Is homosexuality a choice?

[_lulu]

That's your answer? A single individual has second thoughts about a specific study?

In this thread you cited that study and condescended your audience with it.

A very nice slight of hand Droopy, and to think you pulled it off in the dark, while under a bed.

[_Droopy]

Before Droopy drops on us his amazing cache of research from focus on the family type website, here's the APA's task force document on the subject:

http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/th ... sponse.pdf

It's pretty good if you have time to read it.

It concludes that the studies on it suck [are methodologically poor] and claims that it is effective are not supported. It claims the evidence such as it is indicates that any enduring changes in orientation is at least very uncommon and may be associated with general reduction of sexual drive. It also points out serious ethical concerns with them due to inadequate attention to safety. Such attempts may increase distress and poor mental health in patients and there has been no rigorous effort to control for this.

And the APA is a scientific source, Delusion?

Psychiatry is a scientific pursuit? Freudian psychodynamics, personality theory, theories of human motivation, unconscious interpersonal psychological dynamics, and the heady broth of leftist social radicalism in which this has all been traditionally brewed is science?

[_lulu]

And the APA is a scientific source, Delusion?

Psychiatry is a scientific pursuit? Freudian psychodynamics, personality theory, theories of human motivation, unconscious interpersonal psychological dynamics, and the heady broth of leftist social radicalism in which this has all been traditionally brewed is science?

Droopy, you asserted that there is enough credible evidence to believe that conversion therapy is reasonably successful. The burden of proof is on you.

Your trotting out the APA does not shift that burden from you.

Your trotting out psychoanalytic theories does not shift that burden from you.

The piece of proof that you trotted out that might have been in your favor, Spitzer, has been withdrawn. Someone pointing out the withdrawal of your only support does not create support for your position, the slight of hand you tried with EAllusions.

I don't know you. I don't know if you think you are being cute. I don't know if you are a troll. I don't know if you are sincere. I do know this:

In the late 1970's, in the age of Max Ford McBride and Robert Card, I came within moments of undergoing electric shock conversion therapy at the hands of Dr. Card. Thank God I changed my mind. So, you see, for me it is not an abstract issue, ho, ho, ho, I can play with EAlussion on the internet.

The issue is very real and very serious. You can either put up your peer reviewed references or you can shut the up, to paraphrase Elder McConkie.

[_Droopy]

A very nice slight of hand Droopy, and to think you pulled it off in the dark, while under a bed.

Delusion's problem is that he really doesn't know why he's arguing with me on this issue, or what it all really means. In the recent past, he's even all but agreed with me on my core points, but at the same time, continues to argue nonetheless.

Here's the crux of the matter: the cultural Left, the Gay lobby, and the entire sexual revolution ideological structure requires, and has long been claiming, that homosexuals are born already hard wired to a homosexual orientation, that this is utterly genetic and biological in origin, and is reducible to biological heritability. It is an argument grounded in biological essentialist assumptions that completely discount psychological and social factors.

Delusion has explicitly admitted that the actual brain science involved is not grounds for making those kinds of claims. I have been arguing the same for many years. But he still continues to plow into me as if he didn't understand the bio/psycho/social argument I was making. Why? Because Delusion is a secular humanist idolatarian who's morals are grounded in pragmatist philosophy in which there is no ultimate ground of moral conceptualization (as with Utilitarianism) other than the the self referential assumptions of pragmatist philosophy itself and the acceptance of peers within the same intellectual tradition.

Like other religious secularists, Delusion wishes to indulge himself in the moral self congratulation of the cultural Left (andor its more extreme libertarian counterpart) by taking the immoralist (in Nietzsche's sense) position and playing the courageous "free thinker" maverick struggling against the oppressive forces of gospel moral principle. He can provide no ground for thinking that homosexuality really is, in essence, a morally legitimate manner of life, unless he retreats to the very biological essentialism he himself claims does not tell the whole story, or can show reason to believe that followers of Christ and his gospel really just may know something that he and the other residents of the Great and Spacious Building do not (and cannot).

Homosexuality is a deeply complex, variable, and personal syndrome, unique to each person who may find themselves a part of it, and who's generating elements cannot be disentangled from each other by an appeal to mere empirical science. Science cannot provide homosexual proponents with a discreet, definable "cause" they can point to to defuse the various religious and philosophical arguments against it that they otherwise cannot refute other than to cover their ears and shout "I can't heaaaaaaaar you!"

What the Gay lobby and its fellow travelers need is a unambiguous "cause" of homosexuality (which is why so much ink has been expended in its defense and promulgation). What science has not provided is precisely that. Delusion seems to agree with me on all this, but still he continues to argue. Why? Because the entire gospel/Judeo-Christian paradigm of the proper bounds and conditions of human sexuality drive him absolutely batty. This is why he's attracted to Pragmatism: its a moral philosophy within which morality remains ultimately, a relative perception grounded in subjective, psychologically and culturally conditioned perceptions of effects and outcomes It has no ultimate and absolute foundation, and any philosophy that remains aloof from the absolute ground of morality the gospel provides will do, in the last analysis, for the committed secular humanist.

The point, as always, is to center morality in human perception and valuation, and not in an ultimate cosmic authority beyond the vagaries of age and culture. Doing so, homosexuality, and from this, all sexual behavior, fetish, and deviant indulgence of whatever kind, can, given sufficient cultural preparation and development, be accepted as normative, given sufficient time and agitprop.

[_EAllusion]

And the APA is a scientific source, Delusion?

Yes. The APA is the American Psychological Association in this case. It has its full name in the link you didn't click if you weren't aware of that.

