Scared Straight?
That seems to be the theory behind “Love” (hate) in Action, a.k.a. Gay Camp, courtesy of Germantown Baptist Church and Zach’s dishonest parents. Fortunately or unfortunately, Hate In Action’s bully tactics don’t seem to be working (dual hat tip: Uncle Hugo). Be sure to read all the rules, which almost everyone except Potter Stewart and Professor Bainbridge can agree are obscene. Probably the most disgusting of these rules is Rule #9, which not only requires participants victims not only to put up with the abuse they’re subjected to day in and day out, they’re expected to like it and to thank their tormentors for the favor:
9. Refuge clients are expected to maintain a committed pursuit of a positive and thankful attitude.
Somehow, I doubt that sarcastically muttering “Thank you Sir, may I have another?” qualifies. A very close runner up is Rule #10, which implictly acknowledges that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and therefore prohibits unauthorized possession of sunlight:
10. Absolutely no journaling or keeping a diary outside of the MI process unless directed or approved by staff.
Sorry, Hate in Action vermin, but the sunlight made it through anyway and your sins are now in plain view. Don’t bother attempting to shut down Zach’s blog, either, I’ve saved a copy and so has Google, and probably too many other bloggers to count. The only thing left for you to do is to do both yourselves and Zach a favor, kick him out of the program, and chew out his parents for lying to him about the program; assuming, of course, that your version of the Bible does regard lying as a sin.
UPDATE: See-Dubya offers a more benign explanation for Rule 10. His point about preserving other patients’/victims’ confidentiality is well taken; however, I still think the rule is a bit broad.
UPDATE x2: Camassia has a more sober take on the issue. Highly recommended.
June 15th, 2005 at 2:52 pm
Thanks for blogging this, XRLQ. I like your solutions, as well.
June 15th, 2005 at 3:11 pm
FYI, your GBC links are all borkenified.
June 15th, 2005 at 6:40 pm
You can add me as someone else who doesn’t think the rules are obscene. In fact, I can’t imagine what you are objecting to except that you apparently misunderstood the rule 9 you quoted. The word “thankful” refers to being thankful to God, not to the camp counselors.
This is a common Christian belief: in all things give thanks. Yes, even in suffering.
Also, I think your rhetoric about “victims” and “abuse” is a bit over the top. Just what do you think goes on there that is so abusive?
Finally, do you have any actual evidence that any of these actions are motivated by hate, or is that just your reflexive attitude to anyone who disagrees with you on certain subjects? After all, if they are just hateful, then you don’t have any obligation to try to understand their point of view before you hate them back, right?
How convenient for you.
June 15th, 2005 at 7:41 pm
Right. Maybe Zach should test your interpretation of Rule 9 by telling his camp counselor how thankful he is to God that soon this camp will be over and he’ll never have to deal with these miserable, self-righteous jerks again. I’m sure that won’t piss them off, good, loving Christians that they are.
What about Rule 10? What on earth kind of excuse can there be for that? Doesn’t the Bible say something about not hiding one’s light under a bushel, letting it shine instead for all to see?
June 16th, 2005 at 8:24 am
Degayification Camps cause rare Blogosphere Agreement
Finally, something we can all agree on!…
June 16th, 2005 at 9:03 am
For three years I did reparative therapy as an attempt to repair the broken part of me that caused me to be gay. Three years and about $15,000 of my own money I am still gay. My therapy was thankfully mostly secular in nature and not directly associated with any church group. I have enough to deal with regarding my faith so I can’t imagine having to extricate my faith in God from the mess that people like these Love In Action types would have submerged it in.
