It’s sad that Peter LaBarbera has been reduced to picking fights/starting one-man witchhunts against college professors. It’s all he has left, apparently. I never thought I would say this, but I feel sorry for Warren Throckmorton, that he’s having to learn the true character of his erstwhile friend Peter firsthand. But anyway, the witchhunt continues with a letter written by some AFTAH reader (Matt “Bam Bam Right Hook Hunka Hunka Macho Smash Totally Not Gay” Barber, maybe?), reminding us that even if you’re not gay, if you act like a fag, you’re still going to hell:

Let us remember that the Bible not only condemns homosexual sex, but also plainly says that “the effeminate” will not inherit the kingdom of God (I Cor 6:9 KJV). Sin extends beyond explicit, overt activity/behavior; the attitude and demeanor of homosexuality must be cast off as well as the practice itself.

Do you hear that, Every Ex-Gay Ministry Leader? Still going to hell. Sorry.

You should always pay attention when a fundamentalist says that the Bible “plainly says” something, because they’re about to come at you with something intellectually equivalent to “If ‘Anglish was good enough fer Jesus, it’s good enough fer me!”

Okay, do you want to know what that verse is actually about? Well, it goes like this: to translate the word malakoi as “effeminate” is incorrect, at least insofar as “effeminate” is understood in modern society. The literal meaning is “soft” and it’s used elsewhere in the Bible and in other writings of the time to describe clothing, or wearers of certain kinds of soft, lush clothing. I could spend a lot of time explaining, but this and this are helpful places to start. In short, if you study the passage closely [a concept completely foreign to illiterate homophobes] in light of the culture in which it was written, the best translation is more of a concept of a soft, lazy, wealthy and well-fed ne’er-do-well sort. The word also was used sometimes in relation to the practice of pederasty, but again, one has to understand what pederasty was and was not. Lying bigots will tell you pederasty was just like our modern day concept of homosexuality, because they know that the people who listen to them are not well-read. Pederasty was a strange cultural phenomenon practiced by heterosexuals wherein a younger man, as a rite of passage, was sort of mentored by an older man. Sometimes it involved sex, but sometimes it didn’t. Here’s how Plato described it:

“When an older lover and a young man come together and each obeys the principle appropriate to him — when the lover realizes that he is justified in doing anything for a loved one who grants him favors, and when the young man understands that he is justified in performing a service for a lover who can make him wise and virtuous — and when the lover is able to help the young man become wise and better, and the young man is eager to be taught and improved by his lover — then, and only then, when these two principles coincide absolutely, is it ever honorable for a young man to accept the lover.”

But again, I emphasize that the word Paul used only sometimes referred to this practice, which does not remotely resemble a married gay or lesbian couple who are committed to each other in sickness and health, etc. But unfortunately, you fast forward 2,000 years and rednecks who can’t tell the difference between “your” and “you’re” feel comfortable explaining that the Bubble sez if you ack like a fag yer goin’ to hey-ull. It’s mindnumbing, I know.

Anyway, thus concludes your second Bible lesson from an atheist!

Fearing a renewed uproar over tonight’s ABC News investigation of Exodus International’s role in Uganda’s kill-the-gays legislation, Exodus President Alan Chambers has informally told conservative Christian pundit Warren Throckmorton:

I am disappointed that Exodus won’t be heard in this piece. Sadly, Don Schmierer declined the interview and our request to go on record with ABC was denied. I would have loved nothing better than to share our disdain for this bill and apologize for going anywhere near such a horrible conference.

It is neither sad nor surprising that Schmierer and the rest of the Exodus board declined to talk: Schmierer had already discredited himself, on Exodus’ own blog.

In December 2009, in an Exodus blog guest article, Schmierer admitted that, since 2002, he had been working closely with antigay evangelicals in Uganda to mobilize antigay political activity.

