Homosexuality is Against Nature
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"Bigots like the ones we find here will slowly die out, and civilisation will flower even more magnificantly as we gain a newer level of social enlightenment, and the nethandrals of our current society will slowly become extinct. "Originally posted by HENG@:Anyway, I think ultimately we don't have to worry. Bigots like the ones we find here will slowly die out, and civilisation will flower even more magnificantly as we gain a newer level of social enlightenment, and the nethandrals of our current society will slowly become extinct. And contary to their expectations, the widespread acceptance of homosexuality will not cause mankind to become extinct. On the contary, people will have a stronger defination and understanding of their own sexuality earlier in their lives, and this will lead to relationships being stronger when both parties are fully aware of their own sexualities, and perhaps we'll see less of the tragedies and heartbreak of today when one partner in a relationship realises that he or she is gay. Social enlightenment must be pushed ahead in spite of all the bigotry trying to send us back into the dark ages. It is the creed of humanity.
He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave. - Andrew Carnegie
Can you reason, or will you not reason, or will you not dare to reason ?
Yes, life will get better, when those who know so little will make 'mountains out of mole hills' and get buried in their own efforts to justify their useless positions.
As was mentioned in my preceding reply posted:
the HOMOSAPIENS have evolved light years ahead of the HOMOSEXUALS, who prefer to be associated with the sub-species that remain unchanged since the Neanderthal Age - do you think the enligthened HOMOSAPIENS will become extinct first, or the Neanderthal Age HOMOSEXUALS ?
"And contary to their expectations, the widespread acceptance of homosexuality will not cause mankind to become extinct. "
How certain are you of this eventuality ?
The epidemic spread of AIDS/HIV has caused the death of thousands each year in every country on this globe; and with millions more being inflicted, the death toll will be higher then the black plague that swept across the globe.
"On the contary, people will have a stronger defination and understanding of their own sexuality earlier in their lives, and this will lead to relationships being stronger when both parties are fully aware of their own sexualities, and perhaps we'll see less of the tragedies and heartbreak of today when one partner in a relationship realises that he or she is gay. "
I am surprised that you will believe that there is hope in the future that the current problems faced by HOMOSEXUALS will be eradicated by an earlier understanding and awareness of their own sexualities - which I trust you will mean CORRECTING the HOMOSEXUAL ATTITUDES and TENDENCIES ?
Otherwise, how can anyone prevent the "tragedies and heartbreaks of today when one partner in a relationship realises that he or she is gay " ?
Someone has to go for corrective therapy - and it cannot possibly be a NON-Homosexual seeking therapy to become a Homosexual.
"Social enlightenment must be pushed ahead in spite of all the bigotry trying to send us back into the dark ages. It is the creed of humanity "
Can Social Enlightenment exist alongside bigotry ?
If HOMOSAPIENS have developed light years ahead of the Neanderthal Age HOMOSEXUALS, who do you think are still living in the Dark Ages, and attempting to pull normal HOMOSAPIEN communities to accept the HOMOSEXUAL lifestyle and leading HOMOSAPIENS deeper into extinction ? -
Originally posted by vito_corleone:
How many different ways do you think one can view it ?
Quote from post by Atobe:
If one decide to have sex with any one person - is it not a wilful act ?
If one decide to copulate using NORMAL SEXUAL ORGANS - is it not instinctive ?
A child cries when hungry - is it not instinctive ?
A child feeds when hungry - is it not wilful ?
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it depends on how you view it.
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Originally posted by earthlings73:
How can lines be blurred when each one has entrenched beliefs and values ?
Hi Greengoblin..
Just to clarify certain things..
1) You did help to close my thread. =) I thank you for that.
2) This thread has nothing to do with me leh.. I did suggest to you to close it too mah, since we have started a new forum.. But I did not get any reply.. So, I'm just stating a fact here mah..
3) I know your position now.. To be stucked in the middle.. Moderating is never an easy job.. On the one hand, to allow freedom of speech but on the other hand gotta control trolling behaviours.. And many times, the lines are pretty blurred depending on one's beliefs and values.. But do keep up the good work!
4) On my part, I will not respond to trolls from now.. However, if there are accusations on the gay comm with ill-constructed studies, I will still provide an alternative view, without responding to the trolls..
Good night everyone!
Is there any sense in your statement ?
Or are you simply playing Politics, by trying to succour up to the Mod ?
If anyone is trolling, it seems that you are best at it when making mountains out of moleshills with your claims of discriminations, and repetitive attempts to garner public sympathy to your perceived discriminations to jobs, housing, and even child adoption.
Accusations on the 'HOMOSEXUAL Community' ?
It is quite obvious the aggressive efforts of the HOMOSEXUAL COMMUNITY in trying to gain public sympathy and unwarranted attention to their situation, when they will not accept sound advice from the public to change their self-perception and cynicism towards themselves and all others offers of help.
Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does. -
Then I apply to be mod.Originally posted by greengoblin:Then you go be mod lor.....
For your Info Earthings and all...ESP PRP. I closed the previous thread on homosexuality and directed you all to the forum that Earthing set up. The previous time when the first homosexuality topic deviated to religious bashings, I closed it. However, you all wish to fall into a bait of a troll and continue to post.
And to Earthings, do you dare claim I never respond nicely to you the first time and redirect close your thread? And who was the one who petition me to allow him to open a new thread on homosexuality?