Regarding the “be thankful” item: It has been my experience that Christians who never have to come to terms with the fact that their sexuality, their very selves are unacceptable and do not merely need to be amended or refined, but entire subverted and ignored if they are to be faithful to Church teachings, think that it is somehow a consolation to say “Hey man, Take up your cross and follow Him. Be like Jesus. Praise Him. He’s totally letting you share in his redemptive work.” The problem is that there is no end to the suffering one endures as a Christian who is trying to be faithful while coming to terms with his sexuality. There’s never a break and unlike other “struggles” that people deal with there is no visual support within most churches for people who deal with issues of homosexuality. These churches want the gays to get over it and unite their sufferings with the suffering Christ endured, but they’d rather you not talk about it publicly because being gay is just so icky and it makes people uncomfortable. The idea of being virtuous and carrying your cross can work for a while, but there comes a time when the individual dealing with his homosexuality becomes overwhelmed by loneliness and isolation as his friends and fellow church members get on with their lives, marriage, children, baptisms, first communions, etc and he remains the single “uncle” and at the end of the day goes home alone and spends his days with no intimacy (and not just of the sexual kind) and no “help-mate” to get through all the day to day things a of life. No one to share the little things that make life sweet. No one to plane that big vacation with or build a home with. I carried my “cross” for a time, but God’s going to have to find another “saint” to do that chore now.
In short (is it too late for that?) these therapies do not work for most people if they work at all. The Church needs to come up with a better idea for dealing with gay people because while minimal “change” may be possible for a very small group (the reparative therapists’ literature admits the low “success rate”) a “cure” is not possible. I know, I know, all things are possible with God. However, I think some people might be misinterpreting exactly what He has promised.
June 16th, 2005 at 11:01 am
That list of rules looks like whoever wrote is projecting his or her own weaknesses. It’s too specific. It does not acknowledge human freedom. It’s all about fitting into one notion of what a human being should be. It’s sick. I almost joined a religious order like this.
June 16th, 2005 at 11:53 am
Another interesting one:
“Any temptations, fantasies, or dreams are to be presented to one¹s staff worker only.”
“7. No continuing education while in the program. Home-school Refuge clients may be allowed to continue their studies during the program, pending approval by LIA staff.”
“2. As non-residential clients, Refuge participants must submit to an F.I. search every morning.”
FI sounds very much like a Scientology thing.
“1. All new Refuge clients will be placed into Safekeeping for the initial two to three days of their program. A client on safekeeping may not communicate verbally, or by using hand gestures or eye contact, with any other clients, staff members, or his/her parents or guardians.”
It just seems to get worse.
Maybe – just maybe – if the kids going into Refuge are total losers, third-strikers, it’s a way of turning them around. But unless someone’s been declared hopeless, they have no business being sent there.
June 16th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
No kidding. As far as I can tell, no one is sent there because they are losers, third strikers or even first strikers; only because they are “adolescents struggling with broken and addictive behaviors” such as pornography, drugs and alcohol, sexual “promescuity” (sic), and, in Zach’s case, an “addiction” to being gay. O-kay.
June 16th, 2005 at 4:54 pm
Xrlq, saying “I’m thankful to God that” and then adding something snotty, is not the same as being thankful to God. I’m not going to get into the theology of thankfulness here, I’m just going to repeat that you misunderstood the rule –an ever-present danger when you try to interpret texts written for insiders of a culture that you know nothing about. Especially when you are bigoted against the culture and are looking for ways to interpret them in the worst possible light.
As to hiding one’s light under a bushel, it’s a metaphor given in a certain context with a specific application. You can’t just pick it out of nowhere and have it mean whatever you want.
I don’t know what their reasons are for not allowing journals, but I can think of several innocent possibilities. So could you if you cared enough to put your mind to it.
June 16th, 2005 at 4:55 pm
Reparative Therapy Reject, as to this: “Christians who never have to come to terms with the fact that their sexuality, their very selves are unacceptable …” All Christians have to come to terms with the fact that their very selves are unacceptable. That is the centerpoint of Christianity, that no one is acceptable to God, that we all need a fundamental change in our very souls.
I’d bet that the large majority of Christians have difficulties with their sexuality at some time or another. You don’t have to be gay for your sexual behavior (which includes fantasies, not just actions) to be unacceptable to God. And sexuality is no more fundamental to “who you are” than is a bad temper or greediness, or being a vicious gossip. They are all “who you are”, and they are all unacceptable to God.