And yet, Schmierer claims that, over the course of seven years, he was somehow oblivious to evangelical colleagues’ internationally publicized lynch mobs which were killing gay Ugandans and destroying the reputations of rival pastors with false character attacks.

Such a ridiculous claim of ignorance would be torn to shreds by ABC and exposed as a lie — which it is. Hence, Schmierer’s refusal to talk, and Chambers’ failure to follow through with his offer to express disdain or apologize, regardless of whether ABC is listening. (Read More)

In ANY sense of the word. Peter has posted a letter from some character he’s calling “Priscilla Smith,” who may or may not be one of Peter’s drag alter egos (allegedly!), rebuking a Grove City College student, David Bier, for his “unbiblical” perspective on gay people (i.e., he doesn’t hate us with the methane emissions of a million wingnuts).* It’s all a part of Peter’s continuing torch-wielding-mob-of-two crusade against Warren Throckmorton, for daring to use his brain for thinking rather than as a paperweight, as the Christian Right recommends. Here are fourteen of “Priscilla”‘s words for Mr. Bier:

Please advise Mr. Bier that Jesus Christ does not “accept others as they are.”

Thank you for posting this, Pete. It’s good to know that you’re now essentially admitting that you cannot claim the mantle of “Christian,” in any way, shape or form. (Of course, neither can Priscilla, if she exists.)

Because, you see, though I deconverted from Christianity several years back, I happen to know quite a bit about the religion, and about the text of the Bible. So, let’s see…

⁷Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son^[b] into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for^[c] our sins.¹¹Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

¹³We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. ¹⁶And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. ¹⁷In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.¹⁸There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

¹⁹We love because he first loved us. ²⁰If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. ²¹And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

That would be 1 John 4:7-21. (Emphasis mine, not God’s…)

²⁸“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Hmmm, nothing about “UNLESS UR A GAY” in Matthew 11:28-30.

³⁵Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. ³⁷All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.

Hmmm, nothing about “UNLESS I HAVE PICTURES OF YOU IN LEATHER ON MY SECRET EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE” there, in John 6:35-37.

⁶You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Huh! So in Romans 5:6-8, it sounds like Christ died for people without precondition, without them making themselves “acceptable” in any way! Crazy! So what the hell are Priscilla and Peter talking about?

Obviously not any accepted form of Christianity.

Shall I go on?

Oh, all right, I’ll quote one more, since it’s POSSIBLY THE MOST FAMOUS BIBLE PASSAGE OF ALL TIME!!!!!

*Ahem!*

¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,^[f] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.^[g]

Again, huh! No, “unless u likey the same sexy in a sexytime way.” No preconditions of any sort, except belief. Huh! By the way, Pete, in case you’re not familiar, that would be John 3:16-18.

You’d think for someone who prattles on ad nauseam about what a great and holy Christian he is, Peter LaBarbera would know the first thing about the Bible. I guess he only knows six verses, the ones he uses because he thinks they give his malevolent bigotry a prettier face.

The jig is up, dude.

Thus concludes your Bible Lesson From An Atheist.

Q.E.D.

*Grove City College senior David Bier wrote a letter to AFTAH, which is pretty great, so click here to read that.

Peter LaBarbera and Linda Harvey are on their neverending Warren Throckmorton witchhunt again. It must be one of the most painful things in the world to be the Last Bigots Standing, but Pete and Linda bring it upon themselves, so no pity! Hold your nose, we’re going to have Linda time now:

A broad coalition of pro-family groups recommends that parents keep their children home on the deceptive, pro-homosexual “Day of Silence,” to be observed this year on April 16, 2010, but one “gay”-affirming counselor started what he calls the “Golden Rule Pledge” instead.

Yet, the “Golden Rule Pledge” actually functions as a disinformation tool and a divisive wedge in schools and among Christians. It is insidiously misleading and would bring harm to kids. It grieves me to take this position, but there’ no choice, because lives are at stake.

That’s right, Linda. Lives ARE at stake! Gay kids attempt and commit suicide at a much higher rate than the rest of the population because of the pig ignorant bile you leave everywhere.