I am pretty sick and tired of this damn issue. If you wish to post on religious aspect, go EH. If you all wish to discuss objectively be my guest. However, esp to PRP, if I see anymore rubbish from you. I will make sure I close every thread you make, edit every post you write and make sure you get banned from this damn forum.
Hope you all get my drift.
The damn pissed off moderator who has to work for a living and not face only one thread 24/7
How does one become a mod anyway?
the pikamaster -
washingtonpost.comOriginally posted by Atobe:How did you come to a conclusive statement - "But you need to be a religious zealot before you can "might" succeed..... " ?
Vowing to Set the World Straight
Proponents of Reparative Therapy Say They Can Help Gay Patients
Become Heterosexual. Experts Call That a Prescription for Harm
By Sandra G. Boodman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 16, 2005; HE01
Nicholas Cavnar said he tried everything he could think of in his 30-
year quest to become heterosexual. He spent years in therapy, paying
thousands of dollars for treatment designed to overcome his
homosexuality. He faithfully attended meetings of Christian self-help
groups for "strugglers." He married and fathered three children, a
metamorphosis featured on the cover of a Catholic magazine.
Yet every day, the 54-year-old Washington publishing executive
recalled, he had to suppress his deepest feelings about who he really
was -- emotions he thought he had left behind at 20 when, to the
delight of his devout family, he abruptly renounced his openly gay
life in San Francisco.
Three years ago, Cavnar said, after soul-searching prompted by the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he decided his days of "white-knuckling
it" were over. "I told my wife I couldn't not be gay anymore,"
recalled Cavnar. His biggest regret, he said, was the devastating
impact ending their 26-year marriage had on the woman who had
struggled with him.
Cavnar's odyssey -- from gay to ex-gay to ex-ex-gay -- is
inextricably linked to his long involvement in reparative therapy, a
controversial form of psychotherapy aimed at making gays straight.
While its supporters cite success stories from their clinical
practices as well as a recent and much debated study showing that
conversion therapy can work, the treatment is opposed by virtually
every medical and mental health organization, including the American
Medical Association, the U.S. Surgeon General and the American
Psychiatric Association (APA), which removed homosexuality from its
list of mental disorders in 1973.
Until the early 1990s the treatment, also known as reorientation
therapy, was largely relegated to religious groups or to the fringes
of mental health. Mainstream therapists have been taught to help
patients distressed about their homosexuality work toward self-
acceptance, to overcome the internalized homophobia thought to be the
cause of much emotional turmoil.
Reparative therapists reject the views held by an overwhelming
majority of mental health practitioners. They regard homosexuality as
a pathological preference forged in the crucible of a troubled
childhood and not, as most scientists believe, an inborn orientation
significantly influenced by biological factors such as genetics and
exposure to hormones in the womb.
"I don't think sexual orientation is genetically determined, but like
a lot of preferences we have in life is a complicated and
idiosyncratic mix of temperament and experience," said Warren
Throckmorton, a supporter of reparative therapy who is an associate
professor of psychology at Grove City College in Pennsylvania and
former president of the American Mental Health Counselors
Association. "The other reason I think change is possible is that
I've worked with a lot of clients who've done it."
In the past decade, the growing influence of religious conservatives
and the national debate over gay rights, especially gay marriage, has
revived interest in the therapy, significantly raising its public
profile, spawning new practitioners and igniting debate about a
matter that had been considered settled, supporters and critics agree.
"Reparative therapy is the laetrile of mental health," said New York
psychiatrist Jack Drescher, referring to the quack cancer cure banned
in the United States in the 1970s.
To gay rights activist Wayne R. Besen, the author of "Anything But
Straight," a 2003 book that tracks the history of ex-gay groups, the
therapy is "a kinder, gentler form of homophobia. The argument has
shifted from 'You're harming society' to 'You're harming
yourselves.' " -
]The Campaign
Web sites with names like "inqueery" and "freetobeme" have sprung up,
directing confused teenagers and frantic parents to reparative
counselors. Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), a
national group headquartered in Fairfax County, has sponsored highway
billboards in Rockville and Richmond that state "Ex-Gays Prove That
Change Is Possible."
PFOX, founded seven years ago to counter PFLAG -- Parents, Families
and Friends of Lesbians and Gays -- was active in the recent battle
over sex education in Montgomery County. Central to the dispute was
the way homosexuality would be taught.
As a result of a lawsuit, PFOX has won a seat on the board that will
help rewrite the health curriculum, and its officials say they plan
to push for inclusion of reparative therapy.
Reparative therapists have their own organization, the 1,000-member
California-based National Association for Research and Therapy of
Homosexuality (NARTH), founded in 1992. Its leaders often appear
at "Love Won Out" workshops that draw more than 1,000 participants
and are sponsored by Focus on the Family, a group founded by
conservative psychologist James Dobson, a staunch opponent of gay
rights who has ties to the Bush administration.
Mental health experts are alarmed by the resurgence of a treatment
they say has been discredited.
In the view of Drescher, chair of the APA's committee on gay, lesbian
and bisexual issues, reparative therapy's ascendance resembles the
resurrection of creationism, a religious belief at odds with science
that has been rechristened with the more scientific-sounding
name "intelligent design."
"Many people who try this treatment tend to be desperate, very
unhappy and don't know other gay people," said Drescher, who has
treated about a dozen men who previously underwent conversion
therapy. (Men are far more likely than women to receive the
treatment.)