June 16th, 2005 at 5:15 pm
Doc, I don’t know where you get the idea I’m bigoted against Christians, or that I know nothing about Christianity, but you are wrong on both counts. If there were an innocent reason why a bunch of Christians would encourage parents to send their kids to re-education camps under false pretenses, and then adopt a general rule against documenting anything that goes on there, I’d certainly be interested in hearing it. But I don’t think there is, and it’s not because I’m biased against Christianity, only that I’m biased for it, either, or least not enough so to give these guys a pass over behavior I’d have no trouble condemning if they did it in the name of anything else. From everything available on the web (both the blog entry and their own site), they come off much more like a religious cult than like an ordinary, garden-variety Christian church.
And no, I don’t buy your unfounded assertion that “thankful” means “thankful to God” in this context. That’s not what the rule itself says, nor is it reasonable to assume the already-troubled youths sent to that camp will interpret it that way.
June 16th, 2005 at 6:57 pm
XRLQ, I think this is a somewhat standard clause for therapy programs, secular or religious. Basically, you don’t want people compromising the confidentiality of other people within the same program. If teen A is to be honest when he tells his group about his problems, he should be able to trust that teen B isn’t going to go blog about it or tell all his friends or publish the fact in the paper.
I see this more as a protective measure for the other “clients” than as an attempt to suppress criticism of the program itself.
June 16th, 2005 at 7:28 pm
That’s a fair point, and I’ve updated the entry accordingly. I still think the rule’s a bit broad, though. One can protect confidentiality of fellow patients without pressuring individuals into keeping everything else under wraps.
June 16th, 2005 at 9:14 pm
Xrlq: The “culture” I was referring to wasn’t Christians (which is a large set of different cultures) but specifically the kind of conservative Christians that run this camp. It certainly appears that you are bigoted against conservative Christians who think that sexual sins are a serious matter. Or maybe only against Christians who think homosexual behavior is a sin.
Or maybe it’s something else. But whatever set you off, you certainly did not trouble yourself to get the other side of the story before coming down with both feet on the people who run the camp.
You even took everything the kid said at face value, even though it was obvious that he was angry and out was to hurt his parents and church. A bit of skepticism was called for. I’ll need more than the words of some defiant and vindictive teenager to believe that some church has a policy of encouraging the parents to lie to their kids.
My evidence that you don’t understand the culture is the fact that you misunderstood the reference to being thankful. This isn’t something obscure that I’m painfully teasing out of the rule, it’s the obvious way to read the rule. It never occurred to me to read it any other way until I read your commentary.
You’re a clever guy, Xrlq. You noted how odd the rule was in your reading, but you didn’t follow this observation to the conclusion that maybe you were reading it wrong.
June 17th, 2005 at 6:50 am
[...] an update and roundup to the gay camp story. Xrlq, looking at the rules of the program, says: Probably the most disgusting of these rules is Rule #9, which not only requires participants v [...]
June 17th, 2005 at 8:41 am
It has been my experience that Christians who never have to come to terms with the fact that their sexuality, their very selves are unacceptable and do not merely need to be amended or refined, but entire subverted and ignored if they are to be faithful to Church teachings, think that it is somehow a consolation to say “Hey man, Take up your cross and follow Him.
Doc Rampage, you cited a portion of this, but took it out of its full conttext. It’s true that we are all broken in some way. However, homosexual persons are seen to be not only
For heterosexuals the struggle is the proper expression of their sexuality. In most churches, there is no context in which homosexual sexuality can be properly expressed. For gay men and women it’s celibacy or faking heterosexuality.
And sexuality is no more fundamental to “who you are” than is a bad temper or greediness, or being a vicious gossip. They are all “who you are”, and they are all unacceptable to God.
I’m sorry you see your sexuality this way. The Church doesn’t even see it this way.
Imagine that you were told one Sunday morning that your love for your wife or girlfriend was sinful and that you were never to touch her again. In any way. Nor were you ever to think of touching her. From now on you are to live alone and “carry your cross” of heterosexuality.
June 17th, 2005 at 4:34 pm
I took it out of its full context because I didn’t want to address the whole thing here in Xrlq’s comment list. Partly out of courtesy to Xrlq and partly because I think it’s a private matter. But I will answer your direct challenge:
Imagine that you were told one Sunday morning to take your only son and kill him as a sacrifice to God. Would you, like Abraham, be willing to do God’s will over your own? And if that would not be too great a sacrifice, is living without sex really all that much greater a sacrifice?