[Warren Throckmorton] has expressed his preference for students remaining in school on the “Day of Silence” and hearing pro-homosexual propaganda, and learning to sympathize with those practicing these behaviors, rather than taking an unequivocal, biblical stand against these harmful practices by remaining home.

Refer to post title.

Throckmorton doesn’t even like the Exodus-sponsored “Day of Truth,” which encourages kids to remain in school and have a frank conversation, in love, with friends while presenting the biblical view of homosexuality. Throckmorton calls this “offensive.”

Well, why would he like the “Day of Truth,” since the people who sponsor it value actual, verifiable truth like pedophiles value children?

Throckmorton’ support of the “Day of Silence” will do incalculable harm to many young people. Misleading professionals like Throckmorton in positions of influence can make our sons and daughters become comfortable with entering into, staying in, or approving of homosexuality, bisexuality and gender change.

Wrong! Again, we deal with actual truth, not “I hide my bigotry behind Bible verses I don’t understand” truth. Helping make our sons and daughters comfortable with their biology, their sexual orientation, and helping them along the path of healthy development is a GOOD thing. And guess what? I can point to tons of high school kids who are living this reality right now. Meanwhile, Linda continues to have nothing more than some bur in her nether regions that she inexplicably blames on gay people.

If I were a parent who discovered my minor child had been counseled in this way, I’d bring the largest and most aggressive medical malpractice suit I could launch against this counselor at Grove City.

Well, to be fair, no one accused you of being a good mother, Linda.

Jesus would never make a person feel more comfortable about:

• Young males having sex with males, the incidence of which rose over 12 % per year between 2001 and 2006 among males ages 13 to 24 1;
• Young “lesbians” choosing a fatherless life for any future children, since they can never conceive children with female partners;
• Hoping in such relationships for a false “marriage” in violation of Matthew 19:4-6 and Mark 10:6-9, where Christ told us that “from the beginning” people were created male and female, and that one man and one woman form a marriage;
• Teens and even younger children believing they should change genders. As with homosexuality, we should be doing everything possible to counsel these kids and prevent these behaviors among youth.

I could swear up and down that because Curious George doesn’t refer to the Man in the Yellow Hat owning any other color hats, that’s because other colors are evil, and I could swear up and down that Curious George was written by a supreme deity, but I’d still be a malevolent bigot, hiding behind a book.

And yes, it’s the same. For that matter, you don’t know what Jesus would say, because he ain’t here, and he didn’t see fit to discuss these subjects. Although there’s a strong case to be made that he was confronted with men he knew to be in a sexual relationship with each other, and didn’t have a word to say about it. AND, there were gender variant people all over the Bible, and Jesus didn’t seem to have an issue with that either. AND, since medical science is indeed figuring out that people are born with brains that are gendered in a way that doesn’t match their physical gender, AND since medical science should theoretically be considered by Christians to be the study of God’s wondrous creation, Christians should be the first to get on board with its findings.

Game, set, match, crazy cat lady.*

As the piece continues, Linda takes issue with the Golden Rule itself:

Hmmm. “…The way I want to be treated.” So, if a student is about to enter, or has entered, a high-risk practice that is called an abomination by our Lord, and has shared this with classmates, a “true” Christian should attend school to support a day that affirms this behavior and scorns any warnings to that student? Some friendship!

Here’ a biblically-based alternative: “Friends don’t let friends do homosexuality!”

Uh, actually, Linda, since you have no proof for anything you say (not the high-risk part, not the abomination part), actually you’re just a malevolent woman who feels she has a right to impose her backwards worldview on innocent children. Perhaps the admonition should be “Friends don’t leave their children with lying Fundamentalists.”

I wouldn’t leave my kids with a deranged imam, and I certainly wouldn’t leave them with Linda Harvey.

