Democrats, The LGBTQ Community and “Conversion Therapy”
Democrats, The LGBTQ Community and “Conversion Therapy”- “Use of “harmful” “conversion therapy” by Christians supposedly leads to “depression…”
by Bill Lockwood
The Democrats have begun their final assault against liberty and the Word of God. First, there was “fake news.” Former President Obama, ever favoring totalitarian governing schemes to destroy the liberty of American citizens, launched a campaign against “fake news.” Government, not individuals, is to identify what is, and what is not real or fake news. The underlying premise is that individuals are unable to sift through true or false information—therefore remove their right and responsibility to do so. Government knows best.
Now we have Democrat-sponsored bill entitled the “Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act 2017.” As reported by The Washington Post (April 27) “Democratic lawmakers this week introduced a bill that would ban the practice of ‘conversion therapy,’ treatments that historically have targeted the LGBT community and claim to be able to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The bill was introduced by Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), along with Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.). “About 70 other members of Congress, all Democrats, have said they support the bill, which would allow the Federal Trade Commission to classify conversion therapy and its practitioners as fraudulent.” Lieu smugly remarked, “LGBTQ people are born perfect. There’s nothing to treat them for.”
A summary of the bill, whose sponsors tout as The First Federal Ban on Conversion Therapy, reads, “Conversion therapy, also known as ‘reparative therapy,’ ‘sexual orientation therapy,’ or ‘sexual orientation change efforts,’ is a practice that has been widely discredited by nearly all major American medical, psychiatric, psychological, counseling, educational and social work professional organizations. They are deceptive practices based on the false premise that being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or gender non-conforming (LGBTQ) is a mental illness that needs to be cured.”
The report also relies on a 2009 “systematic review” by the American Psychological Association which concluded that “efforts to change sexual orientation are unlikely to be successful and involve some risk of harm, contrary to the claims of [conversion therapy] practitioners and advocates.”
Use of “harmful” “conversion therapy” by Christians supposedly leads to “depression, decreased self-esteem, substance abuse, homelessness, or suicidal behavior.” The bill would therefore allow prosecution against those who practice “conversion therapy” under Federal Trade Commission rules.
According to LifeSiteNews.com, conversion therapy includes “any practice or treatment by any person that seeks to change another individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender.” LifeSiteNews apparently laments that Republicans will probably block passage of the bill.
Various organizations are claiming credit for getting the ball rolling on this legislation. LifeSiteNews reports that “This was borne out of a pro-gay Washington Post story headlined “‘LGBTQ people were born perfect’: A new bill would ban conversion therapy nationwide measure.”
On the other hand, Marxist-oriented The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), tirelessly working to unravel the culture of America and to bring freedom-lovers under a statist yoke, informs us that “The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against” a New Jersey conversion therapy organization called JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing). SPLC published the politically correct dictum that “conversion therapy” is a “fraudulent practice.” “Aside from being junk science, conversion therapy encourages a climate of anti-gay bigotry,” the SPLC added.
What Shall We Say to These Things?
As is always true, the weakest intellectual case needs the support of government edicts. The ipse dixit of the SPLC or even of the United States government, if the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act happened were to pass, is worthless. Our self-appointed cultural leaders better hurry to ban internet articles and burn the published books which document exactly how sodomy was removed from the APA’s “mental illness” list in 1973.
Jeffrey Weeks, author of Sexuality and Its Discontents Meanings, Myths and Modern Sexualities, correctly points out that “The decision of the American Psychiatric Association to delete homosexuality from its published list of sexual disorders in 1973 was scarcely a cool, scientific decision.” Instead, “it was a response to a political campaign fueled by the belief that its original inclusion was a disorder was a reflection of an oppressive politico-medical definition of homosexuality as a problem.”
This is borne out by the numerous psychiatrists over the past few decades that described how the homosexual network, led by Frank Kameny and his Gay Liberation Front, publicly declared that “Psychiatry has waged a relentless war of extermination against us. You may take this as a declaration of war against you.”
Kameny and his rainbow legion of homosexual storm troopers disrupted the meeting of the APA in San Francisco in 1973, took over microphones, and demanded homosexuality be “removed” from the “disorder list.” The APA, feeling the furor of hardnose politics, capitulated.
Dr. Charles Socarides comments: “This was done without any valid scientific evidence to prove that homosexuality is not a disordered behavior.” Science has nothing to do with it. Yet, the SPLC has the cheek to call “junk science” and “snake oil” the fact that people are “converted” away from a homosexual lifestyle.
Perhaps most ominous is the brazen assault against religious liberty that the Democrats sponsor. Columnist Claire McCartney (Paper Mag, April 27) demonstrates the poison with which the left deals. She writes that “conversion therapy is already illegal in seven states … while the practice [conversion therapy] is widely reviled in many parts of the country, in others it is protected under the guise of religious freedom.” Further, “The bill would authorize the Federal Trade Commission to classify conversion therapy practitioners—from church leaders to licensed therapists—as fraudulent.”
There you have it. Religious freedom is a “guise” while “church leaders” are aligned in the crosshairs of total government control. Church leaders, whether on the couch, or behind the pulpit, are to be subject to penalties of law if they appeal to homosexuals to repent and turn to God, leaving a sinful lifestyle.
So, while spineless preachers dither about whether homosexuals are perhaps “born that way,” and their soft-shell preachments reflect more theological thimble-rigging than an honest exegesis of the biblical text, the government is set to make up their minds for them. With a blatant disregard for freedom of speech, Democrat lawmakers, along with pro-sodomite organizations, are setting the stage for prosecution of the pulpit.