http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/us...nted=all&_r=4&
Ex-gay men are often closeted, fearing ridicule from gay advocates who accuse them of self-deception and, at the same time, fearing rejection by their church communities as tainted oddities. Here in California, their sense of siege grew more intense in September when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law banning use of widely discredited sexual “conversion therapies” for minors — an assault on their own validity, some ex-gay men feel.
Signing the measure, Governor Brown repeated the view of the psychiatric establishment and medical groups, saying, “This bill bans nonscientific ‘therapies’ that have driven young people to depression and suicide,” adding that the practices “will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery.”
But many ex-gays have continued to seek help from such therapists and men’s retreats, saying their own experience is proof enough that the treatment can work.
Aaron Bitzer, 35, was so angered by the California ban, which will take effect on Jan. 1, that he went public and became a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the law as unconstitutional.
To those who call the therapy dangerous, Mr. Bitzer reverses the argument: “If I’d known about these therapies as a teen I could have avoided a lot of depression, self-hatred and suicidal thoughts,” he said at his apartment in Los Angeles. He was tormented as a Christian teenager by his homosexual attractions, but now, after men’s retreats and an online course of reparative therapy, he says he feels glimmers of attraction for women and is thinking about dating.
“I found that I couldn’t just say ‘I’m gay’ and live that way,” said Mr. Bitzer, who plans to seek a doctorate in psychology and become a therapist himself.
Many ex-gays guard their secret but quietly meet in support groups around the country, sharing ideas on how to avoid temptations or, perhaps, broach their past with a female date. Some are trying to save heterosexual marriages. Some, like Mr. Bitzer, hope one day to marry a woman. Some choose celibacy as an improvement over what they regard as a sinful gay life.
Whether they have gone through formal reparative therapy, most ex-gays agree with its tenets, even as they are rejected by mainstream scientists. The theories, which have also been adopted by conservative religious opponents of gay marriage, hold that male homosexuality emerges from family dynamics — often a distant father and an overbearing mother — or from early sexual abuse. Confronting these psychic wounds, they assert, can bring change in sexual desire, if not necessarily a total “cure.”
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11-12-2012, 01:48 PM #1
‘Ex-Gay’ Men Fight Back Against View That Homosexuality Can’t Be Changed
*** There is no one free of all need, of whom all else are in absolute need, but God ***
Pbuh: If anyone testifies that None has the right to be worshipped but God Alone Who has no partners, and that Muhammad is His Servant and His Apostle, and that Jesus is God's Servant and His Apostle and His Word which He bestowed on Mary and a Spirit created by Him, and that Paradise is true, and Hell is true, God will admit him into Paradise
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11-12-2012, 01:52 PM #2
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11-12-2012, 02:48 PM #6
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11-12-2012, 02:50 PM #7
"He was tormented as a Christian teenager by his homosexual attractions, but now, after men’s retreats and an online course of reparative therapy, he says he feels glimmers of attraction for women and is thinking about dating."
Sounds like he's totally hetero now and not at all in denial."A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand."
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11-12-2012, 02:54 PM #8
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11-12-2012, 03:05 PM #9
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11-12-2012, 03:07 PM #10
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11-12-2012, 03:07 PM #11
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11-12-2012, 03:07 PM #12
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He was tormented as a Christian teenager by his homosexual attractions, but now, after men’s retreatsYou bring the pepper, I'll bring the Angus.
"People will kill you over time, and how they'll kill you is with tiny, harmless phrases, like 'be realistic.' "
**Self-Employed Crew**
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11-12-2012, 03:09 PM #13
Homosexuality isn't some kind of disease, if that's what you're getting at. Unlike cancer, homosexuality can't be cured. You're the brain dead moron if you think so. Why do some people think a straight man just thinks it's desirable to suck d!ck one day? I like women. I don't choose to like women. It's built into my dna. Same for homos.
With that said, homosexuality is a genetic malfunction. If the main goal of a species is to procreate to assure the survival of its kind, then homosexuality is obviously a deterant to that goal.
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11-12-2012, 03:15 PM #14
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11-12-2012, 03:31 PM #15
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11-12-2012, 03:46 PM #16
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TBH I would say being gay is the likely result of a genetic defect that triggers an attraction response to the same sex rather than the opposite sex, and I say this as the son of a bad ass lesbian mom. That being said, it is not their fault that they are the way they are and we have no right to restrict their happiness so long as it does not hurt other people. I would like to bring this chart in to examine the likely result of lettings gays marry.
Better than ever before
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11-12-2012, 03:51 PM #17
These guys, who don't seem completely straight themselves now, are definitely proof that it's a choice.
Every other gay person is choosing to be gay. Even that guy who actually posts here and went to Mormon "gay camps" himself but is still homosexual, is just choosing it.
I honestly thought that this was settled by now.
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11-12-2012, 03:56 PM #18
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11-12-2012, 04:29 PM #29
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They think if they convince everyone else, maybe it will become true. Sexual orientation cannot be changed.
When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.
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11-12-2012, 04:32 PM #30
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