiritual beliefs, as long as they are given the facts about the chances that the attempt will succeed and just what that success means. On the whole, it does appear to me that NARTH tends to trivialize the issues involved which can lead to false expectations of success.
While I do respect the rights of the individual to make the choice to try, I am not a licensed therapist with the obligations and responsibilities that position carries. I don’t know how the oath to “first do no harm” applies. On the other hand, do you accept that many who wish to change are doing so because of beliefs and/or misconceptions which have been imposed on them?
[end NARTH blog post]
I suggest we wait to see before giving them more comments to possibly misrepresent. If you do post there, please be civil for the sake of those who may innocently stumble onto it in search of information.
David Roberts
I’m inclined to ignore NARTH’s blogsite. To try and participate there would be to engage with dishonest people in their own space on their own terms.
If history is anything to go by, there is nothing at NARTH that is going to be presented factually, they will never concede when they are wrong, and they will ignore anything that isn’t convenient to their argument. We don’t allow this sort of activity here, why would we go where it is likely to be the standard?
There will be nothing but bold inaccurate statements of opinion like “homosexuality is not a civil rights issue” or “homosexuality is not a healthy lifestyle” or any of the other unsubstantiated hate-based crap that they spew in their press releases. Unless they drastically change their ways, there will be no logic based dialog or thoughtful discourse. So I think we can just let them fade off into disuse.
Well at least I can say for sure that they are distorting the posts if I have experienced it myself. I have no intention of making a practice of posting there, but it’s intersting to see that even the existance of a reasonable counter point is so threatening that they don’t post it, much less reply with garbage. Perhaps they are worried that, if seen side by side, the garbage would smell so bad that people might not accept it so easily. That removes even the pretence of intellectual honesty.
It’s too early to say for sure, but it appears they won’t post critical comments until they have a response ready to go after them.
I also posted a very civil comment there earlier. I checked the post just now and another comment has been approved since then but mine wasn’t. What a sham.