File this under “stupid and ill-informed” comment of the day by Slate’s William Saletan:
Spitzer didn’t agree with this interpretation of the study. Now, in failing health, he has apologized for how he presented it. He wants to retract what he wrote. And now it’s the pro-gay groups who are seizing on his words. “Dr. Spitzer’s apology to the victims of ‘pray away the gay’ therapy … marks a watershed moment in the fight against the ‘ex-gay’ myth,” says Truth Wins Out, an organization dedicated to fighting “anti-gay religious extremism.” “It will help to greatly hasten the day when the scourge that is reparative therapy is eradicated forever.”
Hey, I’m as gay-friendly as the next guy. But let’s back off the eradication talk. That kind of zeal was unwarranted and dangerous back when the alleged scourge was homosexuality. It’s still unwarranted and dangerous.
Oh, yes, one of those types. You know, the kind that tries to make himself appear reasonable by drawing a moral equivalence between groups peddling guilt and shame and those, like Truth Wins Out, who see no reason shame therapy should exist. Are these positions really flip sides of the same coin? I, nor any reasonable person, wouldn’t think so.
And check out this brilliant observation:
Homosexuality is fundamentally personal, not political.
Yeah, I guess people didn’t just vote on stripping away marriage equality in North Carolina. Or they won’t be voting on this issue in Minnesota. Or judges weren’t booted from office in Iowa after they supported marriage equality. No, not political at all. What planet is William Saletan living on and how can someone so divorced from reality get to write a column at Slate?
Obviously, the writer does not know the slightest thing about this topic. Reparative therapy does not treat people as individuals. It presumes, without proof, that the only way one can be gay is through molestation or parental neglect. The premise is that homosexuality is unnatural and that it can and should be changed — mostly based on ancient religious biases.
The eradication of such noxious, unhealthy, and bigoted practices posing as legitimate science is dangerous? Really?
No William, you are not as gay friendly as the next guy. You really need to do your homework and reexamine your own obvious biases.
Spitzer didn’t agree with this interpretation of the study.
This is half-assed gossip columnist crap posing as journalism. He said/she said. He said/she said. He said/she said. The truth must lie somewhere in between and we’d find it if only extremists who believe observable verifiable facts would let us. If I’m ever stopped for speeding I’ll tell the cop I disagree with his interpretation of what miles per hour means.
Regarding Saletan’s comment, it’s like saying “eradicating slavery, child labor, segregation, etc. was wrong”.
How bizarre. Ex-gay therapy is dangerous and should be banned. Period.
Wow. Saletan specifically cites, in which TWO broke the news about Spitzer’s historic apology to the LGBT community and I called for the “eradication” of so-called “ex-gay therapy,” characterizing it as “unwarranted and dangerous.” Really, sir?!? It’s funny, because the Pan American Health Organization called for essentially the same thing just last week…
And I should add, dangerous to whom, exactly? The charlatans who make their living through the shameless victimization of LGBT people?!? It would be laughable, except that real people are being hurt and real lives are being ruined. I am appalled.
Saletan, as ever, is a hack.
It isn’t just one organization that says so called reparative therapy (also known as reorientation therapy) is wrong. Every major professional organization has made a policy statement that reparative therapy is ineffective, wrong, and unneeded. Who supports it, a fringe organization that e Sourthern Poverty Law Center calls a hate group.
For a list detailing what the professional organizations state see: http://bit.ly/Jck4ZV
For a look at an ethical complaint I am making at the current president of NARTH, the pseudo-science hate group that defends reparative therapy see: http://bit.ly/Kutkqw
For a look at what a responsible psychologist does see: http://bit.ly/Kp5kDB
To hear what Julie Hamilton, the president of NARTH thinks, see: http://bit.ly/JQ6daZ
Julie has responded, with nonsense, on the NARTH website. Look for ‘Misinformation Rampant in the Mental Health Field.’ I am the ‘concerned psychologist’ she speaks of.
“Homosexuality is fundamentally personal, not political.”
As long as we are denied full equality as citizens of this country, as long as we are denied our humanity by politicians and people posing as faith leaders, as long as we are under threat by those who would like to turn back the clock and recriminalize our very existence and who would like to see us exterminated in theocratically-run concentration camps, then our sexuality is fundamentally political, not personal. And if the Slate writer cannot “get” that from a simple perusal of the news, then he is a low-functioning ignoramus who should probably keep his f-ing yap shut.
Can I just say that we should start calling it “shame therapy” across the board? It’s a more honest term, and maybe it’ll help people like this Slate writer understand what they’re talking about.
Matt, the same thought occurred to me when I read that. I’m going to start referring to it as shame therapy as well.
People like this are just as dangerous to us as the outright haters/bigots. Difference is he puts a delicious layer of frosting over the poisoned cake which makes is much more palatable to the fools who eat it.
If Saletan’s article was a comment on a blog he would be labeled a “concern troll” and rightly so.
A new book just came out (I was just looking through it) called, Dirty Minds-How Our Brains Influence Love, Sex and Relationships. It comes as no surprise to most of us here that the continuing evidence from neuroscience is that there are distinct and consistent differences in various regions of the brains between homosexuals and heterosexuals of the same gender. More nails in the coffins of ‘choice’ and ‘pray away the gay’.
Why is it straight people always think they know what’s best for us?
Cause “the Buybull tells them so!”
why do so-called “christians” insist on believing what the BUYBULL tells them? why don’t they just read the real Bible, which actually prohibits cultic practices, anal sex (in the old testament law which was abolished anyways), and trying to play God?
[...] William Saletan (pictured) is up to his same old tricks. He is a transparent phony who sometimes presents himself as a liberal, but is really a conservative apologist. In his latest post, he defends Mark Regnerus’ junk [...]