Dr Robert Spitzer, the researcher behind a flawed 2001 ex-gay study, has added to his recent retraction by apologizing for his claims.
The psychiatrist, now 80, already went public with his retraction in an interview with Gabriel Arana of American Prospect magazine. In his 2001 paper to the American Psychiatric Association, published in 2003, Spitzer had interviewed 200 ex-gays provided by conservative ex-gay organizations such as NARTH and Exodus International, then claimed their testimony proved that some homosexuals could change their orientation through therapy.
Those who claim gays can change have relied on the findings for over a decade, despite its obvious flaws. Having already denounced the study, Spitzer has now gone a step further in a letter to Kenneth J Zucker, editor of Journal of Sexual Behavior, the journal that published the study. He writes:
Several months ago I told you that because of my revised view of my 2001 study of reparative therapy changing sexual orientation, I was considering writing something that would acknowledge that I now judged the major critiques of the study as largely correct. After discussing my revised view of the study with Gabriel Arana, a reporter for American Prospect, and with Malcolm Ritter, an Associated Press science writer, I decided that I had to make public my current thinking about the study. Here it is.
Basic Research Question. From the beginning it was: “can some version of reparative therapy enable individuals to change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual?” Realizing that the study design made it impossible to answer this question, I suggested that the study could be viewed as answering the question, “how do individuals undergoing reparative therapy describe changes in sexual orientation?” – a not very interesting question.
The Fatal Flaw in the Study – There was no way to judge the credibility of subject reports of change in sexual orientation. I offered several (unconvincing) reasons why it was reasonable to assume that the subject’s reports of change were credible and not self-deception or outright lying. But the simple fact is that there was no way to determine if the subject’s accounts of change were valid.
I believe I owe the gay community an apology for my study making unproven claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy. I also apologize to any gay person who wasted time and energy undergoing some form of reparative therapy because they believed that I had proven that reparative therapy works with some “highly motivated” individuals.
Robert Spitzer. M.D.
Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry,
Columbia University
As of today, the Exodus International website still cites Spitzer to bolster its claims of ex-gay success (we noted specific instances in our earlier post). A search of the NARTH website still turns up over 300 citations for this now-thoroughly debunked study. The website of anti-gay lobbyists PFOX continues to promote the Spitzer study to prove that gays can be cured.
Will any of these groups have the honesty to acknowledge not only Spitzer’s apology and retraction, but the very clear reasons why the study is unreliable in proving the possibility of sexual orientation change?
Image: Truth Wins Out
It seems like the main concern is that the study was misused as opposed to flawed necessarily. As he admits, the research question was: “how do individuals undergoing reparative therapy describe changes in sexual orientation?”
The research question was never about proving that change occurred in the first place. He recognized that the study could not accomplish that so he changed it to simply a study of how individuals *describe* their experience.
What is odd is that even though he just admitted to changing the study question in realization that he could not prove anything, he then ends his statement contradictorily by saying: “I believe I owe the gay community an apology for my study making unproven claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy.”
Except that his study didn’t claim to prove anything in the first place.
That is why I believe the journal that originally published the study did not do a retraction. Because the study does not meet the criteria for an official retraction.
The real issue is not so much the study claims itself–which only claimed to report self-description– but rather how conservatives misappropriated the findings to argue for proof. But then conservatives do this with many other studies as well.
So, I think the concerns are legitimate–the study has in fact been used by others to argue for proof of change. But that is not the fault of the study itself which never made such claims of proof in the first place.
That’s incorrect, Karen. When Spitzer published it in Journal of Sexual Behavior in 2003, the question was whether psychotherapy could change homosexual orientation. He concluded from his research that it could. Here’s the preface, which makes it very clear:
It’s true that the data itself is not flawed, but that’s missing the point. As Spitzer says himself, that the data tells us how ex-gays describe their own experiences is hardly very interesting (there’s already abundant data available to tell us that), and that the data tells us something is not a compelling point in favour of a study’s validity. Any data, as long as it’s not outright fabricated, tells us something.
This really underscores the problem with psychological studies. They tend to use highly questionable sampling and data collecting techniques, they are seldom free from bias, and the conclusions are often very suspect generalizations. And the presuppositional framework of those doing the studies is seldom even considered. This applies to this study as well as all the APA studies the gay community likes to appeal to as supportive of its claims and lifestyle. There’s a lot of hypocrisy going on here! Both sides need to stop trying to prove their point by looking to the psychological world for anything substantial. The charge of ‘self-deception or outright lying’ applies to the ‘gay’ studies as well as the ‘ex-gay’ ones. I know because I’ve lived in both worlds. Honest self-analysis is difficult enough, but much of it isn’t honest.
@Karen
Actually Karen, that’s wrong. The whole point of the study was to prove whether or not anyone could change their sexual orientation (as in, does it ever happen). The money quote is this:
The retraction basically reverses that bit, that these accounts were credible proof of change. I think the basic problem with both Spitzer and Jones and Yarhouse is their failure to properly account for the almost unlimited capacity their subjects have for self-deception. The religious factor in this cohort must not be underestimated.
@X-Gay Apologist
I would have to reject your position, which is basically that whether or not “change is possible” is simply not knowable. Also, your statement that the flaws in the Spitzer study apply to unspecified “APA studies the gay community likes to appeal to as supportive of its claims and lifestyle” is really a meaningless statement. The onus is on those who make extraordinary claims of change to prove their point. The only claims by non-ex-gay sources are that evidence is lacking for those claims of change, and there is no one “gay lifestyle.”
@XGA/Karen
The problem with Spitzer’s study, as with J&H, or any other failed review of ex-gay claims, isn’t that “the presuppositional framework of those doing the studies is seldom even considered”.
The problem is that the presuppositional framework of those BEING STUDIED is seldom even considered. That being the “almost unlimited capacity their subjects have for self-deception” that David mentions above.
Rejecting. Reframing. Renaming. None of any of that amounts to a change in sexual orientation, and it that change which Spitzer’s study claimed to have examined. It failed to do so, as Spitzer’s professional critics pointed out a decade ago.
As awkward as it must have been, I commend Spitzer for being openly negative about his own work.
@David Roberts
I’m not really following you. I did not say that we can’t know if change is possible. I said that psychological studies have a hard time proving it because of their inherent problems. And I did not say that the Spitzer study has flaws that apply to other APA studies. Rather my point was that ANY psychological study has built-in difficulties because of its dependence on anecdotal information and the assumption of truth and honesty on the part of its subjects. Objectivity is very difficult to ascertain. I do agree with your point about the burden of proof, but that works both ways, don’t you think? And there really is ‘one’ gay lifestyle: Gays like their own sex, however that works out in actual practice!
@grantdale
Absolutely! ‘Presuppositional frameworks’ are crucial both ways, though I don’t agree with what you identify this to be.
Also, the possibility of self-deception doesn’t necessarily mean that all ex-gays ARE self-deceived. That’s a fairly unverifiable generalization. I t can just as easily be argued in reverse that ‘gays’ are self-deceived about their perceived inability to change. It may be more a matter of volition than of orientation.
Spitzer’s work was bad, let’s face it. I agree that the ex-gays need to stop referring to it. I’m a former gay dude that doesn’t need it to verify my own self-awareness!
XGA
Bluntly, until you identify yourself and open yourself to examination I’m hardly likely to take your claim to “former gay dude” at face value. I didn’t come down in the last shower.
Anything, of course, can also be “argued”. Particularly if you are the argumentative type. I’m also not falling for that one.
Signing off. It’s nearly 1am, and these “one gay lifestyles” need their beauty sleep.
“Change is possible.” Ex gays themselves tend to have some very similar (and frustrating to me) character issues that have nothing to do with their orientation. But they firmly believe it is. The prevailing exposition is that ‘change is possible’ and ‘change occurs’ (which is debated here).