"I see people who've been very hurt by this," said Drescher, who said
some people do manage to temporarily change their behavior, often by
becoming celibate, but not their sexual orientation. "They spend
years trying to change and are told they aren't trying hard enough."
Catherine Wulfensmith, 46, a family therapist in Monrovia, Calif.,
said she attempted suicide several times after reparative therapy
failed to alter her attraction to women. "I bought it hook, line and
sinker," she said. "If you don't change, what are you left with?"
The 'Fix'
Reparative therapy typically involves once- or twice-weekly
psychotherapy sessions lasting a minimum of two years; it may be
covered by insurance if it is listed as being for a "sexual disorder
not otherwise specified." Patients are encouraged to delve into their
childhood relationships, especially with the same-sex parent; to
cultivate straight friends and "gender-appropriate" activities such
as sports or sewing; and to avoid anything, or anyone, gay. Prayer is
often recommended.
NARTH co-founder Joseph Nicolosi, a clinical psychologist in Encino,
Calif., who coined the term reparative therapy and is one of its
leading practitioners, emphatically rejects the view that it is
ineffective and potentially damaging. He points to a study published
in 2003 by Columbia University psychiatrist Robert L. Spitzer which
found that therapy seemed to work for some highly motivated patients.
"It can only be damaging if the agenda of the therapist supersedes
that of the patient," said Nicolosi, who added that it should never
be forced on unwilling participants.
Although no rigorous outcome studies have been published, Nicolosi
estimates that one-third of patients treated at the Thomas Aquinas
Psychological Clinic, of which he is founding director,
experience "significant improvement -- they understand their
homosexuality and have some sense of control" but may still have gay
sex. Another third, he said, are "cured": They don't have gay sex and
the intensity and frequency of their same-sex desires is diminished,
but not necessarily gone. The other third fail to change.
Hector Roybal, a 52-year-old financial consultant in Los Angeles,
spent four years in intensive treatment with Nicolosi, who considers
him to be cured. Roybal concurs, but said he still sometimes
struggles with sexual feelings for men, although he has remained
faithful to his wife, the only woman to whom he says he feels
physically attracted.
"I saw myself as someone who had a problem with homosexuality but was
meant to be straight," said Roybal, who, like Nicolosi, is a
conservative Catholic. "This is about making a choice."
Although reparative therapists sometimes differ about the causes of
homosexuality, they are united in saying it is not inborn and it is
never normal.
Nicolosi maintains it is the result of a defective bond with the same-
sex parent. Boys who feel rejected by their fathers develop
a "defensive detachment" -- they reject them and identify with their
mothers and other females. Because opposites attract, he theorizes,
they are sexually drawn to men, even though what they are searching
for is their lost masculinity. Once they find it, he said, their
attraction to women will follow, although lifetime vigilance is
required to avoid slipping.
Even though reparative therapists say they support "free choice,"
they see nothing contradictory in their view that homosexuality is
pathological. Nor do they regard as incongruent their refusal to work
with a straight or bisexual client who thinks he or she might be gay.
In their view, homosexuals are doomed to miserable, unhealthy lives.
"We say to patients, 'Your true self is heterosexual,' " Nicolosi
said. He said he tells male patients, "Look at your body: It was
designed to fit a woman, not a man." -
The Study
Robert Spitzer sounds weary when discussing the study published two
years ago in the Archives of Sexual Behavior that earned him the
enmity of many of his colleagues and the admiration of reparative
therapists.
Spitzer's study has special resonance: In 1973 he was the driving
force behind the removal of homosexuality from psychiatry's
diagnostic manual.
Thirty years later, he said, he decided to test the widespread
hypothesis that reparative therapy never worked. "I like to challenge
conventional notions," he explained.
Despite the active cooperation of NARTH and ex-gay religious groups,
Spitzer said it took him more than 16 months to recruit 200 people
who had undergone treatment. He conducted 45-minute telephone
interviews and found that 66 percent of 143 men and 44 percent of 57
women, all of whom Spitzer described as "highly motivated" and almost
all of whom were "extraordinarily religious," had achieved "good
heterosexual function" lasting at least five years. They were in a
committed relationship, had satisfying heterosexual sex at least
monthly and said they were rarely or never bothered by homosexual
feelings.
In an accompanying commentary, former APA president Lawrence
Hartmann, a professor at Harvard Medical School, called Spitzer's
study "too flawed to publish." Hartmann noted the study was
retrospective, that it lacked controls or independent measurements,
and was based entirely on self-reports by people who were motivated
to say they had changed because of their affiliation with ex-gay or
anti-gay groups.
While Nicolosi and others frequently cite the study as proof
reparative therapy works, Spitzer said his results have been
misrepresented. "It bothers me to be their knight in shining armor
because on every social issue I totally disagree with the Christian
right," he said.
"What they don't mention is that change is pretty rare," he added,
noting that the subjects of his study were not representative of the
general population because they were considerably more religious.
And Spitzer calls "totally absurd" the twin hypotheses that everyone
is born straight and that homosexuality is a choice.
Drescher agrees. "There are probably a small number of people with
some flexibility in their sexual identity who can change," he
said. "Out of the hundreds of gay men I've treated, I've had one." · -
Focus on this paragraph:
Although no rigorous outcome studies have been published, Nicolosi
estimates that one-third of patients treated at the Thomas Aquinas
Psychological Clinic, of which he is founding director,
experience "significant improvement -- they understand their
homosexuality and have some sense of control" but may still have gay
sex. Another third, he said, are "cured": They don't have gay sex and
the intensity and frequency of their same-sex desires is diminished,
but not necessarily gone. The other third fail to change.