In answer to your example, it so happens that I have, in fact, given up someone I loved, someone that I essentially lived with for three years, because my relationship with her was wrong. As a consequence of that decision, I have lived alone for the last seven years.
So I’m sorry, Reparartive, I’m sure you have suffered, but you just aren’t that special and your problems are just not that much worse than everyone else’s. No temptation has taken you but such as is common to man.
June 17th, 2005 at 6:11 pm
Imagine that you were told one Sunday morning to take your only son and kill him as a sacrifice to God. Would you, like Abraham, be willing to do God’s will over your own? And if that would not be too great a sacrifice, is living without sex really all that much greater a sacrifice?
If I gave the impression that this was merely about sex, I apologize. This is about much more. If you see the issue of homosexuality as just a matter of who someone sleeps with then, I would have to agree with you on a couple of points.
First, who I have sex with is not a defining characteristic of my personhood. Second, if it were only a matter of giving up sex then it would not be too great sacrifice. Many saints have done it. Priests and uns do it everyday. Single people do it as well.
In answer to your example, it so happens that I have, in fact, given up someone I loved, someone that I essentially lived with for three years,
Besides ending the relationship, what were your other options to make it right in the eyes of God?
No temptation has taken you but such as is common to man.
I also agree here. However, the answer to how to deal with the temptation is different based on whether or not you are heterosxual or homosexual. For a single heterosexual person the answer is to be chaste and wait. The day will come when you will be given the gift of a wife or husband. You will meet, fall in love, marry and make babies and spend your lives comforting each other and helping shoulder each others’ burden. For a homosexual person teh answer is, nut up. Be strong. Suffer. I know it will be lonely but life isn’t that long. It will all be worth it.
June 17th, 2005 at 6:33 pm
By the way, there’s a really funny movie about this sort of therapy–well, tangentially about this–called Sordid Lives that came out two or three years ago. It’s all about reconciling homosexuality to small-town Texas culture. It’s inda raunchy and I don’t agree with the way some of the characters are portrayed, but, hey, it’s pretty funny.
June 19th, 2005 at 5:52 pm
I think one of the things that this story should do is point out that there are actually a great number of these types of camps for youth, not necessarily centered around homosexuality but around “troubled behavior”, “anger management” and other code words for “teenager”. And a lot of parents send their kids to these places thinking they will get help for their problems. Unfortunately the real problem is the parents, not the kids. They don’t want to cope with having a teenager because it can be difficult. And sometimes the parents are just too damn lazy to deal with their own kids so they send them away. Putting aside the gay issue, how damaged do you think that the relationship between this young man and his parents has become? What is the level of trust that the young man will have that his parents have his best interests at heart? They have taken an irrevocable step that they may someday regret. And the effect is worse on the kid. He is still quite young and still needs guidance from someone, but his parents have just taken themselves out of the picture as authorities he can trust. I hope and pray he finds someone more worthy of that trust.
June 20th, 2005 at 1:18 am
OK, a list of things. Xrlq, after I’ve been feeling guilty for the snotty sentence at the end of my first comment. It wasn’t necessary to make my point and I apologize.
Raparative: you are mistaken if you think that all heterosexuals eventually have a satisfying intimate relationship with a member of the opposite sex. For a lot of people it just never happens. And for a lot of people it seems to happen and then it turns into a horror story.
Again, this doesn’t make homosexuals any different from anyone else.
Does anyone else think it’s ironic? The homosexual is arguing that homosexuals are different from “normal” people and the person who has been called a homophobe (not in this discussion) is arguing that they are just like everyone else?
June 20th, 2005 at 7:00 am
I’m not sure I follow the logic behind that. Here’s what your argument sounds like to me: All heterosexuals have a shot at a satisfying intimate relationship with a member of the opposite sex, but it doesn’t always pan out. All homosexuals are told they can never have an intimate relationship with a member of the same sex without committing a mortal sin. Therefore, all gays and all straights are in the same boat.
Am I missing something?
June 20th, 2005 at 11:32 am
I’ve been following Zachs story ’round the blogosphere. Among the excamations of horror at the program RULES (which I share) I see astonishment that methods like this exist.