No, the “Day of Silence” is about propaganda. The goal is to shame and label Christians and tradition-minded students and teachers, silence their authentic witness, and even silence any public health warnings. Real safety would be to scream from the rooftops about the harm homosexuality or gender change will bring to these young lives. And since no one is born homosexual, these desires are demonstrably changeable, so no one is left without a positive alternative.

My god, these people never show their work. Show me how monogamous sex between two same gendered individuals is harmful, please? Show me how safer-sex practices work for straight people, but not for gay people? And then show me how transgender people expressing their appropriate gender in whatever way they choose is harmful. And then show me your proof that people aren’t born gay. (And don’t give me that unscientific crap about how no “gay gene” has been found yet. A first year student of genetics, even from a Christian school, could explain how stupid that argument is.) And then show me all the people who have “demonstrably changed” their sexual orientation. I mean, even John Smid is now admitting that he’s still into dudes. They all do, eventually.

This is such a travesty that if we were all ancient Israelites, we’d be rending our clothing and putting on sackcloth and ashes!

Really, she just said that. But since Linda’s not an ancient Israelite, she’s going to stick with the frumpy separates and wild and crazy pink headband she got at TJ-Maxx last week.

Please join me in praying for Warren Throckmorton, for his repentance, and also for his duplicitous dealings to be revealed so no further harm is done to our precious and impressionable kids.

And please help me pray that the emotionally manipulative “Day of Silence” is revealed for what it is ‚Äî adults exploiting precious kids.

Uh, no thanks. We’ll stick with the reality-based world that Warren is becoming more of a part of every single day.

*No, I do not have any personal knowledge of how many cats Linda Harvey has. My educated guess is “47.”

An Open Letter from Soulforce to Jan and Paul Crouch, founders of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, and the Evangelical Christian broadcasters who are featured on Lighthouse Television, TBN’ affiliate in Uganda, including: Matthew Crouch, Joyce Meyer, Andrew Wommack, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, and Franklin Graham:

By now you are well aware of the anti-homosexual bill pending before the Parliament of Uganda. We urge you to denounce this bill. Use your personal friendships with President and Mrs. Museveni, with MP David Bahati (your Christian colleague who proposed this bill) and with Stephen Langa, (the Ugandan Christian organizer behind the bill) to take a public and passionate stand against it.

The media are blaming the visit to Uganda by three of your colleagues for this despicable and truly un-Christian law. In fact, for years you have used your Lighthouse Television programs, your radio broadcasts and your massive public meetings to warn Ugandans of the so called “threat homosexuals pose to Bible-based values and the traditional African Family.”

In no small part, you are already responsible for the current call by Ugandan leaders to enforce the old law condemning lesbian and gay Ugandans to up to 14 years in prison. This new law increases that sentence to life imprisonment and even death by hanging. Denounce this new bill or the blood of lesbian and gay Ugandans will be on your hands.

It isn’t just the “liberal media” who are condemning the bill. (Read More)

Facebook has shut down, at least temporarily, one of the largest and most diverse groups opposing genocide in Uganda — without explanation.

The group disappeared sometime Friday and, despite numerous inquiries by members, has not been restored to service.

In the description for a new group formed to demand restoration of service, conservative Christian professor Warren Throckmorton says:

On Friday, January 29 Facebook removed the group Speak Out Against Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009. There was no warning or explanation. Multiple inquiries have been made by many members of the group with no replies as yet.

Whatever the reason, please join this group if you would like to see the group returned. The group was the original effort to bring together a diverse group of people to speak out against the bill.

The URL of the Speak Out group is www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=198541255168 and had over 15,000 members when it was removed. Please write Facebook and ask for an explanation and for the group to be reinstated.

The original group was created by Throckmorton and by Andrew Marin, author of Love Is An Orientation, with voluntary support from Exodus co-founder Michael Bussee, who is now an openly gay man.