This is an optimistic estimation since it's supplied by the same therapist who offered the therapy.
1) 33.3% Unchanged.
2) 33.3% Significant improvement but still have gay sex. Which means they have not changed they sexual orientation, just less promiscuious.
3) 33.3% Diminishes in same-sex desires. But sex drives will fall naturally one ages. Sex drive peaks at 25 year-old when testesterone level is at its peak. However, these people do not change in who they are attracted to. So is this a real change?
More critically, saying that homosexuality can be cured without showing us where's the cure does not prove the point that such therapies work. -
AIDS in US started in gay community? Yes.Originally posted by Atobe:What can we say of the sub-species from which AID/HIV had probably began ?
Is this gay the one and only person to bring AIDS to the world? No, there are multiple sources.
Is the very first case in HIV passed on by gay? No.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS
AIDS is thought to have originated in sub-Saharan Africa during the twentieth century
Two species of HIV infect humans: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is more virulent and more easily transmitted. HIV-1 is the source of the majority of HIV infections throughout the world, while HIV-2 is less easily transmitted and is largely confined to West Africa. [1]
Both species of the virus (HIV-1 and HIV-2) are believed to have originated in West-Central Africa and jumped species (zoonosis) from primates to humans. HIV-1 evolved from a Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIVcpz) found in the chimpanzee subspecies Pan troglodytes troglodytes. [2] DNA sequencing indicates that HIV-1 (group M) entered the human population in the early 20th century, probably sometime between 1915 and 1941. [3] [4] HIV-2 crossed species from a different strain of SIV, this one found in sooty mangabeys (an Old World monkey) of Guinea-Bissau. [5]
The earliest documented HIV-1 infection dates from 1959, and was discovered in the preserved blood sample of a man from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[6] In 1969, a 15-year-old African-American male died at the St. Louis City Hospital from aggressive Kaposi's sarcoma. AIDS was suspected as early as 1988, and in 1999, researchers at Tulane University School of Medicine confirmed this, finding HIV-1 in his preserved blood and tissues. [7] [8] [9]
In 1976, a Norwegian sailor, his wife, and his nine-year-old daughter died of AIDS. The sailor had first presented symptoms in 1966, four years after he had spent time in ports along the West African coastline. Tissue samples from the sailor and his wife were tested in 1988 and found to contain the HIV-1 virus (Group O). [10] [11] The next documented western death from AIDS was that of Dr. Grethe Rask in 1977. Rask, a Danish surgeon, had worked in the Congo in the early 1970s.
The official date for the beginning of the AIDS epidemic is marked as June 18, 1981, when the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report newsletter that unusual clusters of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia had been discovered in gay men in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. [12] Over the next eighteen months, more Pneumocystis carinii clusters were discovered among otherwise healthy men in cities throughout the country, along with other opportunistic diseases (such as Kaposi's sarcoma [13] and lymphadenopathy [14]), common in immunosuppressed patients.
In June 1982, a report of a group of cases amongst gay men in Southern California suggested that a sexually transmitted infectious agent might be the etiological agent (MMWR Weekly, 1982) and was initially termed 'GRID' (Gay Related Immune Deficiency). However, the same opportunistic infections also began to be reported among hemophiliacs [15], heterosexual IV drug users, and Haitian immigrants [16]. By August 1982, the disease was being referred to by its new name, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) (Marx et al., 1982). An anagram of AIDS, SIDA, was then created for use in French (Syndrome d'Immuno-Déficience Acquise) and Spanish (SÃndrome de Inmunodeficiencia Adquirida) (Direction Générale De La Santé, 1982).
In May 1983, doctors at the Institute Pasteur in France reported that they had isolated a new retrovirus from lymphoid ganglions that they believed was the cause of SIDA (Barre-Sinoussi et al., 1983). The virus was later named lymphadenopathy-associated virus (LAV) and a sample was sent to the CDC, which was later passed to the National Cancer Institute, USA (Connor and Kingman, 198
. In May 1984, Dr Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute also isolated a virus that caused AIDS, and named it Human T-cell Lymphotropic Virus-III (HTLV-III) (Popovic et al., 1984). In January 1985 a number of more detailed reports were published concerning LAV and HTLV-III, and by March it was clear that the viruses were the same, from the same source, and was the etiological agent of AIDS (Marx, 1985; Chang et al., 1993). In May 1986, the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses ruled that both names should be dropped and a new name, HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), be used (Coffin et al., 1986). -
IF you dont like them, kill them..
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I don't quite understand this paragraph. Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens were both descendants of Homo Erectus. Do you mean that Neanderthal extinct because all of them are homosexuals?Originally posted by Atobe:If HOMOSAPIENS have developed light years ahead of the Neanderthal Age HOMOSEXUALS, who do you think are still living in the Dark Ages, and attempting to pull normal HOMOSAPIEN communities to accept the HOMOSEXUAL lifestyle and leading HOMOSAPIENS deeper into extinction ? -
Mod,Originally posted by greengoblin:Then you go be mod lor.....
For your Info Earthings and all...ESP PRP. I closed the previous thread on homosexuality and directed you all to the forum that Earthing set up. The previous time when the first homosexuality topic deviated to religious bashings, I closed it. However, you all wish to fall into a bait of a troll and continue to post.