The “Rules” of this program have a provenance. It’s nothing new, It’s nothing honorable and it’s nothing much Christian.
The LIA “rules” are based on the methods of Synanon. http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/synanon.html
Synanon was founded in 1958 by Chuck Dederich as a drug rehab/recovery group, and by 1974 had styled itself a religion. Synanon was the model for many “Therapeutic Communities” focusing on teenage drug abuse/misbehavior during the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
The confrontation, milieu control, isolation, Moral Inventories and many other features outlined in LIA’s rules (minus the bible verses, and the trembling before the totems of Abercrombie & Fitch and Calvin Klein (and I thought Christians rejected idol worship, silly me.) are almost word for word duplicates of the “rules” of these behavior modification programs.
One of he most well largest of these was Straight Inc. Founded in Florida by Mel Sembler., (recently US ambassador to Italy) Straight was very successful in marketing and “growing” the program, establishing branches in several states and closing in the early 90’s amid a string of lawsuits, allegations of child abuse, kidnapping and fraud. (including a $220,000 settlement for the false imprisonment of Fred Collins in 1983.) ( The Washington Post, May 26 1983, Thursday, Final Edition SECTION: Metro: C1)
Although Straight Inc. closed it begat a series of similar abusive treatment programs, many operated by former Straight execs. One of these was Kids Helping Kids in Bergen, NJ. Which closed in 2003 after its Director, Virgil Miller Newton, (formerly National Clinical Director of Straight) settled a $6.5 million lawsuit brought by Lulu Corter, who had been kept as a client of for 13 years!
Virgil Miller Newton now goes by “Father Cassian Newton” as a priest in the American Orthodox Catholic Church. (Though he was once a Methodist.)
These programs left a wake of unsucessful “treatment”, suicides, mental health issues, and broken families. To learn more visit one of the several internet forums for survivors and veterans of these programs. A Google seach will bring them up on the first page. (Fair Warning: gay issues are not their focus, many of the forums are unmoderated and the posters there are still very, very angry even 20 plus years after. It can get ugly. (And a good example of the sort of lovely, loving personalities these programs inspire.)
June 20th, 2005 at 2:50 pm
Xrlq: No, that’s not my argument. My argument is that some people have an opportunity for a healthy sexual relationship and some people don’t, and that homosexuals are no more special than all the others who don’t.
Some people that don’t have such opportunities are
1. Pathologically shy people in societies without parental matchmaking.
2. Pathologically unattractive people.
3. People physically incapable of having sex.
4. People who have taken a vow of celibacy.
5. People who do not get sexual satisfaction from anyone that would make an appropriate mate.
The last one can be divided into many categories. Some of them are:
5a. Sixty-year-old men who only want hot eighteen-year-old hardbodies.
5b. Women who are only turned on by married men.
5c. People who are only interested in prepubescent partners.
5d. People who are only interested in other species.
5e. People who are only interested in a sibling.
5f. People who are only interested in members of their own sex.
My point is that there is nothing at all special about subcategory 5f execept for their marketing. You would have me believe that their situation is so special and different from all other unfortunate situations, that it’s somehow more fundamental, more tragic. It’s not.
All of these situations are tragic (except the vow, I guess). For many of them, there is a way to get around the problem, but not in a way that is acceptable to God. If you are horribly ugly or need a young hardbody, you can hire a prostitute. If you want your sister or a little girl or boy, there is always rape. If you want sheep, other men’s wives, or another man, you can just go ahead and do it. But none of these responses is good.
There are no arguments for homosexuality that don’t apply just as well to other situations. The only reason they get so much attention and are considered special is because they have an incredible marketing department. Who else gets that much free publicity on network TV?
June 20th, 2005 at 4:52 pm
Well, finally you’ve made it very clear that you think that homosexuality is akin to pedophilia, incest, prostitution, rape, and beastiality. Nice.
believe that their situation is so special and different from all other unfortunate situations, that it’s somehow more fundamental, more tragic. It’s not.