The group faced opposition from multiple directions: Conservative U.S. “Christians” including Peter LaBarbera who favor the mass execution of LGBT people, and LGBT activists who felt that Throckmorton was using a legitimate human-rights issue to confer legitimacy upon his program of “sexual identity therapy.”

Facebook still features many anti-genocide groups, including several created by equality activist Lisa Talmadge. A quick search suggests that Facebook may have cracked down on a multitude of pro-genocide groups — I found only a couple of survivors this morning.

I had wondered, since he had been strangely silent on the issue, most likely because his friend Scott Lively has been so intimately involved in the situation.

But for the record, Peter thinks the genocide is A-OK, and that Americans are arrogant for thinking it’s okay to interfere. Oh, he doesn’t say it that explicitly, but from the entire tone of the piece, it can be ascertained that Pete hasn’t lost much sleep over the plight of dark-skinned gays in a land that he couldn’t identify on a map even if you were threatening to hit “delete” on his file folder full o’ Folsom photos.* He adds some throwaway line at the end about supposedly not having studied the legislation in Uganda, but what part of “death penalty for gay people” requires further study, Pete? Do you need to get out your magnifying glass or something?

Elsewhere in his post, before he quote Robert Knight’s dishonest, genocide-defending screed in full (which I tore apart here), Peter takes some time to complain (yet again) that Warren Throckmorton has discovered his soul and is trying to work against some of the more violent and hateful forces for which he used to apologize. This is to be expected because, much like a wealthy white person who defends the rights of the poor and minorities is often viewed by her peers as a class traitor, Peter is probably more burned by Throckmorton’s “betrayal” than he ever could be about something so quaint as mass murder against an entire sector of the Ugandan population.

Also, Peter issues a “challenge to accomodationists” like Throckmorton wherein he will “stand corrected” if somebody can show him where sexual orientation “as this concept is currently understood and posited in academia, the media and society” is mentioned in the Bible. I don’t know why this is really a challenge, because nobody claims that the Bible accurately describes sexual orientation. The Bible also fails to accurately describe microbiology, climatology, Keynesian economic theory, Ugg boots, iPhones, Jersey Shore and Snuggies, but that’s not an argument for their nonexistence. Or maybe it is in Peter’s world. Maybe he just hasn’t written a column called “Blankets don’t have sleeves and Wayne Besen is mean for saying they do!” yet.

So now we’re caught up on what Peter thinks about Uganda. We can go back to grown-up stuff now, until next time.

Alvin has more here.

*Say that five times fast.

National Public Radio has terrific story on the role social conservatives have played in exporting anti-gay extremism in Uganda. According to NPR:

Jim Naughton, a former canon in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., says their [Conservative Evangelical] message plays one way in the U.S., but differently in a place like Uganda. And they should have known.

“If you go to countries where there’s already a great deal of suspicion and maybe animosity towards homosexuals, and begin to tell people there, ‘Well, actually these people are child abusers, they’re coming for their children, that they’re the scourge that is being deposited on you by the secular West,’ you’re gonna get a backlash.” Naughton says it’s like “showing up in rooms filled with gasoline, and throwing lighted matches around and saying, ‘Well, I never intended fire .‘ “

Many U.S. evangelicals, including Lively, say they are “mortified” by the death penalty provision. Naughton doesn’t buy it.

“I think if they were mortified, they would have been mortified immediately,” he says. “Instead they were mortified ‚Äî oh, two, three months into the campaign against this thing, when it was getting real traction.”

Megachurch pastor Rick Warren is a case in point. Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, has extensive ties with religious leaders in Africa, including Uganda. Initially, he refused to condemn the bill. Finally, two months after the bill was introduced, he urged pastors in Uganda to oppose it.

“We are all familiar with Edmund Burke’s insight, ‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing,’ ” Warren began. He explained his silence by saying, “It is not my role to interfere with the politics of other nations,” then stated that the bill “is unjust, it’s extreme, and it’s un-Christian.”