But the bigger question is: is change NECESSARY?
Obsessing enough over a feature in which all one’s hopes, happiness and self esteem is heaped, being heterosexual, then it’s a flawed aspiration from the beginning. Because one’s HETEROSEXUALITY isn’t vessel for the aforementioned.
And most of these researchers and some supporters of ex gay therapy have agreed that it’s not orientation that’s changed, but one’s activity towards ss sex.
The result being sex with the opposite sex, or no sex at all (what I call exsexual).
That’s behavioral modification that has nothing to do with orientation. And apparently a few ex gays have admitted to struggling with sex with the opposite sex.
So when it comes to the oft repeated meme of ‘struggling with ss attraction’, what about struggling with op sex attraction?
It would seem to me that all of this is a non issue, except for the incursion into civil and public policy.
Because having sex with the op sex isn’t THAT important, and neither is being celibate or asexual.
I think I can speak for most of us that when it comes to ex gays or ex gay therapy or ministry, it’s their support or by existing, their validation of anti gay discrimination and bigotry. Which is what discriminatory policy hinges on.
If such political actions didn’t occur, I doubt anyone would give a crap about ex gays and their supporters whatsoever.
@X-Gay Apologist
Being attracted to one’s own sex denotes a sexual orientation, not a lifestyle. Also, “ex-gay” is an ideology, not a state of being. “Gay” is another word for homosexual, which is a state of being. Therefore, “former gay dude” is a non sequitur.
@X-Gay Apologist
I’m sorry, but after reading some of the foul comments on your Twitter feed, I believe engaging you further would be a waste of time.
@grantdale
It’s amazing to me how many people seem to know more about me than I know about myself! I really did live a gay life from age 15 to age 30. I knew both a deeply emotional relationship that lasted about 3 years and also a promiscuous life after that ended. Then I became a Christian and left the gay life. Now I am married to a great woman who knows all about my past and with whom I have been happy for many years. I have not had a homosexual encounter since I left the gay life, which was years ago. I really am a ‘former gay dude!’
I have personal reasons for not identifying myself publicly. But one of them is not fear of being ‘examined’. I’ve been questioned, scrutinized, and abused by many who do know me.
And yes, anything can be ‘argued’. But I’m not interested in disagreement for its own sake, because I’m not the ‘argumentative type’. (There it is again, people always knowing me better than I know myself!) However, any claim that is advanced as ‘proof’ for a homosexual orientation that can or cannot be changed needs to be challenged if that ‘proof’ has serious shortcomings. And I maintain that most of the psychological ones do. Not to mention the inconsistencies in the conclusions!
I hope you have a good sleep.
@x-gay apologist:
Seriously, I wouldn’t give a crap. And neither would anyone else. I really wouldn’t, except for some very specific things.
1. Use of EXPECTATION of conversion to abuse those who wouldn’t and don’t want to.
2. Use of conversion as a matter of denying equal civil rights and protections to gays and lesbians and maintaining discrimination against them.
3. Use of conversion and enforcing it as THE more desirable, acceptable and BETTER way to live than being gay.
And defense of one’s own conversion is typically for selfish and self involved reasons and what happens to the gay community because of it, isn’t really of any concern to ex gays.
Ex gay conversion is essentially RELIGIOUS conversion. THAT is a LIFESTYLE choice, not orientation.
As an ever heterosexual, I truly cannot see what the big deal about being hetero is. It’s NOT a qualification of virtue, character or ability to adjust to other challenges in life.
It’s a state of being that an individual cannot take credit for having, and NOT something that makes a person better, more moral OR more holy.
Conflating heterosexuality with holiness, superiority or higher standards of leading a good life, is THE weakest excuse for public flogging of the character of gay people yet.
And gay people know a LOT more about heterosexuals, than the other way around. There is some consistent willful ignorance about gay people, aided and abetted by ex gays.
And considering the millions of years of opportunity to know gay people better, supporters of ex gay therapy interfere consistently with those opportunities.
It’s knowing gay people better that’s the NEWER encouragement and messaging.
Ex gay, or religious conversion isn’t new and neither is their message.
And when gay and het people DO know each other better, life IS better for both. Rendering ex gays, as they were from the beginning, UTTERLY irrelevant to what’s truly important in all of this.
For the sake of those reading, let me again state that it is not anyone’s responsibility to prove the negative that sexual orientation can not be changed. It is rather up to those positing that it can to provide substantial, verifiable proof of their claims.
Also, if someone truly was “ex-gay” then that person would simply be straight. Ex-gay is an ideology, not a state of being and certainly not a sexual orientation (in spite of claims by PFOX and FRC).
@X-Gay Apologist
Sorry, honey, but being married to a woman doesn’t make you a “former gay dude.” It makes you a “gay dude living a heterosexual lifestyle.”
Dave Rattigan,
You are right that there seems to be the conclusion of proof in that last sentence: “Thus, there is evidence that change in sexual orientation following some form of reparative therapy does occur in some gay men and lesbians.”
Which could be true. We just have no way of knowing. And so its not verifiable proof beyond self-report. It doesn’t prove gay people can change and it doesn’t prove gay people cannot change. I wonder how one would go about proving something that is experiential in any psychological study since so many studies do, in fact, rely on self report.
O.k. so having read this follow up article, is there any way that superficial, insensitive, hypocritical, and clearly hateful so called ” Christian” and anti-gay groups can acknowledge this and move on to things that actually have considerable ramifications to society llke murder, adultery, etc. Everyone that calls themselves Christians seem to forget those types of sins that were actually written in stone. Just saying.
OK – really…the point here is that the professor did a study 10 years ago that he felt was valid, and now is indicating that he doesn’t believe the information by which he drew his conclusions is verifiable enough to actually DRAW those conclusions.
I see no reason to crucify the man for this, as until not long ago, the DSM actually listed homosexuality as a mental illness. The more we learn, the more tolerant and understanding we become. Spitzer has learned (whether he’s learned that gays CAN or CAN’T changed, OR he’s learned that you can’t base a study on questionably procured data), and he’s retracted his previous statement.
THAT being said – until they come up with a study that shows me whether or not therapy can make a STRAIGHT person GAY – I see no valid basis in these findings. As someone above stated, this is an indicator that gays SHOULD change – something which which I do not agree.
So find me a study that takes a group of straight people and tries, through therapy, to “turn them gay.” When that works, call me.
@X-Gay Apologist
When you pulled out the pedophile trope on your twitter I think you lost any right to be taken seriously.
Well, there ya go.
It’s not enough of an issue to make entire systemic policy out of it. But from tiny acorns, great oaks grow.
The ex gay industry made an oak from an acorn. And even then, split the acorn. But it was from the branches of that oak, many gay people have been lynched.
@X-Gay Apologist
“I’m a former gay dude”
Really? Can you prove that?
It would be easy to do. Technology exists now to measure changes in brain activity and blood flow that make it possible to quantify – measure, assign numeric values to – sexual responsiveness to erotic imagery. So you could conceivable, and painlessly by the way, take a few tests and produce results that indicate that you do not experience sexual related brain activity when you view homoerotic images.
That data, coupled with testimonials from past sex partners of your own gender, would create a good body of evidence indicating that you’d changed from gay to straight. Not the best case, but a decent one.
The best evidence would be if someone gay first tested to establish a baseline measurement of their responses to homoerotic and heteroerotic imagery, and then went and ‘changed’, and then was retested, producing distinct changes in brain activity.
The technology is there and has been for several years. The potential income for anyone who provides this data is enormous. Yet to date, no one has provided concrete, quantified evidence of changes in brain activity reflecting changed sexual orientation.
