While I was on vacation, something slightly obscure but profoundly negative happened. On August 17th a conference was held in Baltimore
This same pattern led to the DSM revision in 1973. Pro-homosexual activists lobbied, demanded changes, threatened with labels of bigotry and homophobia. It was political pressure, not science that led to the policy change.
The APA’s endorsement of gay marriage and gay adoption, both of which are social-political issues rather than mental health issues, shows it is more a political than scientific organization.
Up to 1973, homosexuals who wanted to change their behavior and orientation were treated, and many (thousands) received help and changed their lives. Studies were underway searching for improved treatments. But in 1973, the APA discouraged any further treatment, studies, or debate.
There was no sudden scientific breakthrough, no discovery of a sexual-orientation gene, no factual evidence that led to this policy change. In the nearly four decades since, the empty sound of chirping crickets proves that no such evidence was imminent. Nevertheless, those who seek the now-unsanctioned treatment to overcome homosexuality succeed at a rate of 30% to 60%, based on five-year follow-up studies.[i] This rate is comparable (possibly better) than other mental disorders, such as drug addiction or compulsive behaviors.
The APA opposes all therapeutic efforts to change sexual orientation, regardless of success rates or scientific studies. The APA also advocates indoctrinating children in public schools with acceptance of homosexuality as normal and equal to heterosexuality—using their status to give the impression this belief is science based. An attempt by ex-gays to have a voice at the NEA was met with the declaration, “Ex-gay messages have no place in our nation’s public schools.” They were compared to the Ku Klux Klan, in an effort to shut them up.[ii]
If science existed to support the “homosexuality equals heterosexuality” stance, wouldn’t it be safe to debate the issue?
Since one of the mantras of the pro-homosexual lobby is that sexual orientation is inborn, and since the APA identifies some two dozen different sexual orientations (including pedophilia), then it is indeed plausible that the lobby could succeed in its effort to rewrite science and culture through political pressure.
Linda Ames Nicolosi, publications director of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), gives this warning:
“Normalizing” pedophilia would have enormous implications, especially since civil laws closely follow the scientific community on social-moral matters. If pedophilia is deemed normal by psychiatrists, then how can it remain illegal? It will be a tough fight to prove in the courts that it should still be against the law.
Defenders of traditional marriage (myself included) have warned that if you redefine marriage so that it doesn’t relate to the covenant between a man and a woman to stay together for life, to raise their children, with fidelity to one another—if you decide it only means that we give perks to whoever claims to have a current sexual partner—then there will be pressure to make “marriage” mean whatever anyone wants: multiple partners, intergenerational sex, incest, bestiality, and any of the many other “sexual orientations.”
Not possible? Then note how many “normalizing” programs appear on television relating to polygamy (Big Love on HBO, Sister Wives on TLC, a recent episode of Bones). Note how many “normalizing” plays receive awards for being open-minded enough to accept bestiality (My Pet Goat or Who Is Sylvia? and Equus come to mind). In
As for normalizing “intergeneration sex,” 75% of homosexual males admit to having sex with boys age 16-19 or younger.iv In other words, unless you assume all these admissions are for 18-19-year-olds, it is a given that the vast majority of homosexuals already approve of and engage in pedophilia. Since they are already forming gay clubs on high school campuses, it would be naïve at best to assume they mean only to open up the minds of bigoted homophobes to improve lives for natural-born gays: they are recruiting their preferred sexual partners.
What can we do? I don’t have that answer. Except that, while we still can, we should speak up and declare that some behaviors are wrong. No matter what we’re called when we say so.
[i] Evidence concerning change from homosexual lifestyle is abundant. See, e.g., Joseph Nicolosi, A. Dean Byrd, Richard W. Potts, “Retrospective Self-Reports of Changes in Homosexual Orientation: A Consumer Survey of Conversion Therapy Clients,” 86 Psychological Reports 1071, 1083 (June 2000). Study concludes that “20%-30% of the participants [in voluntary conversion therapy] said they shifted from a homosexual orientation to an exclusively or almost exclusively heterosexual orientation,” belying any assertion that homosexual orientation is “immutable.”
See also J. Satinover, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996). [Between 1966 and 1974, more than 1,000 articles appeared in the Medline databases alone on the treatment of homosexuality, showing evidence that homosexual behavior is treatable and changeable.]
See also Warren Throckmorton, “Initial Empirical and Clinical Findings Concerning the Change Process for Ex-gays;” Psychotherapy: Research and Practice 39, 1(2002): 66-75. [The American Psychological Association Journal (2002) reported on scientific evidence that efforts to change thoughts, behaviors, and feeling-based sexual orientation can be successful.]
[ii] Mohler, R. Albert, Jr., “Psychologists Join the Gay Marriage Bandwagon,” http://baptist2baptist.net/Issues/Marriage/MohlerAug32004.asp .
[iii] “Paris
iv K. Jay et al, The Gay Report: Lesbians and Gays Speak Out About Sexual Experiences and Lifestyles 275 (1979).
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