And to Earthings, do you dare claim I never respond nicely to you the first time and redirect close your thread? And who was the one who petition me to allow him to open a new thread on homosexuality?
I am pretty sick and tired of this damn issue. If you wish to post on religious aspect, go EH. If you all wish to discuss objectively be my guest. However, esp to PRP, if I see anymore rubbish from you. I will make sure I close every thread you make, edit every post you write and make sure you get banned from this damn forum.
Hope you all get my drift.
The damn pissed off moderator who has to work for a living and not face only one thread 24/7
Why do u need to intervene what we are discussing about?Have i or we broken any rules or law?Have i make personal attack against other without basis?U are biased on this topic.That's what i conclude. -
So Heng doesn't intend to answer my question whether he is a liar.I believe he is.However,he is honest enuf not to lie that he is not.Originally posted by PRP:Heng,
I repeat: I'm not a fool or hypocrite but u often accuse me I'm.Aren't u a liar?
Pls answer,othewise your credibility are at stake. -
Atobe has given all the heatlh risks of homosex,so can one still say it is right?
-
Speak to Fireice.Originally posted by pikamaster:Then I apply to be mod.
How does one become a mod anyway?
the pikamaster
Jie. Take note pls. Thanks -
Ehh blind goon read what I wrote. What did I say about religious stuff? Post it in EH. And in your thread, you have never followed the arguments on the other but rather tried to bait others to flame.Originally posted by PRP:Mod,
Why do u need to intervene what we are discussing about?Have i or we broken any rules or law?Have i make personal attack against other without basis?U are biased on this topic.That's what i conclude.
And why do I need to intervene...simple... 'cause I am in charge of SC.
They have not broken any rules. You have.
Better think with that poor excuse of your brain before posting. -
Up yours you lah you bloody moron. NO PERSONAL ATTACKS HERE UNDERSTAND!!!!Originally posted by PRP:So Heng doesn't intend to answer my question whether he is a liar.I believe he is.However,he is honest enuf not to lie that he is not.
I am starting to dislike this thread.
Contemplating closing thread in 24 hrs.
Pika wan to be mod ahh.... speak nicely to fireice hor...
FI.... your call
-
Originally posted by earthlings73:
After four postings from ONE referenced article that reported on three ( ? ) cases of failure in corrective therapies, there still is nothing that indicate that one has to be a RELIGIOUS ZEALOT - in order to be successfully corrected as a HOMOSEXUAL.
Quote from post by Atobe:
How did you come to a conclusive statement - "But you need to be a religious zealot before you can "might" succeed..... " ?
--------------------------------------------------------------
washingtonpost.com
Vowing to Set the World Straight
Proponents of Reparative Therapy Say They Can Help Gay Patients
Become Heterosexual. Experts Call That a Prescription for Harm
By Sandra G. Boodman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 16, 2005; HE01
Nicholas Cavnar said he tried everything he could think of in his 30-year quest to become heterosexual. He spent years in therapy, paying thousands of dollars for treatment designed to overcome his homosexuality. He faithfully attended meetings of Christian self-help groups for "strugglers." He married and fathered three children, a metamorphosis featured on the cover of a Catholic magazine.
Yet every day, the 54-year-old Washington publishing executive recalled, he had to suppress his deepest feelings about who he really was -- emotions he thought he had left behind at 20 when, to the delight of his devout family, he abruptly renounced his openly gay life in San Francisco.
Three years ago, Cavnar said, after soul-searching prompted by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he decided his days of "white-knuckling it" were over. "I told my wife I couldn't not be gay anymore," recalled Cavnar. His biggest regret, he said, was the devastating impact ending their 26-year marriage had on the woman who had struggled with him.
Cavnar's odyssey -- from gay to ex-gay to ex-ex-gay -- is inextricably linked to his long involvement in reparative therapy, a controversial form of psychotherapy aimed at making gays straight.
While its supporters cite success stories from their clinical practices as well as a recent and much debated study showing that conversion therapy can work, the treatment is opposed by virtually every medical and mental health organization, including the American Medical Association, the U.S. Surgeon General and the American Psychiatric Association (APA), which removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973.
Until the early 1990s the treatment, also known as reorientation therapy, was largely relegated to religious groups or to the fringes of mental health. Mainstream therapists have been taught to help patients distressed about their homosexuality work toward self- acceptance, to overcome the internalized homophobia thought to be the cause of much emotional turmoil.
Reparative therapists reject the views held by an overwhelming majority of mental health practitioners. They regard homosexuality as a pathological preference forged in the crucible of a troubled childhood and not, as most scientists believe, an inborn orientation significantly influenced by biological factors such as genetics and exposure to hormones in the womb.
"I don't think sexual orientation is genetically determined, but like a lot of preferences we have in life is a complicated and idiosyncratic mix of temperament and experience," said Warren Throckmorton, a supporter of reparative therapy who is an associate professor of psychology at Grove City College in Pennsylvania and former president of the American Mental Health Counselors Association. "The other reason I think change is possible is that
I've worked with a lot of clients who've done it."
In the past decade, the growing influence of religious conservatives and the national debate over gay rights, especially gay marriage, has revived interest in the therapy, significantly raising its public profile, spawning new practitioners and igniting debate about a matter that had been considered settled, supporters and critics agree.
"Reparative therapy is the laetrile of mental health," said New York Psychiatrist Jack Drescher, referring to the quack cancer cure banned in the United States in the 1970s.