@Karen
Sorry, I believe you have misread Dr. Spitzer. He said that over the last several months he has taken strides to retract his claims, and part of this correcting process is to suggest that the the study be interpreted according to a different, and less powerful/interesting research question. He said “from the beginning” his RQ concerned whether reparative therapy could change sexual orientation, and concluded that it could; so yes, he does owe the gay community an apology, and it is commendable that he came forward and did so.
Just to be clear: It is only now, a decade later, that he is suggesting looking at the data in a new way; up until now he thought he had provided evidence that you could change sexual orientation at will. No contradiction, just a reevaluation of the data a decade later.
Cheers 🙂
Well said, Regan! May I quote your text? @Regan DuCasse
@Karen
Karen, At the time of the study, he was trying to prove that homosexuals can be converted to heterosexual. He changed the wording so that after the subjects underwent the therapy, he could get cognitive answers. He then used those answers to publish that people could in fact be converted ie “cured. That is why the anti-gay groups are still using his statements and his original publication. It is the perfect political tool for the times. The fact that Spitzer now denounces and apologizes for his deception will never get out & and be as far reaching as the hate groups will with his original publication. That damage is done and cannot be undone.
I do admire him for coming clean. However, unfortunately, it is too little too late. All he can do is what he is doing. Apologize!
@X-Gay Apologist
“And there really is ‘one’ gay lifestyle: Gays like their own sex, however that works out in actual practice!”
How ridiculous. What proportion of our life as a whole do we spend having sex? And you say this is the defining characteristic of an entire lifestyle? Rubbish. It’s as idiotic to say that every straight person has the same lifestyle for the same reason. A more accurate comment on your part would have been “There is really one defining characteristic of a gay person – that they like people of the same sex”, but of course this is trivial. One minor characteristic does not define your entire way of life -and that’s all sexuality is, a minor characteristic of a personality.
Wow. So just read the rest of the comments on this feed and there are definitely some heated opinions. Two comments I’d like to make…
First, in response to X-Gay Apologist’s original post which suggested that psychological studies are inherently flawed and cannot be taken seriously… I humbly disagree, at least insofar as this is a universal statement. Yes, some studies succumb to bias, have poor methodologies, or unrepresentative samples. But that is not the norm nor the rule. Also, you said that psyc. studies rely on ‘anecdotal’ evidence and cannot account for bias. On the contrary, we are well aware of social desirability bias, lying, and the limits of introspection, and good studies will attempt to account for all of these things. The onus is on you the reader to verify that the study you are reading is good science – a good place to start is by reading peer-reviewed journals only.
Secondly, in response to the strong opinions regarding whether or not gays can turn straight or straight people can become gay. I think the fundamental problem you all are encountering is to assume that sexual orientation is a discrete variable, in other words you are Gay or Straight but you can’t be anything in between or outside of these boxes. I disagree. I think sexuality is fluid, so if XGA was gay for 15 years and his orientation shifted or the way he identified himself shifted, so be it. He’s not lying to himself or you. I know people who have identified themselves as straight, then gay, then bi or straight again before they come to understand themselves. Why must we pressure people to fit into tiny boxes and criticize them if they cannot? In the end, what matters is the person as an individual, not their status as gay or straight, male or female, or any other box you’d like to put them in.
Finally, if anyone here is a supporter of reparative therapy, I suggest you do some research on its effects on its patients. It really is a cruel torture based on a heteronormative cultural bias that doesn’t do any good to anybody. You can’t force someone to change who they are because you don’t understand it or you don’t like it. And being different doesn’t mean that you are sick!
Yes, and this answers Karen’s point, too. Self-reports are at the core of all qualitative social-science research, and there are ways to evaluate the reliability of such data. If I ask you whether you like jazz, for example, I probably wouldn’t have much reason to doubt your answer. If I ask a civil servant in North Korea whether he likes Kim Jong-un, I have every reason to be skeptical of his answer.
Jolly,į
Any idea if the original article was peer-reviewed? By other than Marcus Bachmann.
Dave,
Did you ask the North Korean if he likes jazz?
@aquajock
Yes, you may.
XGA: you have me curious on a few levels:
It seems you ‘left the gay life-style’ more than just ceased from same-sex intimate relationships. Or…?
I use the term ‘life-style’ to mean more than sexual intimacy… how are you using the term?
Much love in Christ always and unconditionally; Caryn
‘Left the gay lifestyle’ is very offensive and misleading terminology anyway. The way the anti gay intimidate gay and straight children especially is to tell them and insist that being gay INEVITABLY will lead to being depressed, no sense of commitment, promiscuity, AIDS and immorality. All of which will assure no place with God or heaven.
Let alone, a place among one’s family or other social networks.
God and heaven are debatable. But the power and cruelty of isolation, certainly is not. Making the consequences of being gay clearly immediate and tangible to a young person.
To the anti gay, promiscuity, disease and lack of morals or family values is the ‘gay lifestyle’.
And obviously, having a sex life doesn’t even have to be in evidence to endure any punishment. That’s what gay children will experience.
So those very words ‘gay lifestyle’ is derogatory, and meant to be. And I will always let someone know what I think of them who uses it.
@Pan
OK. I admit a poor use of the word ‘lifestyle’. I was thinking in terms of the study being referenced. And I wasn’t using it in the sense of engaging in the act of sex, but in the sense of a sexual orientation. But I do not think that sexuality is a ‘minor’ characteristic of a personality. It’s a big part of my life and that of most people I know. I realize this is an anecdotal comment, but my experience in the gay world was one of obsession with sex. That includes me and the guys I knew. So our experience does color our perceptions.
@David Roberts
What ‘foul’ comments? Any rough language I may have used was in response to the abusive language I was receiving. I can get down in the garbage pile if that’s where someone wants to engage me.
@x-gay apologist: again, completely misleading that it’s gay men who are obsessed with sex.
It’s MEN in general who are driven that way. It’s HETERO MEN who are as obsessed as can get. So obsessed with sex, that a female can’t walk down the street without being harassed or treated as if she’s fair game for whatever insult no matter how accomplished or young she is.
Het men keep deflecting their own complicity in the insult and threat to females AND force gay men to take the fall as the ones so obsessed with sex that the world isn’t safe.
Yeah right.
Anyone that believes that has either been under a rock, or is too stupid to get it.
Seriously.
The teachable moment for straight men, is their complaints about gay men in their environment. They fear that gay men will treat them the way het men treat women.
Right there, for me, was when I realized (at the age of 12) that gay men and the transgendered are the caring, tempering bridge between the extremes artificially maintained between women and men.
That teachable moment is lost on straight men time and time again. Especially those who are trained to maintain ‘tradition’.
So you just fell into the trap you were taught about gay men. The usual, ‘they are promiscuous, without ANY restraint’ therefore you thought you just HAD to be that way too.
And then you swung with the pendulum the other way, with trying to fit into AFFECTING what being straight is.
With the display wife and kids and the church community that would only embrace you if you did so.
You are a follower, easily led who doesn’t have enough character to NOT see how the trap was set for you.
THAT is an ex gay.
@Regan DuCasse
I really don’t know where this came from. I do not think my conversion makes me better than anyone else, and I certainly don’t use it to deny any civil rights to LGBTQ people! I don’t even know how it could. And I know a lot about ‘gay’ people, because I lived in that world for 15 years. As a Christian, I certainly have an ethical disagreement, but that doesn’t mean I disparage gay people and think they should be ostracized from society. That’s the way I often was treated, and I don’t wish it on anyone else.
