conversion therapy – lpb

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 pride6 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 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.

I am an avid reader. In my mind I see myself reading the great classics, the newest block-buster sci-fi, the works of great thinkers, etc. I stop by my local library and check out 4 or 5 selections anticipating spending an evening wrapped up in one author’s adventure or another’s philosophy. At home in my favorite recliner, I open the book, read the intro and within 15 minutes I am snoozing.

Yeah, in my mind I’m an avid reader. I suppose that I am doing a service for my local library by increasing their weekly circulation statistics, but, do I read much? No. However, I did find a book that aroused my interest more than most books do. Settling down to once again “practice” reading, I scanned the table of contents. “Oh, there’s a chapter that looks interesting, I’ll just peruse it before starting.”

The first paragraph of that one chapter, chapter 14, saved me several hours of reading chapters 1-13. It told me that, although an inherent alternative sexual orientation was not in itself a sin, practicing it was. “Ah,” said I to myself, “perhaps I am reading it incorrectly.”

No, I did not misinterpret the words. With closed book in hand, I then contemplated what was being proposed. A man is not to be judged for his inherent disposition as long as he abandons himself to lifetime denial, gives up truthful relationships, lies to potential partners, and lives in a world which certain religious philosophers have deemed as moral.

Hmmmm, sure sounds like ‘love the sinner, but hate the sin.’ I vividly remember those words from the times of morality preaching leveled on me. Shake my hand, hug me, welcome me, preach at me and then judge me behind my back with others in your church. Sorry, that hypocrisy doesn’t float my life anymore. Anybody wants to be a part of my life, well, I come as a package deal.

Some may ask why I’m so jazzed up over this. A judge in a nearby city overruled the city’s ban on conversion therapy. If you don’t know what conversion therapy is, you need to jump on Google and educate yourselves. The judge sided with Christian leaders who stated the ban on conversion therapy, which in some cases employs electro shock therapy on minors who professed to be gay, was an attack on their religious rights to raise their children within the moral laws of the church.

Aw, I’m over all that crap that forged my life for too many years. My buddy Gabby would say, “If y’all ain’t got nobody else to saddle up with judgement and damnation, then go for it. I’ve got broad shoulders and I ain’t afraid of your burning hell fires. EEEEEEHAW.”

But I pray for the kids. You should too. And if you agree with the judge that Tampa’s city-wide ban on conversion therapy is illegal because it infringes on your freedom of religious expression and it’s OK to use humiliation of kids as a form of treatment, and if you believe that shock therapy is a legitimate deterrent for your children, then send up a prayer for yourselves too. You’re the ones who need to worry about hell fires, not me.

Tag: conversion therapy

PRIDE – conversion therapy

hell & damnation

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