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Originally Posted by dor  However, I do think treatment should be offered as an alternative or discussed and not just shunned away as 'impossible' as many activist groups do. |
If someone chooses to subject him/herself to such a therapy that is their choice. However, I think it is highly unethical to propose that someone should undergo it without making sure that the person is aware of the dangers/disadvantages. These are
(1) in lots of cases the therapy simply does not work;
(2) the side effects can be very bad: depression and the development of suicidal tendencies are not unkown;
(3) many ex-gays later turn into ex-ex-gays;
(4) no serious medical organization aproves of this kind of therapy;
(5) in the case of "aversion therapy" it is rather hard to see how the actual practice of this therapy is to be reconciled with the concept of human dignity;
(6) quite often the therapists do not have proper qualifications and, compared to standard psychotherapy practices, seem to operate in rather amateuristic ways.
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Originally Posted by dor Personally and actually getting back to the topic on hand I know people and have read of people who have had radical spiritual transformations and their orientations changed. |
Being a christian myself, I wouldn't doubt it to be within Gods power to change homosexuals into heterosexuals, if He would desire to do such. I have also read some of these stories and on an other forum on which I partipate, they are discussed on a somewhat regular basis. Having heard the stories of gays, ex-gays, and ex-ex-gays, I am very much inclined to think something along the lines of "that you changed into a heterosexual is very nice for you, but let us just wait a bit and see what you say about it five years from now.". There are also some stories that make me wonder if the ex-gay really was gay. This is in the case that a lot is talked about the things these persons DID but nothing is being said about what kind of sexual feelings they had at the time and have now. Sometimes people end up engaging in homosexual activities (mostly during puberty) where it does not seem they have actually chosen to do so, but it simply happened more or less by accident. That this kind of "homosexuality" can be "cured" is not very surprising. Finally, hearing admissions that some of these ex-gays sometimes still enjoy looking at gay porn (usually one has to wait for that admission until the point that the ex-gay turns into an ex-ex-gay, BTW), while engaging in a heterosexual relationship, does not really add to credibility.
Taking Angela's remarks into account it seems more like Spitzer wanted to write something controversial and was looking for evidence than that he knew about the evidence and wanted to write something about it. This is a practice that is also not unheard of in science, unfortunately.