@Regan DuCasse
Oh, come on! If you read what I said carefully, I admitted this was MY experience in the gay world and that it was necessarily anecdotal. And yes, even hetero men can be sex-obsessed. Also, I didn’t fall into anybody’s trap. From my early teen years I WAS sex-obsessed, promiscuous, and without any restraint. No one taught me that, that’s how I was without anybody’s help. And so were the gay boys I associated with. So that is my experience with the gay world. But I have known ‘gay’ men who had seemly satisfying monogamous relationships. So I don’t intend to stereotype. And I am ‘ex-gay’ by choice, which is really the thing the gay world won’t accept. I have to take them at their word, but they won’t take me at mine!
@ X-gay apologist: You all say that too.
No doubt you were ostracized. I’ve often said I understand why someone wouldn’t want to be gay. The same way I’d understand why someone wouldn’t want to be black and living in the South during the Jim Crow era. Or a woman during certain periods either.
I’m a black woman, so I can say that.
What is NOT understandable, is then placing yourself in the position of giving validation to those who’d prefer you just where you are anyway. ‘The gay world’ is something you left, because it’s harder to handle it than you felt you could or wanted to.
Your decision, your life.
But please, please don’t behave as if that makes your conversion a virtuous thing to do.
Ex gays have very little variation between them. And I’ve dealt with a LOT of ex gays which is why the consensus is that you really do sound alike and think alike.
Not a lot that distinguishes any of you from the other in points of belief and goals for yourselves and for some, the way the world should be without gay people.
And one of our visitors here, Dr. Michael Brown, is one of the most disgusting people that ever came here and he’s ALL OVER the place in the media holding up people like YOU as an example of why no compassion or rights for gay people is required. He’s so two faced and spins anything like butter, he strikes me as pathological. And he’s not the only one. As I recommended seeing Rachel Maddow’s report on Spitzer’s reversal, there is no way to unring the bell.
Again, you can’t defend something that you rejected and don’t want to be yourself.
But, you’re trying to.
You don’t have to actively and purposely disparage gay people. But you kinda do when you speak of ‘the gay world’ and living it in every stereotype you or any anti gay person ever heard of.
And your experience, even as a gay person, isn’t authenticated in that way.
The moral high ground, must and always goes to those who maintained or returned to their authentic identity precisely because it’s harder, and more threatening to one’s well being to do so. It’s much harder to defend and advocate for an UNPOPULAR group.
Which you cannot do by definition of how you live.
So don’t try.
I’m reminding you of YOUR PLACE too.
And it’s not with gay folks, you don’t want to be one of them, so in your way, not WITH them either.
There is a tacit insult there actually, if you try to have a social life with gay people, and offer your experience up. You don’t have to SAY, I’m better than you’. By rejecting what they must be, you’re saying “I’m going along with the folks who don’t think you’re fit to walk the Earth with anyone else.’
Being heterosexual isn’t like wearing the cape of a hero.
It’s covering yourself in the cloak of shame and dislike of what you were as a gay person.
The more honest ex gays are about that, and the effect that has on other gay people, the better.
@Regan DuCasse
OK. Then I’ll say ‘I stopped living a gay life.’ This is just a lot of quibbling over terminology.
@Mom of 2 gays
Maybe I was a ‘heterosexual dude’ living a ‘gay lifestyle’?
For the record,
X-Gay Apologist said here:
From X-Gay Apologist’s Twitter feed:
X-Gay Apologist’s language makes me question a lot about his claims. He appeared on the net with this alias barely two weeks ago. There is no history of commentary on the web to compare with current statements, save a short Twitter feed. I believe such a record exists, but under a different name. Without knowing who he is or having some way to examine his claims, I am not inclined to continue indulging him with this debate.
@Boo
I agree, it was a ‘low blow’. I don’t really equate pedophilia with homosexuality. Any kind of forced sex is wrong and not to be permitted.
@X-Gay Apologist
Unfortunately, x-gay apologist
What is anecdotal about your experience, or what happens among gay people in general, the folks with gay lives in their hands DON’T CARE how anecdotal it was.
Here’s FAR more valid reasons why ex gays aren’t accepted by gay people.
Already mentioned, but I’ll repeat them.
1. Because of what’s at stake, by definition you validate those powerful enough to maintain discriminatory policies against gay people. Even if you disagree with those policies, you really think that those who use ex gays to defend such things CARE that you do? I mean are you a serious, get in the trenches as a PRO equality activist? Because that’s what it takes. And more.
2. There is a tacit insult in AFFECTING het living. Rejecting what you ARE is a message that BEING GAY isn’t worth being.
You’re being rejected BACK. Know the difference between action and REACTION. Gay people who reject you are REACTING to what your actions.
Live with it. Can’t straddle the fence, because the stakes are WAY too high.
3. I don’t have to like what ex gay conversion stands for. I find the typical need for validation and being confirmed on such a personal decision very tiring. YOU don’t have to deal with the fall out, you left it. Remember?
And gays and their advocates KNOW that, however much you don’t want to acknowledge it.
You have abandoned your brethren to fight what conversion stands for. So we do it, WITHOUT you. So tell you what, DEAL with it. LIVE with it.
It’s like what happens when you choose to be with the popular, powerful clique, on THEIR terms, really not your own. While they continue to do bad things to the clique you don’t want to roll with WHERE IT MATTERS.
So once everyone has seen you live and walk and talk with the popular clique, you think you can come around to the unpopular clique when it’s convenient for yourself (slumming, so to speak), as if the popular clique wasn’t still at their dirty deeds. You’re hiding behind the popular clique to have YOUR life the way you want.
And you REALLY think the unpopular clique should accept you, just because they should be the more compassionate and accepting?
Yeah, I’ve seen the put out attitude ex gays have about such a response from gay people.
Now you have that same attitude.
The unpopular click doesn’t have the time. It takes a lot more vigilance, courage, patience and anger than they have compassionate time to give YOU.
Why?
YOU don’t NEED it.
You’re with the strong popular clique now.
You’ve had more than your share of the oxygen in the situation, that’s why.
@David Roberts
So what’s the contradiction you’re implying? I was addressing two different things. One is the civil rights any citizen, including ‘gay’ citizens’, should be granted by the Constitution. The other is the tactic used to acquire those rights. I agree with the one, but not with the other.
And there is no comment history. Anything I have said has always been under this alias. My primary focus is on the ‘gay christian’ crowd, not the gay world at large. So if it makes you happy, I will say goodbye to this discussion. Our minds are already made up anyway.
Peace and happiness to all!
XGA
XGA: thank you for your answer. So, as I understand your remark, you departed from a sexually-obsessed word-view, when you ‘left the gay life-style’.
I think there are a number of scriptures that would be appropriate for that decision, with ‘flee from youthful lusts’ coming quickly to my mind. In that sense, you have my congratulations. We are indeed ‘spirit, soul, and body’ [Thess 5], and I admit to quite enjoying sexuality during my 20’s with my wife… only for a short-time would I say I was sexually-obsessed with her… lol… perhaps about 2 years of the ‘honey-moon’ time frame . After that, we much more began to build a life together, and have been married for 36 years.
You stated that you ‘changed’ and that ‘by choice’. And, I think you were referring to your sexual orientation. Could you tell us about that experience? What happened that changed your same-sex attraction into opposite-sex attraction? Was it a sudden change? Was it a gradual change? Where do you see yourself on a continuum of sexual attraction now (or other analogy, if you reject a continuum approach)?
Again, you have me curious. And, I noticed in your tweets some implied references towards a Biblical exegesis. So, I am quite curious about the spiritual side of your ‘change’, and the play that the Bible had in your experience.
Much love in Christ always and unconditionally; Caryn
@Regan DuCasse
Thanks for the free psychoanalysis. But you’re wrong on many counts. And Dr. Brown is wrong if he thinks gay people should be denied compassion or rights. I don’t believe that for a minute.