You probably don’t realize it, but this is offensive. You’ve missed the point entirely. Most homosexuals would make the case that their situation is not tragic; it is not unfortunate and it is not a pathology. You might see it as “unfortunate,” but I think what is unfortunate is many people’s inability and/or unwillingness to try for a moment to see beyond their perceptions of a thing for a moment.
My point is that there is nothing at all special about subcategory 5f execept for their marketing.
Do you consider shows, movies, and magazine articles focused on heterosexual persons to be part of a marketing strategy aimed at promoting heterosexuality?
Who else gets that much free publicity on network TV?
Publicity? You mean there are a few successful shows that are entertaining and have gay characters?
You’re beginning to reveal your real prejudices and ignorance regarding homosexuality, which makes it easier to understand you.
June 21st, 2005 at 3:27 pm
Reparative, you have given up the honesty of the converstation and decended into defensive, overblown rhetoric.
I compared homosexuality to a lot of things, including being shy or wanting women that are too young for you. In response, you picked out the worst of the things I mentioned and implied that I was drawing a moral equivalence. Do you think I was also drawing a moral equivalence between rape and being shy or between pedophilia and being unnatractive?
I’m well aware that many homosexuals don’t think there is anything wrong with being homosexual. This is another way that they are no different from anyone else. Everyone who engages in wrong behavior tries to rationalize and justify it. The difference with homosexuality, as I implied before, is that they have enormous cultural backing to help support their rationalizations.
Even this isn’t really unique though. There is cultural support for others to rationalize their own harmful behavior, including adultery and abortion. Cultures have given similar rationalizations to human sacrifice, genocide and slavery.
Now don’t start hyperventilating: I’m not comparing gays to genocides. I’m only bringing it up these extreme examples to prove that just because your culture supports an activity, that doesn’t mean the activity is good.
Your response to the marketing comment is inapt. Heterosexual relationships are the marketing medium, not the thing being marketed. Heterosexual relationships are on network TV because that is what the customers want to see. Homosexual relationships are on TV because that is what the pro-gay activists want the customers to see.
No one talks to network executive telling them, “we need to have more heterosexual couples on TV to help them gain acceptability.” They most assuredly _do_ do that for homosexual couples.
June 21st, 2005 at 3:42 pm
Um, no. There’s a more fundamental difference than that. Rape, pedophilia and incest all violate the rights of others, while bestiality harms animals without justification, and women who target married men (or vice-versa) threaten one of society’s most basic insistutions. It’s clear why those activities should be regarded as “wrong,” and therefore in need of “justification” or “rationalization.” It’s much less clear what is so “wrong” about homosexuality (or, for that matter, prostitution) beyond the mere fact that you said it is.
BTW, there’s no point entering an anti-spam version of an email address in a comment to this blog. Email addresses are never displayed anyway, so there’s nothing for spambots to harvest here.
June 21st, 2005 at 11:23 pm
OK, I fixed the email address.
And I haven’t tried to convince anyone here that homosexual sex is wrong. I’m not even sure how I would go about doing that. My argument was directed against Reparative’s claim that homosexuals face problems that are fundamentally worse or more tragic than the problems that others face.
Many people have this belief. It’s a result of the marketing I’ve referred to. But it’s all marketing hype. Feel bad for the poor tragic gays. There is no real argument behind the position. None that doesn’t apply equaly well to many other situations.
June 21st, 2005 at 11:34 pm
I don’t think most homosexuals can go straight, and even for those who can, it’s a hell of a lot harder than it is for 5a, 5b or 5 e to learn to love people who (a) are their own age, (b) aren’t married, or (e) aren’t their siblings. The other two may be tougher to unlearn, but the reasons Hollywood isn’t marketing to them ought to be obvious. And Hollywood does market to at least three of the groups you equated with homosexuals, namely 1, 2 and 5. Movies are chock full of shy, ugly, nerdy or otherwise unlikely heroes who have no chance of getting the hot chick at the end, yet somehow do. And there is no shortage of those who have no chance of settling down, but do anyway. Fantasies work that way even if reality doesn’t.
June 22nd, 2005 at 1:53 pm
Reparative, you have given up the honesty of the conversation and descended into defensive, overblown rhetoric.
Such as?