Freudian psychodynamics

Which had next to no historical influence on psychology and hasn't been taken seriously in psychiatry in generations?

personality theory

Yeah, that's a thing. I like that a person pontificating on a psychological subject is scoffing at an entire subfield of psychology that is required as part of a standard undergrad degree. Here's a hint: the standard definition of a personality is enduring patterns of behavior and cognition. Think that might be related to sexual orientation?

So, you're saying that there is overwhelming support in favor of reparative therapy, which necessarily would be psychological evidence, but then dismiss the conclusions of the preeminent organization on psychological research in the world? All of a sudden you're skeptical of the name synonymous with research on psychology, including therapeutic interventions? You dismiss the APA as an untrustworthy, biased, unscientific source, but encourage people to trust NARTH? Awesome. I guess that's par for the course for someone who dismisses Science and Nature as leftist propaganda while pimping right wing think tank press releases as scientific gospel.

Still, that doesn't tell us what evidence you have of your claim. Though you've now added the heavy burden of you dismissing the main professional organizations in the field of psychiatry and possibly psychology by associating them with failed theories in the history of those fields. So now you need evidence for a psychological claim that is not psychological in nature. We're waiting.

[_gdemetz]

Of course, the bride matters, and I am really concerned about their situation. I believe that they have discussed this quite a bit with the bishop, but I just don't know exactly what was discussed.

[_Droopy]

Droopy, you asserted that there is enough credible evidence to believe that conversion therapy is reasonably successful. The burden of proof is on you.

You can do this self education on your own. The other APA (American Psychological Association) long ago reversed its politically correct position and admitted the possibility of change for motivated clients. There has long been a growing literature on the subject.

Your trotting out the APA does not shift that burden from you.

The fact of the matter is this: all homosexuals are not comfortable with their desires and ideation and perceive their SSA as a burden and body of feelings for which they seek release.

This may only be a very small percentage of the overall homosexual population, but the overall homosexual population (those who identify as exclusively homosexual) is so vanishingly small (perhaps 3% of the population) that this raises questions as to the actual essence of the syndrome itself, given its extreme rarity and the well known factors (especially early family dynamics) that are common to the development of homosexuality.

Further, even if only a fraction of this population seeks reorientation, it is not clear how the helping professions could morally refuse the development of such therapy.

Your trotting out psychoanalytic theories does not shift that burden from you.

I'm trotting out nothing but the point that psychiatry is not science (except in its pharmacological aspect) but a philosophy of the human mind, and its claims can only be evaluated in that light.

The piece of proof that you trotted out that might have been in your favor, Spitzer, has been withdrawn. Someone pointing out the withdrawal of your only support does not create support for your position, the slight of hand you tried with EAllusions.

There is far more to the picture than Spitzer. There is much evidence independent of his work (and, for all we know, Spitzer's work may contain a good bit many legitimate points. Spitzer, like another long time opponent of the homosexual movement, Warren Throckmorton, may have simply sold out and caved to the rigors of swimming upstream against the heavy current of political correctness. If so, he will not be the last to do so).

The issue is very real and very serious. You can either put up your peer reviewed references or you can shut the up, to paraphrase Elder McConkie.

Wrong. The null hypothosis is that homosexuality is a complex bio/psycho/social phenomenon. It is up to you to show that biology is the overwhelming varible.

But my central position is that looking to genetics and the brain sciences for causal connections to the actual homosexual syndrome and orientation itself - and, by extension, to the "gay"culture - that is its derivative, is an exercise in positivist futility. The answer does not lie there, save in the sense of predisposing variables that themselves are inert without a number of other deeply complex and idiosyncratic catalytic factors and then only in a subset of cases.

[Guest]

The effectiveness of reparative therapy for motivated individuals is well established.

You can do this self education on your own . . .There has long been a growing literature on the subject.

I have done this "self education on" my own. The shock of almost being shocked will do that to you.

There is no peer reviewed evidence for your claim. There is no long growing peer reviewed literature that supports your claim.

For me, it's neither an intellectual tap dance, a game to see who gets the last cutsy come back or a joke.

Disagree, Droopy? Post your peer reviewed references or shut the up.

[_Eric]

Psychiatry is a scientific pursuit? Freudian psychodynamics, personality theory, theories of human motivation, unconscious interpersonal psychological dynamics, and the heady broth of leftist social radicalism in which this has all been traditionally brewed is science?

"No job too dirty for a damned scientist."

William S. Burroughs

[_EAllusion]

You can do this self education on your own. The other APA (American Psychological Association) long ago reversed its politically correct position and admitted the possibility of change for motivated clients. There has long been a growing literature on the subject.

You just dismissed the APA a second ago when I pointed out its 2009 task force report argued that studies on interventions to change sexual orientation are poor and not sufficient to conclude their effectiveness. But when you think the APA agrees with a point you want to make - a rather trivial admission of possibility - all of a sudden you're fine mentioning them?

You are asking people to "self educate" because you made a false assertion that you can't support.

the well known factors (especially early family dynamics) that are common to the development of homosexuality.

Homosexuality as a predominant consequence of early family dynamics is a now discredited idea that developed out of psychoanalytic psychiatry. The very same field you correctly dismissed in the previous post.

Further, even if only a fraction of this population seeks reorientation, it is not clear how the helping professions could morally refuse the development of such therapy.

You don't offer therapies unless you have reason to believe the benefit outweighs the risk. Since the studies don't warrant belief in any intervention as being efficacious and there are legitimate concerns about harms caused by them that is a legitimate basis to avoid them. This is especially pressing when coupled with the fact that a person's desire to change sexual reorientation can be triggered by external social stigma applied to them.

There is far more to the picture than Spitzer. There is much evidence independent of his work (and, for all we know, Spitzer's work may contain a good bit many legitimate points.

We do know that it is bad research, as Spitzer has recently admitted, because we can read it ourselves and see its serious flaws. Or did you miss that in your "self-education?"