@X-Gay Apologist
Enumerate where I’m wrong for me.
And try to do it so that it’s not about just YOU. And your narrow experience with how that affects your immediate social network. Okay?
You’re quite free to speak your mind, here. Go for it.
@X-Gay Apologist
I agree, it was a ‘low blow’. I don’t really equate pedophilia with homosexuality. Any kind of forced sex is wrong and not to be permitted.
Except that is exactly what you did. And it wasn’t a “low blow.” It was slander.
@Regan DuCasse
It would probably be futile to speak my mind, because you and I are coming from very different perspectives. Therefore our presuppositional and ethical categories will inevitably clash. You think you have me all figured out anyway, so what can I really say? But here are some thoughts:
1. I really don’t care whether I am accepted or rejected by gay people. What they think of me is not one of the uppermost concerns of my life. My own personal sense of self-worth or validation is not ultimately dependent on what any person thinks of me, gay or ex-gay!
2. I have no control over what the ‘ex-gays’ do with my story. I once lived a gay life, and now I don’t. That’s the truth about me, and I won’t deny it for the sake of a cause! If the ‘ex-gay’ folks want to use me as some kind of validation for discriminatory policy, I can protest against it, but I can’t stop it.
3. I am not ‘affecting’ hetero living. I have lived happily and sexually gratified with my wife for many years now. That’s what I AM. I did not stop living a gay life out of reaction to anything. It was a personal choice I made to stop doing one thing and start doing another. I am not straddling anybody’s fence! I once had both feet in the ‘gay’ world, now I have them both in the ‘straight’ world. If that intimidates or infuriates anyone, gay or ex-gay, then they have to get over it. How am I be responsible for how anyone reacts to any supposed ‘fallout’ I left behind?
4. It should be obvious by now that I have no particular interest in belonging to any clique. But I will speak my mind when I believe something needs to be said. Granted there are times when I should have kept my mouth shut, but I will speak out against both gays and ex-gays when I have points of disagreement. So I am not hiding behind the ‘popular’ clique and don’t much care if I’m accepted or not by the ‘unpopular’ clique’.
5. You seem to imply in the things you write that I have some kind of animosity towards gay people. I do have very strong points of disagreement with them, but that doesn’t mean that I support the vitriol and abuse that has been too frequently directed at them. But you are right, just by being what I am can be used against their cause. But that’s not with my consent or approval.
6. Somewhere in this discussion we have to define what we mean by ‘being gay’. I suspect differing meanings are behind much of what’s been said.
Well, I’m off to a jazz concert with one of my gay friends. Have a delightful weekend!
@Mom of 2 gays
Bingo-issimo.
XGA your statement about people knowing you better than you seem to know yourself is particularly apt. We’ve been listening to this crap our whole lives– for someof us, longer than you’ve been alive.
Let me put it this way, so that you can haves serious grounding in reality. “I used to be gay but now I’m straight” really boils down to this.
I was ALWAYS bisexual, but the gay part really botheredme. But I really couldn’t deal very well with the gay part, so I managed to convince myself that I needed exgay help to change myself, and then convinced myself that I had really changed, and therefore, I really deserved celestial brownie points for doing what any ordinary bisexual can do, but without all ofthe drama.
That’s what I have noticed about just about every ‘former gay” I’ve ever encountered–a love of drama. You talk about your formerly promiscuous lifestyle. I used to live a very promiscuous lifestyle, too. But then I found a good man, and had no trouble with a formerly promiscuous lifestyle followed by a happily married monogamous lifestyle. No drama required.
Sell it some place else. You may be convincing yourself about your virtue, but the rest of us don’t need convincing.
No, it’s not futile to speak your mind.
As to:
1. Really? Then why so defensive if you don’t care? And why expect not to explain yourself?
2. Exactly, you don’t have any control over what they do with it. THAT is part of the problem, and also why any protest of yours, wouldn’t matter.
3. Okay then, maybe you’re that rarer, BISEXUAL person, and I can accept THAT more than I can deference to being hetero just for ‘something different’. And no one is intimidated by you, nor infuriated, so no reason to ‘get over it.’ I can guess why you’d say that.
4. No, it’s not obvious. You PREFER being het, so own it. See number one. Your defensiveness contradicts this.
5. I know you don’t have any personal vitriol against gay people. I didn’t even imply it, I’ve been firm about just the opposite regarding it. But it must make you feel better to think someone does. I’ve already reiterated that IT DOES NOT MATTER whether you have any or not. How YOU treat gay people personally, is a ZERO effect against the greater issue of people who DO have such vitriol.
6. No we don’t.
You’re not a new kind of person to me. You’re very much like every other ex gay or ‘former homosexual’ I’ve ever talked to or dealt with.
That, regardless that you have no personal animus, do not act against gay people in any way, nor participate in what you think ‘the gay lifestyle is’. It does NOT matter.
All I’m trying to point out to you is that you can’t HELP, you don’t WANT to, and don’t want to do anything more than be what you are. Especially without challenge or criticism.
You are nothing more than yourself, and what you want to do with your life. I get that.
I do.
However, the DEAL here is more than that, more than what you can contribute or want to, is required considering what gay folks are up against.
If things are going to change.
They’ll just have to change WITHOUT you. And they will and have.
That’s all.
You are meaningless to what’s more important and why XGW exists in the first place. Have your new life, and your gay friends.
Enjoy.
Those of us in these trenches can’t afford to let up. We don’t have the luxury sometimes of just being nice, and NOT challenging the status quo either way. Or not caring what either side thinks. Maybe YOU do, but a lot of us don’t.
If you don’t care what either side thinks of you, then it shouldn’t matter to you if we think NOTHING about you.
Anyone studying “ex-gays” has to take into account the mindset of many of the participants. The impact of “name-it-and-claim-it” theology on self reports of “change” cannot be under-estimated.
It’s not so much that “ex-gays” deliberately lie. It’s more that they have a special way of looking at “belief”. Those from more charismatic backgrounds are told that “what they profess in faith” will come to pass – if their faith is strong enough.
For example, such a believer may say, “I have been healed by Jesus” of this or that affliction – even though they still suffer from it. By proclaiming it on a spritual level they help to bring it about on the physical level.
This idea of “claiming it on faith” is reinforced by such Biblical passages as “By His stripes we ARE healed” (past tense) and “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you HAVE received it, and it will be yours.”
When these believers say, “My sexual orientation HAS changed”, they may actually mean something closer to: “I strongly believe that my orientation has changed on the spiritual level and I am professing faith (confident hope) that it will also be true on the physical level.”
That’s what I meant when I said I was “ex-gay”. It was what John Smid meant. It’s what many of the men in our ministries meant. But these were self-reports of our hope – not a factual reality – believing (in faith) that what had changed on the spiritual level would manifest itself on the physical.
Fair enough Michael. Really. This is why I consider your import helpful in understanding the mindset.
As an outsider, but a VERY analytical one, I want to be honest about what it looks like from my chair. I did find a pattern, and mores the point, it seems so hard for an ex gay person to get past any superficialities about their identity.
I feel like I’m dealing with someone who ISN’T themselves. Like a Stepford person. Sorta.
I don’t know how many other straight folks get that feeling too. Or care to think that far into it.
I’m willing to. But it sure has been hard finding a gay person that’s any different from the rest to make a comparison.
Just sayin’.
X-Gay Apologist,
In response to David Roberts pointing out this tweet of yours, “LGBTQ people have all the constitutional rights any citizen has. But forcing the acceptance of their lifestyle is NOT a right! It’s bullying”, you said
“So what’s the contradiction you’re implying? I was addressing two different things. One is the civil rights any citizen, including ‘gay’ citizens’, should be granted by the Constitution. The other is the tactic used to acquire those rights. I agree with the one, but not with the other.”