If Warren was slow to condemn the bill, other Christian conservatives have yet to do so, says Warren Throckmorton, who teaches psychology at Grove City College and has been monitoring U.S. evangelical response. He says some of the Christian groups most publicly tied to Uganda have been the quietest. Joyce Meyer Ministries, Oral Roberts University, the College of Prayer in Atlanta — all have close ties and declined to express reservations about the death penalty.

“Silence is often interpreted as consent,” says Throckmorton, who is himself a conservative evangelical. “So I think those kinds of responses may lead those individuals in Uganda to think that perhaps what [they're] doing really is according to the evangelical faith.”

Dan Gilgoff’s “God and Country” blog carries a guest column by pro-exgay pundit Warren Throckmorton, who rejects accusations by the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (the ex-gay think tank and lobbying group) against the American Psychological Association.

NARTH falsely accuses the APA of advising therapists to lure their clients from antigay churches to gay-tolerant or gay-affirming ones. The American Family Association’s “OneNewsNow” propaganda service parroted NARTH’s accusation without offering the APA a chance to correct prior inaccurate reporting by the Associated Press.

Today’s Wall Street Journal article by Stephanie Simon begins:

The men who seek help from evangelical counselor Warren Throckmorton often are deeply distressed. They have prayed, read Scripture, even married, but they haven’t been able to shake sexual attractions to other men — impulses they believe to be immoral.

Dr. Throckmorton is a psychology professor at a Christian college in Pennsylvania and past president of the American Mental Health Counselors Association. He specializes in working with clients conflicted about their sexual identity.

The first thing he tells them is this: Your attractions aren’t a sign of mental illness or a punishment for insufficient faith. He tells them that he cannot turn them straight.

But he also tells them they don’t have to be gay.

The article delves into more detail about Throckmorton’s therapy:

For many years, Dr. Throckmorton felt he was breaking a professional taboo by telling his clients they could construct satisfying lives by, in effect, shunting their sexuality to the side, even if that meant living celibately. That ran against the trend in counseling toward “gay affirming” therapy — encouraging clients to embrace their sexuality.

Later in the WSJ article, I comment on the section of the APA’s guidelines that seem to say that Throckmorton’s type of therapy may fall within its new guidelines:

“It’s incredibly misguided,” said Wayne Besen, who runs a group called Truth Wins Out, which fights conversion therapy. He says trying to fight their same-sex attractions can cause immense suffering. “People have their lives destroyed,” Mr. Besen said.

My Thoughts:

I want to clarify that I am supportive of the overall APA report. I think they did a terrific job stating how therapists should handle clients who are struggling to accept their sexual orientation. Most important, they directly challenged “ex-gay” therapists who mislead clients about gay life.

And, the APA made it crystal clear that such charlatans should not be selling snake oil by claiming they can magically turn clients from gay-to-straight. In my view, any therapist who makes such a pitch is a con artist. Any organization that offers such bogus and far-fetched promises is guilty of consumer fraud.

Additionally, the APA should be commended for tackling the affects of religious faith on people working through this issue. Their landmark report explicitly tells religious therapists that clients should be given room to explore who they truly are, without the therapist burdening them with excessive faith-based guilt. This is a step forward, considering that nearly every “reparative therapist” uses shame-based methods to pressure vulnerable and desperate clients into suppressing their natural sexual orientation.

However, (although I am not a psychologist) I remain largely skeptical of the therapy offered by Throckmorton and other conservatives. Throckmorton tells The Wall Street Journal that he starts his sessions by helping clients prioritize their values.

This is where it can get tricky.

Religious therapists (I am not referring specifically to Throckmorton) can manipulate the framing of priorities. For example they may ask clients what they find more important to their value system: “ephemeral hedonism” or “eternal life in heaven”. Given this loaded option, clients may feel they have no “choice” but to live a life of hell on earth in order to get the keys to the Kingdom when they die. This is quite a mental burden for clients to carry and surely can’t be conducive to optimum mental health.