To gay rights activist Wayne R. Besen, the author of "Anything But Straight," a 2003 book that tracks the history of ex-gay groups, the therapy is "a kinder, gentler form of homophobia. The argument has shifted from 'You're harming society' to 'You're harming yourselves.' "
You prefer to highlight that part of the report to suit your preferred position in this on-going debate, why did you not highlight the part that states :-
Spitzer's study has special resonance: In 1973 he was the driving force behind the removal of homosexuality from psychiatry's diagnostic manual.
Thirty years later, he said, he decided to test the widespread hypothesis that reparative therapy never worked. "I like to challenge conventional notions," he explained.
Despite the active cooperation of NARTH and ex-gay religious groups, Spitzer said it took him more than 16 months to recruit 200 people who had undergone treatment.
He conducted 45-minute telephone interviews and found that 66 percent of 143 men and 44 percent of 57 women, all of whom Spitzer described as "highly motivated" and almost all of whom were "extraordinarily religious," had achieved "good heterosexual function" lasting at least five years.
They were in a committed relationship, had satisfying heterosexual sex at least monthly and said they were rarely or never bothered by homosexual feelings.
In an accompanying commentary, former APA president Lawrence Hartmann, a professor at Harvard Medical School, called Spitzer's study "too flawed to publish."
Hartmann noted the study was retrospective, that it lacked controls or independent measurements, and was based entirely on self-reports by people who were motivated to say they had changed because of their affiliation with ex-gay or anti-gay groups. -
Originally posted by earthlings73:
Can anyone change one's persistent cynicism if one has no wish to change ?
Focus on this paragraph:
Although no rigorous outcome studies have been published, Nicolosi
estimates that one-third of patients treated at the Thomas Aquinas
Psychological Clinic, of which he is founding director,
experience "significant improvement -- they understand their
homosexuality and have some sense of control" but may still have gay
sex. Another third, he said, are "cured": They don't have gay sex and
the intensity and frequency of their same-sex desires is diminished,
but not necessarily gone. The other third fail to change.
This is an optimistic estimation since it's supplied by the same therapist who offered the therapy.
1) 33.3% Unchanged.
2) 33.3% Significant improvement but still have gay sex. Which means they have not changed they sexual orientation, just less promiscuious.
3) 33.3% Diminishes in same-sex desires. But sex drives will fall naturally one ages. Sex drive peaks at 25 year-old when testesterone level is at its peak. However, these people do not change in who they are attracted to. So is this a real change?
More critically, saying that homosexuality can be cured without showing us where's the cure does not prove the point that such therapies work.
In this world, 33.3% are religious, 33.3% are aetheist, 33.3% are agnostics - the various communities continue in its various paths without endangering each other's existences with abuses and malpractises that spread diseases. -
Originally posted by earthlings73:
So after so many pages in the closed thread, and on-going in this thread, the gap in our views is converging on some issues.
Originally posted by Atobe:
What can we say of the sub-species from which AID/HIV had probably began ?
---------------------------------------------------------------
AIDS in US started in gay community? Yes.
Is this gay the one and only person to bring AIDS to the world? No, there are multiple sources.
Is the very first case in HIV passed on by gay? No.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS
AIDS is thought to have originated in sub-Saharan Africa during the twentieth century
Two species of HIV infect humans: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is more virulent and more easily transmitted. HIV-1 is the source of the majority of HIV infections throughout the world, while HIV-2 is less easily transmitted and is largely confined to West Africa. [1]
Both species of the virus (HIV-1 and HIV-2) are believed to have originated in West-Central Africa and jumped species (zoonosis) from primates to humans. HIV-1 evolved from a Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIVcpz) found in the chimpanzee subspecies Pan troglodytes troglodytes. [2] DNA sequencing indicates that HIV-1 (group M) entered the human population in the early 20th century, probably sometime between 1915 and 1941. [3] [4] HIV-2 crossed species from a different strain of SIV, this one found in sooty mangabeys (an Old World monkey) of Guinea-Bissau. [5]
The earliest documented HIV-1 infection dates from 1959, and was discovered in the preserved blood sample of a man from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[6] In 1969, a 15-year-old African-American male died at the St. Louis City Hospital from aggressive Kaposi's sarcoma. AIDS was suspected as early as 1988, and in 1999, researchers at Tulane University School of Medicine confirmed this, finding HIV-1 in his preserved blood and tissues. [7] [8] [9]
In 1976, a Norwegian sailor, his wife, and his nine-year-old daughter died of AIDS. The sailor had first presented symptoms in 1966, four years after he had spent time in ports along the West African coastline. Tissue samples from the sailor and his wife were tested in 1988 and found to contain the HIV-1 virus (Group O). [10] [11] The next documented western death from AIDS was that of Dr. Grethe Rask in 1977. Rask, a Danish surgeon, had worked in the Congo in the early 1970s.
The official date for the beginning of the AIDS epidemic is marked as June 18, 1981, when the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report newsletter that unusual clusters of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia had been discovered in gay men in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. [12] Over the next eighteen months, more Pneumocystis carinii clusters were discovered among otherwise healthy men in cities throughout the country, along with other opportunistic diseases (such as Kaposi's sarcoma [13] and lymphadenopathy [14]), common in immunosuppressed patients.