So to clarify your position,
Do you support marriage equality for gay couples through same sex marriage, and did you mean that Gay people already have all the constitutional rights any citizen has or that Gay people should be granted the same rights while acknowledging that currently we aren’t granted the same rights?
@Dave Rattigan
Best reply (or maybe a tie with Michael Bussee) providing the best information of all the discussions. I’ll bookmark your comment for future reference David R.
It is this comment-
April 26th, 2012 at 08:17 | #2
Regan remarked: “I feel like I’m dealing with someone who ISN’T themselves. Like a Stepford person.”
Yes. That’s exactly the feeling I have experienced in “ex-gay” circles. Split. Cut off from an essential aspect of themselves. Trying so hard not to be who they are.
Thanks Michael!
It helps that question that keeps circling my head when talking to ex gay folk …”is it just me?”
@Regan DuCasse
‘If you don’t care what either side thinks of you, then it shouldn’t matter to you if we think NOTHING about you.’
That’s absolutely right!
@bill johnson
Regarding same-sex marriage, I’m ambivalent, because marriage isn’t a right the Constitution directly addresses. Any US citizen has rights granted by the Constitution that are not conditioned by marital status, or the lack of it. I’ve been in civil law for a long time, and can assure you that the court system would very likely rule that the right to marry is a civil matter, not a Constitutional one. The Vermont Constitution and the Comity Clause controversies illustrate the difficulty involved.
Regarding you second question, it’s a loaded one! My brief answer is that ‘gay’ people as citizens have all the rights granted by the Constitution. They have recourse to the courts if they feel those rights have been denied or violated. I suspect you are referring especially to discriminatory practices that ‘gay’ people have experienced. In respect to that, I do believe we as a nation have a lot of work to do.
@Ben in Oakland
I’m not selling anything. And I’m not at all concerned about convincing anyone of my ‘virtue’! And I never considered myself to be ‘bi-sexual’. My earliest sexual attraction was for guys, and guys only. I was not bothered about my ‘gay’ desires, and loved the gay life completely. It was my religious conversion that changed the way I lived, not some inability to ‘deal with my ‘gay’ part.’ And yes, I did live very promiscuously for most of my gay life, but I also was in a deeply loving monogamous relationship for about 3 years. I don’t intend anything ‘dramatic’ by saying what I say. I’m simply stating the facts about my life. You don’t seem to know as much about me as you think you do! By the way, I’m 62 years old and have been living with my wife for almost 30 years now. Have you been listening to ‘this crap’ longer than that?
@xgayapologist:
Then your defensive and argumentative position belies that. And stating the facts about your life, has no point of interest. Note the clip between Michael Bussee and myself. Your professed conversion has little or no variation from ALL the others. Nothing revelatory, nothing different in experience or how you went about your conversion.
In other words, you’re a profound yawner.
Ex gays, you included, come off as people who think their conversion worthy of some kind of respect or achievement. The ‘take me as I am, or you’re just as intolerant as the bigots you reject’ attitude that is actually rather insufferable and uncharitable.
The reason why: the STAKES involved for the lives of gay people. Because it’s a conversion that works in favor of the anti gay, not the other way around. And that means a great deal to gay people if not YOU and your fellow converts.
And not caring what we think, isn’t news to us either. Ex gays and their conversion is for very personal, self involved reasons.
So announcing all over the place what you are, isn’t going to get you a pat on the back, nor do you deserve it.
It’s about orientation after all and how happy and secure you are in being a former gay, or current hetero, committed Christian.
So?
So what?
The stakes aren’t about you, it’s about something much bigger than you and more important than you’re conversion.
We have more important things to go about than worry about your feelings and how wonderful life is for you now that you’re hetero and Christian.
I ask you, is there some reason we should be impressed by someone who has been living hetero and Christian for so long?
Why should we care?
It’s hetero Christian males that have all the marbles anyway, right?
And, another fragile gay boy committed suicide last week.
Every time I hear that this happened or there was an act of violence against a gay person, the least of priorities SHOULD be the wants, wishes and demands for unconditional acceptance of hetero, Christian males mistreatment of gay people.
That they try to play off as religious CARE of gay people.
Ex gays like you annoy the hell out of me, x gayapologist. You’re me,me, me, I did this for ME, and I want acceptance for it and I don’t want any criticism or challenge. And this is ME and who I am.
So what do you need US for?
I went to a stage play yesterday, and sat in a support group of gay folks afterward and they recalled being children, living in their religious homes and all the insecurities and dangerous and difficult emotional journeys it took to come out. Let alone live as they were meant to from the outset.
I feel very fortunate that there are gay people who welcome me into such circles and trust me when they are that raw.
This has been my life among gay folks since my friends started coming out to me when I was a freshman in high school.
I have literally run into, or gotten in touch with those very same gay folks I knew way back when. Over thirty years ago.
And they are pleased to see, when it comes to advocating, I’m the same as when I was friends with them.
It’s good to be trusted among those who need such trust. You have to understand that you BROKE that trust, when you converted.
And you can’t get it back in the way you think you should.
I would rather die than break that trust with the gay folks that have placed so much of it in me since I was a kid.
THAT means a great deal to me, and that is the biggest point of all.
And here you are, trying to be trusted by a group you betrayed in a way.
You did.
And you can’t take it back.
I can’t understand why ex gays are so damn THICK about that.
@Regan DuCasse
Well, I’m not feeling defensive or intentionally argumentative. You’re the one throwing the accusations my way. I’m just responding to them. If that’s defensive, so be it. And I have no interest in argument for its own sake. But I will respond to statements and positions I don’t agree with, just like you do.
I am very familiar with Michael Bussee. He’s an ‘ex-ex-gay’ who is now a professed ‘gay’ Christian. That’s probably why you like him. What he said above is fine if a person is a Charismatic, ‘name it, claim it’ type. I am from a completely non-religious background and now as a Christian am no supporter of the Charismatic brand of Christianity. I think they have serious biblical problems. And I do not look at ‘belief’ in the way he described. Faith is not wishful thinking, hoping to make something true that isn’t. Rather it’s believing that God’s word is true and reliable and conforming one’s life to its teaching. So my ‘orientation’ has changed on both a spiritual and a physical level because I believe that is what God requires. Obviously, Michael Bussee and I have fundamental points of disagreement regarding the nature of biblical conversion and ethics. And you and I seem to have a fundamental disagreement on just about everything. But I do appreciate the exchange.
One last thing: I do not talk about my conversion because I’m looking for a pat on the back. I’ve been around too long now to be concerned about such trivialities. My conversion is the most significant part of my story, and that story makes no sense apart from it. Whether you or anyone else is impressed or not by it makes little difference to me.
And you can have all my marbles.
@X-Gay Apologist
Ah, so you are drawing a distinction between constitutional and civil rights and only saying that all constitutional rights are available while allowing for inequality in civil law. Perhaps it would be simpler to simply ask if all laws treat gay people and heterosexual individual and couples equality to which the answer is clearly that the laws don’t all yet treat gay couples and heterosexual couples equally.
The bottom line is do you believe the law should treat gay and heterosexual individuals and couples equally?
Also there is no need to put Gay in quotes when talking about gay people in general.
@bill johnson
I’m not drawing the distinction between civil and constitutional rights. The ‘Law’ makes that distinction, which accounts for so much of the difficulty in adjudicating many of these cases. Civil law was around long before the Constitution was written. Political rights and civil rights are technically different issues, and we’re still sorting it all out to this day. What makes it even more confusing is that sometimes the two are used synonymously and sometimes distinctly!