Clients can also be easily manipulated by therapists who induce guilt by saying, “it is fine if you choose to exercise your options in a selfish manner by choosing your sexuality over Scripture.” Such diabolical therapists may be within the new guidelines (barely) by ostensibly offering a troubled client the “choice” and “freedom” to be a “bad” person. But, we all know this is just a tricky form of psychological abuse. While the APA guidelines are helpful, the group may need to address in the future how unsavory counselors use loopholes to continue tormenting the fragile minds of clients.

The WSJ article also mentioned how the APA report considers celibacy a viable “option”:

But if the client still believes that affirming his same-sex attractions would be sinful or destructive to his faith, psychologists can help him construct an identity that rejects the power of those attractions, the APA says. That might require living celibately, learning to deflect sexual impulses or framing a life of struggle as an opportunity to grow closer to God.

“We’re not trying to encourage people to become ‘ex-gay,’” said Judith Glassgold, who chaired the APA’s task force on the issue. “But we have to acknowledge that, for some people, religious identity is such an important part of their lives, it may transcend everything else.”

The APA has long endorsed the right of clients to determine their own identities. But it also warned that “lesbians and gay men who feel they must conceal their sexual orientation report more frequent mental health concerns.”

It is true that in extreme cases, a lifetime of celibacy may lead to a happier existence than coming out of the closet. These rare people, unfortunately, are often so damaged by fundamentalism that they are unable to express their sexuality in healthy ways. Indeed, they are stricken by excessive guilt if they enjoy any form of pleasure that is not sanctioned by their church.

In such instances of irreparable damage to victims of faith-based oppression, celibacy may work (sort of) as a last ditch effort to help these people find a small measure of peace. There are also individuals with low sex drives who may not have an inordinate amount of trouble conforming to onerous religious strictures.

However, celibacy is not a serious option for healthy individuals with normal desires. If a therapist tells a teenager that he or she will have to live the next 50 or so years sexually frustrated and without the possibility of love, you are not going to convince me that this is in the best psychological interest of that conflicted youth.

Imagine being that young person with raging hormones, yet having to suppress powerful urges every minute of the day. On weekends, you stay home playing video games while your friends are dating. At lunchtime in the cafeteria, you have to hear about their sexual exploration, while you bitterly nurse longings that will never be fulfilled. On the way home from school, love songs play on the car radio that are meant for everyone but you. And then you settle on the couch and watch television shows brimming with a sensuality that you will never discover.

Living in such a way would, in the vast majority of cases, make an otherwise healthy person neurotic, depressed and even suicidal. Celibacy, for the most part, is a fantasy concocted by conservative therapists who so despise homosexuality that they would rather see a person loveless and lonely than openly gay.

I also worry that suppression of sexuality will lead to increased mental and sexual abuse in society. The ex-gay ministries (and the Catholic Church) are rife with examples of supposedly celibate or “healed” leaders taking advantage of young people in their care. Youth are easier to manipulate (see TWO video below)and the path of least resistance for the tortured and troubled souls who swear off sexuality (heterosexual and homosexual), only to find that it is not possible over the course of a lifetime. Celibacy is not realistic, nor advisable for most people, and can have deleterious side effects. The idea of the “satisfied celibate” is largely a misguided myth perpetuated by therapists who can’t overcome their own anti-gay leanings.

Ultimately, the more ex-gay ministries and counselors are forced to move away from stigmatizing homosexuality, promising fake miracles and selling false hope, the better off clients will be. If these groups can’t sell the proverbial “heterosexual light at the end of the tunnel”, the vast majority of young gay people will leave the traumatic tunnel behind and come out into the light of freedom and honesty.

Everyone deserves the chance to love and be loved – and conservative therapists will have an increasingly difficult time telling gay clients that they are exceptions to this rule. By calling for more accountability among anti-gay therapists and demanding they be truthful and adhere to modern science, the APA has made a worthy contribution with its report.