In June 1982, a report of a group of cases amongst gay men in Southern California suggested that a sexually transmitted infectious agent might be the etiological agent (MMWR Weekly, 1982) and was initially termed 'GRID' (Gay Related Immune Deficiency). However, the same opportunistic infections also began to be reported among hemophiliacs [15], heterosexual IV drug users, and Haitian immigrants [16]. By August 1982, the disease was being referred to by its new name, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) (Marx et al., 1982). An anagram of AIDS, SIDA, was then created for use in French (Syndrome d'Immuno-Déficience Acquise) and Spanish (SÃndrome de Inmunodeficiencia Adquirida) (Direction Générale De La Santé, 1982).
In May 1983, doctors at the Institute Pasteur in France reported that they had isolated a new retrovirus from lymphoid ganglions that they believed was the cause of SIDA (Barre-Sinoussi et al., 1983). The virus was later named lymphadenopathy-associated virus (LAV) and a sample was sent to the CDC, which was later passed to the National Cancer Institute, USA (Connor and Kingman, 198. In May 1984, Dr Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute also isolated a virus that caused AIDS, and named it Human T-cell Lymphotropic Virus-III (HTLV-III) (Popovic et al., 1984). In January 1985 a number of more detailed reports were published concerning LAV and HTLV-III, and by March it was clear that the viruses were the same, from the same source, and was the etiological agent of AIDS (Marx, 1985; Chang et al., 1993). In May 1986, the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses ruled that both names should be dropped and a new name, HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), be used (Coffin et al., 1986).
At last, we are on common ground in agreeing that the AIDS/HIV virus had originated from the sub-species.
Was there any dispute that AIDS/HIV is NOT the exclusive property of the HOMOSEXUAL Community ?
In all the reference materials posted, there were no attempts to delete out the fact that HETEROSEXUAL PROMISCUITY and DRUG ABUSERS are also susceptible to contracting and spreading AIDS/HIV.
Unfortunately, all reference materials posted had indicated that the HOMOSEXUAL COMMUNITY is EXPOSED to the HIGHEST HEALTH RISK from the preferred dangerous lifestyle that will contract and spread AIDS/HIV. -
Originally posted by earthlings73:
Yes, HOMO SAPIENS and NEANDERTHAL are both descendants from HOMO ERECTUS.
Quote from post by Atobe:
If HOMOSAPIENS have developed light years ahead of the Neanderthal Age HOMOSEXUALS, who do you think are still living in the Dark Ages, and attempting to pull normal HOMOSAPIEN communities to accept the HOMOSEXUAL lifestyle and leading HOMOSAPIENS deeper into extinction ?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I don't quite understand this paragraph. Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens were both descendants of Homo Erectus. Do you mean that Neanderthal extinct because all of them are homosexuals? [/b]
Unfortunately, the APES and OTHER SUB-SPECIES are also from the Neanderthal Age, and have remained so in their evolutionary process.
If HOMOSEXUALS need to justify their preferred HOMOSEXUAL POSITIONS with the same acts as those sub-species that remain locked in the NEANDERTHAL AGE, will that not lead the HOMOSEXUALS to the same consequences of the NEANDERTHALS ?
Or perhaps you will find comfort to some NEANDERTHAL species that remain unchange in their evolutionary process and continue to exist to this day - despite all the various diseases that strikes their species - ( and other species as well ) - from time to time ? -
Originally posted by Atobe:
I apologise for using the word "zealot" then. How about conservative Christians (as opposed to progressive Christians)? From the same article:
Originally posted by earthlings73:
After four postings from ONE referenced article that reported on three ( ? ) cases of failure in corrective therapies, there still is nothing that indicate that one has to be a [b]RELIGIOUS ZEALOT - in order to be successfully corrected as a HOMOSEXUAL.
[/color]
[/b]
Hector Roybal, a 52-year-old financial consultant in Los Angeles,
spent four years in intensive treatment with Nicolosi, who considers
him to be cured. Roybal concurs, but said he still sometimes
struggles with sexual feelings for men, although he has remained
faithful to his wife, the only woman to whom he says he feels
physically attracted.
"I saw myself as someone who had a problem with homosexuality but was
meant to be straight," said Roybal, who, like Nicolosi, is a
conservative Catholic. "This is about making a choice."
And you failed to quote these paragraphs. Even Spitzer himself did not use his results to support a "cure" for gays.
While Nicolosi and others frequently cite the study as proof
reparative therapy works, Spitzer said his results have been
misrepresented. "It bothers me to be their knight in shining armor
because on every social issue I totally disagree with the Christian
right," he said.
"What they don't mention is that change is pretty rare," he added,
noting that the subjects of his study were not representative of the
general population because they were considerably more religious.
And Spitzer calls "totally absurd" the twin hypotheses that everyone
is born straight and that homosexuality is a choice.
And how about addressing this issue directly. How you found any "cure" that not religiously motivated? -
This was my from my initial post:Originally posted by Atobe:Originally posted by earthlings73:
So after so many pages in the closed thread, and on-going in this thread, the gap in our views is converging on some issues.
Unfortunately, all reference materials posted had indicated that the HOMOSEXUAL COMMUNITY is EXPOSED to the HIGHEST HEALTH RISK from the preferred dangerous lifestyle that will contract and spread AIDS/HIV.
AIDS in US started in gay community? Yes.
Is this gay the one and only person to bring AIDS to the world? No, there are multiple sources.
Is the very first case in HIV passed on by gay? No.
If you think that US is the world. I have nothing to say.
US started in 1980s. Prior to that, other countries have found something similar but did not know what's the syndrome all about. The syndrome has a scientific meaning only in the world after US discoveries. But that does not mean that HIV virus was spread from gays.