In answer to your question as to the equality of ALL laws with regard to gay people, the answer is clearly no, especially where legitimate discriminatory practice exists. But as the law applies to marriage, which is what you’re really driving at, until the legal (civil) definition of marriage is changed, there is no strictly legal unfairness that can be appealed to as evidence of discrimination. That’s not my opinion, that’s the current state of the law. If you’re asking me what I personally think about the law, then, as I said before, I’m ambivalent at this point. But if I were an activist for gay marriage, I’d stay away from constitutional rights and approach the whole matter from the perspective of civil rights.
Seriously, xga, I’m just trying to be honest with you. And answering you as well. If such franks and brutal honesty is offensive to you, accusatory, whatever, you’re not important here. I think that vulnerable teenager that’s been taught to hate being gay or be fearful of it is.
And Michael Bussee doesn’t have to be a gay Christian, or even ex ex gay or just gay for me to like him.
I just like him. Met him on several occasions and I just like him.
I think that your conversion being significant to you is another one of those factors where I don’t think it would be, were you an ever hetero. It’s weird that one’s orientation conversion should mean THAT much to them.
And as you’re talking about the state of law and marriage discrimination, whether your opinion or not, clearly those who are GAY cannot marry someone who shares their SAME orientation the way heteros can. THAT is what can be appealed to as a point of unfairness in the law. It’s not just about gender.
There is no defense presented so far, that’s legal to use as rationally sound against gay people.
Such as on the basis of not spontaneously procreating. On the basis of parenting, or on religious or physical compatibility standards.
No where does the state have any requirements or standards for any of them. And certainly religious objections are an even weaker defense.
And no, you’re not a marriage equality activist, so what you’d do, is irrelevant.
I AM an activist, and the matter has been approached from ALL sides as both Constitutional AND civil, and still the anti gay plug each aspect of these with definitions have NO legal standing right now.
Marriage isn’t being redefined by gay people, so much as being redefined in ways the law cannot allow by the anti gay.
@xgayapologist: considering this site, and the struggle that most young gays have had with the closet and the expectation that they convert and on what conditions, you should have the sensitivity and understanding how rude your very presence and assertions of conversion are.
It’s rude, and that’s why ex gays get such negative responses.
You don’t seem to be able to think for a minute the gravity of your actions or your presence in a forum such as this.
And as you’ve already stated, you don’t care what we think.
We know that.
You want what you want, and only care about what you have and how you got it.
We know that too.
I wouldn’t even come into a situation with gay people or those formerly having gone through attempts at conversion, and throw my orientation into their faces.
I only mention I’m not gay as a point of honesty and how I’ve been educated to understand gay folks.
And I enter these forums to gain more education. And there are times I’ve undergone some intense questioning and vetting when involving myself in pro gay activism, PRECISELY so that a straight person bent on converting a gay person hasn’t come under the wire.
I wouldn’t let you near a gay teenager with a ten block radius.
Someone like you is utterly useless to what heteros need to know about being gay, and if you’re straight now, you can’t teach me anything about that either.
And you’re so lacking in sensitivity and class to understand the gravity of the stakes and why you’re met with the response you are.
That is a measure too of some of the selfish and self centered quality I pick up in ex gays.
So I’ve been trying to articulate and explain my averse reactions to converted gays. It’s far more legit than your demands for unconditional acceptance.
It’s NOT a two way street for gay people, so expecting it deserves to be for the converted is inconsiderate at best.
Now, if you still don’t get it. I’m done explaining it to you. No one can stop you hanging out here if you want to. We have more at stake than you do, understand that.
@Regan DuCasse
I just knew you’d be here this morning! I think I’m even starting to like you! But this is the last I’m going to say, because I feel like my wheels are just spinning now.
First, I really do appreciate your honesty. And I’ve learned some things from our interaction.
Second, I have not been offended at all by what you’ve said. It’s your opinion and you’re free to express it.
Third, I’m glad you like Michael Bussee. I shouldn’t have assumed reasons that you do.
Fourth, my conversion is not significant to me because it was an ‘orientation’ conversion. It is significant because it turned me from being a hater of God to being a lover of God. Any changes that have occurred as a result of that are secondary matters. And there were a lot more changes than just my sexual desires and activities.
Fifth, all you’ve said about the gay marriage issue is legitimate. But the hard fact of the matter is that at the present time marriage has a legal definition, and until that is changed there isn’t much hope for your cause. I don’t mean that in an adversarial way, I’m just stating the legal situation as I see it from where I sit.
And with that, I bid you adieu.
@xga:
Thanks for answering my post. Fair enough.
I’m less pessimistic about how to articulate the legal terms of marriage.
The LEGAL terms are actually very, VERY simple and break down to four basic ones.
1. Age minimum of 18
2. Mutual consent
3. Non married
4. non closely related
The last two of course, have to do with kinship status, and redundancy. The former are essential to the state protecting individuals from coercion.
That’s why states and the federal Constitutions didn’t have to specify gender or orientation before. Marriage has evolved to become MORE inclusive and more people to be self reliant and responsible for each other and especially any children they take in. Whether biological, or adopted, foster or step children.
But those defending marriage as exclusive to one man and one woman, are de facto claiming that the purpose of marriage beyond the state’s ENFORCEMENT capability.
Or NEED to.
This change in the LEGAL definition hasn’t passed scrutiny of it’s principles or intentions. And the anti gay won’t admit that. And they certainly don’t understand what equal treatment under the law is and how THAT is defined.
Their defense of marriage, would also exclude a myriad of heterosexuals and does. The difference, again, is what vigor employed to ENFORCE it.
For this to be fair, there would have to be either the same discrimination against het people, or the same access to marriage for gay people.
But typical of the anti gay, ESPECIALLY religious ones, comes the inevitable hypocrisy and contradictions in terms.
Even now, where the legal definitions and Constitutional amendments that protect minorities from tyrannical majorities, that protect responsible citizens to enable their support of significant others and their children is now being heavily damaged.
And all of that, because of the zeal to commit gay citizens to none of the protections and rights that go with their responsibilities as citizens.
Jim Crow was considered a rightful and supportive system of laws for all the same reasons used against gay people.
And segregationists didn’t care who it hurt. The whole point of having those laws was to hurt a minority that didn’t have the political or social clout to fight it in the voting booth.
Their claims to the contrary, there was no moral imperative to have those laws. Jim Crow never made white people more moral, neither do similar discriminatory laws against gay people.
No straight marriages or straight people are PROTECTED or BETTERED by it.
Therefore, these laws aren’t serving the purpose for which they were invented, except to deny gay people full citizenship.
Gay people have to claim their own destiny, the same way women, Jews and people of color have.
And the difference between a committed activist, and a person sitting in their chair, is doing the work required to change things and making a good case.
And gay folks DO have a good case.
You may not think so, but the results of legal recognition of gay relationships has had more positives than the predicted negatives to prove the dissenters correct.
In other words, WE have had evidence for a long time to prove our case and they have not.
Optimism, hope, anger at injustice, determination to get at the truth…all these are in the soul of effective advocates.
Your chair must be really comfortable. Mine…and those of my fellow activists is hard and full of splinters and nails.
We, in other words, cannot sit down.
Yet.
@Regan DuCasse
This really will be the last thing I say. And it will be short. My chair is NOT comfortable. You have NO idea where I am sitting. This is the only thing you’ve said to me that really hurt. You finally made me cry. Touche!
You did mention from where you sat, that’s where I got my idea.
It sounded like you were very happy and satisfied where you were sitting.
And, I didn’t want you to be hurt, just woken up. And somewhere in you I knew it DID matter what we thought, as it should.
If the last few sentences of my post is what got to you, then I still missed the mark. I was mostly talking about the legal ramifications of marriage equality. I’ve been tested the same way you were here, in other ways, in other arenas.
Take a break, relax.
Tomorrow is another day.
