Living the PRIDE. It’s not only about protests and political action, but also about enjoying the freedom to live as created. There continue to be many who oppose that 
freedom and would return America to the days prior to 1950 when the closets were filled with gay men and women who feared physical harm, incarceration and personal shame. We’ve come a long way, baby, and those closet doors have been permanently thrown open never to be shut on us again neither by government nor religion.
But, some will try. Conversion therapy is alive and well among fundamentalist Christian groups determined to “change” gays, especially minor children, to a heterosexual orientation. Years ago this conversion used barbaric methods including shock therapy, aversion therapy and in extreme cases, lobotomy. Being gay was not an acceptable family nor church circumstance.
Today’s methods, not as drastic, resort primarily to counseling and role playing in attempts to make a gay person straight. Conversion therapy is, however, unanimously discredited by mainstream psychological and psychiatric associations citing the potential for severe emotional damage to developing young minds. Many of those who condone this ‘therapy’ apply the delusional thought that the lifestyle is chosen and not innate.
Whenever this hypothesis is presented to me, my response is always, “OK, so you are a straight man/woman. If heterosexuals were a 10% minority and you were directed to become one of the gay majority, either by will power or conversion therapy, could you do it? Could you refute what has always been normal behavior for you?”
Usually the response is hands thrown in the air, a shrug, a scornful face and a few expletives as that person abandons his/her attempt to ‘change’ me. I WAS BORN THIS WAY. But even if my way of living were a choice, you, dear evangelizer, have no right to inflict your views upon me. That’s the wonderful thing about freedom – we have the right to choose. Choice is life’s golden ticket.
I have referred numerous times to the SPLC, a non-profit dedicated to exposing and ![c6fe7102aaf9242136b451907b02957d[1]](https://larrypaulbrown.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/c6fe7102aaf9242136b451907b02957d1.jpg?w=150&h=145)
prosecuting discrimination against minority groups. Recently, it won a New Jersey case against JIFGA, Jewish Institute for Global Awareness, citing the bogus practice of facilitating gay to straight conversions. Not only was JIFGA ordered to dissolve, it also will be paying the plaintiffs’ attorney fees and a financial settlement. Follow the link above, JIFGA, for the full story.
lpb quest - the twilight dance 
I can’t think of anyone who would choose a life of rejection, humiliation, scorn, hatred, possible physical assault, and maybe even murder. Gays could face any or all of those. If anybody needs conversion therapy, it’s all the idiots of the world.
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I agree. Thanks for the comment.
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Of course it’s a choice. Who wouldn’t want to live a life being the recipient of hatred, humiliation, bullying, psychological and physical attacks, and in some cases death. What fun to be told you’re a deviant and pervert. That you don’t deserve the same equal rights as “normal” God-fearing folk. Good times!
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Thanks for the visit and comment.
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Please forgive my sarcasm.
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Your sarcasm is well received🙏
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We are who we are. To me, it is the epitome of arrogance to try to change who a person it. Often it’s children … an example is the 5-year-old grandson of a friend whose father forces him to play t-ball every weekend, though the child hates it and cried, prays for rain every weekend, but the father claims it will “make a man out of him”. I call B.S. Schools … when I was a youngster in school, I was left-handed … born that way … it was who I was … but I was beaten with a ruler by nuns so many times that I was finally forced to change, and now I cannot write legibly with either hand. Society, religion, employers … why can they not just accept people for what they are, for who they are … live and let live. We would be a much happier society. Conversion therapy is the height of cruelty. I am pleased that some states, including California, New York and D.C., have banned conversion therapy … now to get the rest on the bandwagon.
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Thanks Jill. I have a few friends who challenge my way of doing things. I remind them that perhaps their way is more efficient and effective, but my way is important to me simply because it is the way I have chosen.
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I have friends like that, only in the area of religion. As you likely know, I am not religious, am somewhere between an agnostic and an atheist, and I have friends who simply cannot get through their heads that it is my choice, it is who I am, but they think their mission is to “save me” from myself. Nobody can tell us how we ought to be … it doesn’t matter how we “ought” to be … we are who we are. Live and let live, for Pete’s sake! Sigh.
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I hope the day comes when Gay people aren’t discriminated against anywhere in the world…. Sadly, there are countries where it’s still considered against the law, and punishable by death. We have such a long way to go!
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We certainly do. Thanks, Ann.
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