There are multiple sources, multiple conductors over the years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS
AIDS is thought to have originated in sub-Saharan Africa during the twentieth century
Two species of HIV infect humans: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is more virulent and more easily transmitted. HIV-1 is the source of the majority of HIV infections throughout the world, while HIV-2 is less easily transmitted and is largely confined to West Africa. [1]
Both species of the virus (HIV-1 and HIV-2) are believed to have originated in West-Central Africa and jumped species (zoonosis) from primates to humans. HIV-1 evolved from a Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIVcpz) found in the chimpanzee subspecies Pan troglodytes troglodytes. [2] DNA sequencing indicates that HIV-1 (group M) entered the human population in the early 20th century, probably sometime between 1915 and 1941. [3] [4] HIV-2 crossed species from a different strain of SIV, this one found in sooty mangabeys (an Old World monkey) of Guinea-Bissau. [5]
The earliest documented HIV-1 infection dates from 1959, and was discovered in the preserved blood sample of a man from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[6] In 1969, a 15-year-old African-American male died at the St. Louis City Hospital from aggressive Kaposi's sarcoma. AIDS was suspected as early as 1988, and in 1999, researchers at Tulane University School of Medicine confirmed this, finding HIV-1 in his preserved blood and tissues. [7] [8] [9]
In 1976, a Norwegian sailor, his wife, and his nine-year-old daughter died of AIDS. The sailor had first presented symptoms in 1966, four years after he had spent time in ports along the West African coastline. Tissue samples from the sailor and his wife were tested in 1988 and found to contain the HIV-1 virus (Group O). [10] [11] The next documented western death from AIDS was that of Dr. Grethe Rask in 1977. Rask, a Danish surgeon, had worked in the Congo in the early 1970s.
The official date for the beginning of the AIDS epidemic is marked as June 18, 1981, when the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report newsletter that unusual clusters of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia had been discovered in gay men in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. [12] Over the next eighteen months, more Pneumocystis carinii clusters were discovered among otherwise healthy men in cities throughout the country, along with other opportunistic diseases (such as Kaposi's sarcoma [13] and lymphadenopathy [14]), common in immunosuppressed patients.
In June 1982, a report of a group of cases amongst gay men in Southern California suggested that a sexually transmitted infectious agent might be the etiological agent (MMWR Weekly, 1982) and was initially termed 'GRID' (Gay Related Immune Deficiency). However, the same opportunistic infections also began to be reported among hemophiliacs [15], heterosexual IV drug users, and Haitian immigrants [16]. By August 1982, the disease was being referred to by its new name, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) (Marx et al., 1982). An anagram of AIDS, SIDA, was then created for use in French (Syndrome d'Immuno-Déficience Acquise) and Spanish (SÃndrome de Inmunodeficiencia Adquirida) (Direction Générale De La Santé, 1982).
In May 1983, doctors at the Institute Pasteur in France reported that they had isolated a new retrovirus from lymphoid ganglions that they believed was the cause of SIDA (Barre-Sinoussi et al., 1983). The virus was later named lymphadenopathy-associated virus (LAV) and a sample was sent to the CDC, which was later passed to the National Cancer Institute, USA (Connor and Kingman, 198. In May 1984, Dr Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute also isolated a virus that caused AIDS, and named it Human T-cell Lymphotropic Virus-III (HTLV-III) (Popovic et al., 1984). In January 1985 a number of more detailed reports were published concerning LAV and HTLV-III, and by March it was clear that the viruses were the same, from the same source, and was the etiological agent of AIDS (Marx, 1985; Chang et al., 1993). In May 1986, the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses ruled that both names should be dropped and a new name, HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), be used (Coffin et al., 1986).
I did not at any point disagree that gays are more promiscuious. But that's just a relativity. In Singapore, the breakdown is still 70% staights 8% bisexuals 22% gays. My point is not all gays are promiscuious and not all straights practice safe sex.
From MOH
http://www.moh.gov.sg/corp/publications/statistics/hiv.do
Mode of Transmission 1985-92
'93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 '04 Jun 2005
Sexual Orientation
- Heterosexual 75 47 62 83 103 135 163 154 194 191 184 183 206 81
- Homosexual 54 6 15 17 12 12 12 29 12 26 30 40 72 34
- Bisexual 18 9 9 10 20 15 19 14 16 16 12 14 22 2 -
Neanderthal went extinct because Homo Sapiens started to move into Neanderthal's territories.Originally posted by Atobe:Originally posted by earthlings73:
If HOMOSEXUALS need to justify their preferred HOMOSEXUAL POSITIONS with the same acts as those sub-species that remain locked in the NEANDERTHAL AGE, will that not lead the HOMOSEXUALS to the same consequences of the NEANDERTHALS ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/tv_radio/wwcavemen/
Let's us focus back on the main argument again. A claim of "homosexuals are unnatural" has no basis.
1) It can be found in nature.
2) It's not a new phenomenum. Homo Sapiens just do not evolve over-night to become a species with no homosexuality.
3) Anal sex? I had quoted an article earlier to say that anal sex is not practice by homosexuals alone. -
Can start to +1 already?Originally posted by CenturionMBT:Up yours you lah you bloody moron. NO PERSONAL ATTACKS HERE UNDERSTAND!!!!
I am starting to dislike this thread.
Contemplating closing thread in 24 hrs.
Pika wan to be mod ahh.... speak nicely to fireice hor...
FI.... your call 