@Regan DuCasse
Regan,
I don’t want those to be my last words in this dialogue. The ‘chair’ I sit in is in the sordid and sad world of the sexual abuse of children. A case I was working on had just ended in suicide. That’s where I was sitting when I read your post. My heart breaks daily, mostly because by the time we get into these young lives the damage has already been done and there’s nothing we can do to undo it. We can just try to help them live with the consequences. And the perpetrators seldom get what they deserve. So I do know all about the frustrations of a legal system that doesn’t seem to be too concerned about real justice.
So that was what was behind my last remarks yesterday.
I appreciate that, xga:
I do. I can’t help but think of all the gay teens I’VE counseled. Most of whom have stayed in touch with me and are now thriving, successful adults. They tend to tell each other about me, a kind of underground railroad safe house, so to speak. Years ago, a 15 year old had been beaten by his father when his Southern Baptist mom and dad found out he was gay. The kid spent a night in the hospital, his father a night in jail. And the parents gave him the usual ultimatum of changing his orientation or never have a family again.
This is an ultimatum that you well know puts gay kids at risk more than any other child at risk especially of bullying. Because this is where their school administrators, their clergy and parents can be in on the expectations, and likely mental and emotional abuse of said teen to change.
And the POLITICAL aspect of the same for gay adults, would present a LIFETIME of only two choices for a gay person to be.
Affect being hetero, or celibacy.
I have argued with enough anti gay people to know that’s exactly why they are willing to hold equal rights hostage.
What I know about teenagers, is you can’t lie to them. You can’t contradict yourself and you can’t be a hypocrite.
And an ex gay, has the dubious distinction of all of these, when dealing with a vulnerable teen and counseling them regarding their orientation.
More of the SAME PROBLEM that puts them at risk to begin with.
THAT is the conflict inherent in the way you live and what would make credibility impossible if you’re telling a youngster which direction to take.
Your example is a PROBLEM, not a solution in the bigger picture.
That is why I’ve given you such a hard time. You, typical of a ‘former homosexual’ seems to fails to appreciate what a problem you present.
Especially to a gay teenager. Even a questioning one.
Also typical of the ex gay ministry/counseling TEMPLATE is that it takes sexual abuse or neglect of a pertinent gender to BECOME gay.
There are professed ex gays convinced they were sexually abused, when they were not.
See the problem?
So because I have no way to qualify what reason YOU are dealing with teenagers, and considering also this forum: you have some explaining to do.
My state has a bill in the legislature that would ban ex gay therapy. There is no credential for such a practice since it’s been known for decades that such therapy does harm and doesn’t work over the long period.
But ministers and churches will have an exemption, but I don’t think they should.
Now, there many kinds of abuse a gay kid is at risk of. Especially mental and emotional because of the threat of shunning, abandonment and outright physical ‘corrective’ assault.
You have some explaining to do and you’re but one example, all things considered you should understand, why I wouldn’t let a gay kid, anywhere near you.
Now if YOUR feelings were hurt, and you’re a grown man, understand why the kids call me ‘mama bear’.
THEY are more important to me than someone like YOU is.
Fair?
@Regan DuCasse
I keep saying I’m not going to say any more, but I just want to clarify some apparent misunderstanding. I do not counsel teenagers regarding sexual orientation. I deal with cases of physical sexual abuse that are clearly criminal and indictable. The sexual orientation of the juvenile involved is irrelevant to the heinousness of the crime committed against them. The uppermost concern is for justice.
Let me also say that I agree with you completely with regard to the supposed benefits of gay therapy. It indeed does no good and often results in psychological damage to the client. Even if I were involved in counseling gay youth, I would never recommend or countenance any therapeutic measures. And as far as the causes of being gay, I for one have never thought that there must always be sexual abuse or parental dysfunction to account for it. That’s way too simplistic. I think it’s a very complex issue and doubt if anyone knows for sure why some of us have a same-sex attraction. So trying to ‘cure’ it is a fruitless endeavor.
Finally, however I may disagree with you about the gay issue, I do not for a minute agree with or support bullying or parental abuse of the kind you mentioned. Of course you will tell me that I am a problem just for being what I am.
Oh yes. Fair!
Thanks for clearing that up for me. I don’t have to tell you again that although YOU as an individual are not doing anything actively or deliberately against gay people, there are ex gays who do and NARTH, PFOX, AFTAH, FRC and NOM does as well.
At any rate, I am a crime scene photographer, and hope to transition to forensic sketch artist in the near future.
I’m very committed in fighting crime, of course. But extremely committed against the mental abuse of young people gay or not, with regard to anti gay sentiment. I’ve had these children take shelter with me in my home. They’ve lived with me, begged me to help them with their parents. I’m a PFLAG member as well as belonging to and volunteering for several anti hate educational institutions.
It should be understandable when an ex gay isn’t trusted at face value. Period.
More understandable than few ex gays apparently are willing understand or accept.
Trust, is after all, an extremely important thing and sometimes a fragile thing. Your position is of someone a vulnerable person has to trust.
So am I. And in the way priests who abused members of their flock, were not vetted, nor policed (nor excised and held accountable) by their peers, you should also understand how keen an eye would have to be for an ex gay and their purpose around a young person.
Ex gays do not undergo such scrutiny. Indeed, they avoid it. My earliest experiences with ex gays, and the whole process of it, was met with some considerable caginess and lack of transparency.
Others interested in being educated and informed, and bringing it out into the open, had to go undercover to do it.
And once more and more of the tactics, abuses and lack of credentials or efficacy was revealed, people in the ex gay industry started modifying their tune.
You as an individual consider yourself harmless, indeed helpful and kind and non threatening.
But you all say that, you all think that. And sadly, for most of them. It’s not true.
On CNN today, a pastor was on video telling his congregation that if confronted with an effeminate boy, or tomboyish girl, they should beat the child. MAKE them wear the right clothes and have the right mannerisms or else threaten them with serious punishment.
NOW he’s back tracking that he said it. And still maintains that his religious convictions tell him that homosexuality is wrong and always will be.
That’s not protected speech. Incitement of violence. His words ARE actionable as criminal. Doubtful he will have charges brought, but he deserves it. Because there is a horrible reality out there, considering all the agreeing voices in his church, some kid is in for a world of hurt THEY don’t deserve.
I’m going to make a note of this minister and he WILL be hearing from me.
You might be surprised how many of them do.
It’s hard to shame the devil, but it’s always worth a try.
@Regan DuCasse
I heard the guy in a tweet link from David Roberts. This kind of stuff is deplorable. If this guy were in my church, there would be action taken for his removal.
I can tell you that there have been other ministers, of various ethnic backgrounds instructing their flock in the same way. Sometimes, ironically, going into the graphic details of the sex practices they think gays and lesbians engage in. This in front of children in the pews.
Whenever there is a call for removal of such pastors, teachers and so on…they cry foul and that it’s censorship and a restriction of their religious freedom. It’s way, WAY past time to call these people out on their selective use of the Bible and treatment of other human beings.
This pastor is essentially liking the idea of hurting who cannot fight back and wouldn’t.
And he hasn’t the courage to call it that, let alone defend HIS actions or why it’s ONLY gay children deserving of such treatment.
When the grease hits the griddle, he and his ilk are cowards at heart.
He’ll likely lay low until the heats off. I haven’t heard of anyone wanting him to be fired. But yes, he deserves it.
EXACTLY WHO FUNDED your reparative therapy research dr. spitzer? who gave you the MONEY to look into this hatefulness to begin with? Apology Noted: you did balancing, notable work when you were younger. A full accounting of the Entire Financial Process re: Your Reparative Therapy Research, however, would make for an interesting fireside read. that, my dear doctor, would be a TRUE apology.