And I haven’t tried to convince anyone here that homosexual sex is wrong. I’m not even sure how I would go about doing that. My argument was directed against Reparative’s claim that homosexuals face problems that are fundamentally worse or more tragic than the problems that others face.
You may not have tried to convince, but you certainly stated it. e.g.
I’m well aware that many homosexuals don’t think there is anything wrong with being homosexual. This is another way that they are no different from anyone else. Everyone who engages in wrong behavior tries to rationalize and justify it. The difference with homosexuality, as I implied before, is that they have enormous cultural backing to help support their rationalizations.
So you think there is “something wrong” with homosexuals? Try to extricate your prejudices and perceptions of homosexuals from homosexuality in general or as an idea and explain to me why you thing there is something wrong with homosexuality in the abstract. I think we might be able to have a better discussion that way.
Now don’t start hyperventilating: I’m not comparing gays to genocides. I’m only bringing it up these extreme examples to prove that just because your culture supports an activity, that doesn’t mean the activity is good.
I’ve seen my parents use this tactic on each other. One begins to get upset and to try to get the upper hand the other feigns calm and tries to be the level headed one. “Now calm down honey.” It’s offensive and condescending and it doesn’t work on me. And no one is hyperventiliating here.
Many people have this belief. It’s a result of the marketing I’ve referred to. But it’s all marketing hype. Feel bad for the poor tragic gays. There is no real argument behind the position. None that doesn’t apply equally well to many other situations.
Can you stick to what I’m saying and try to see the difference between what you assume of activists and what I am saying? Recall, please that I stated the following: http://xrlq.com/?comments_popup=2426#comment-16222
I do not know you at all, but if you perceive this “marketing hype” in media please understand first of all that it may or may not be the case. Perhaps the problem is that people with different struggles than your own are getting all the “attention.” It seems to really have an impact on you and it borders on obsessive in these comments. Your perception does not make something fact.
Also, please understand that as far as this “poor tragic gay” is concerned, there is nothing tragic about my life. The big tragedy is that people in the Church largely dismiss the struggles gay people go through as “just another struggle.” You don’t get it and I’m not sure I can make it any clearer to you with my limited abilities. Rather than trying to understand you would apparently rather cast gays into the same lot as pedophiles and rapists. It’s easier and it keeps the Church’s moral theology neatly wrapped up in a tight little ball. I understand. I used to think that the whole structure of moral theology stood or fell on the idea that it all had to be retained intact and undisturbed. God and His moral order are a little bigger and more profound than that, I think.
Perhaps the Church should have a look at the last few months of sermons and see how many times people with other struggles were lambasted the way gays are. It’s done with no distinction between gay marriage activists and the “poor tragic gays” sitting in the congregation. Now, if you want to talk about poor and tragic, THAT is poor and tragic! It’s a poor excuse for witnessing the Gospel and it’s a poor excuse for intellect. It’s tragic because the gay sub-culture embraces people who are “coming out” pretty readily while the representatives of Christ are often ignorant and bigoted even to those gay persons who are striving for sanctity and chastity within the teachings of the Church. (You are equally guilty of this in these comments.)
June 22nd, 2005 at 3:09 pm
Xrlq: Your claims about who has an easier or harder time adjusting are exactly the kinds of things that you get from the gay marketing. They have created this idea that there are two different and wholly distinct categories of sexual preferences, one that you are born with (like homosexuality) and one that you learn (like age, I suppose).
It isn’t that simple. There are gays who could easily learn to like the other sex and there are old farts who will never for the rest of their remaining life look at a woman over thirty. Is he less sympathetic than the other figures? More responsible for his own problem?
You might think so, but only, I think, because of prejudices that you bring to the discussion, not because anyone really understands the mechanisms of sexual attraction.
June 22nd, 2005 at 3:21 pm
Your claims about who has an easier or harder time adjusting are exactly the kinds of things that you get from the heterosexual marketing. They have created this idea that there are two different and wholly distinct categories of sexual preferences, one that you are born with (like heterosexuality) and one that you learn (like homosexuality, I suppose).
It isn’t that simple. There are straights who could easily learn to like members of the same sex and there are old farts who will never for the rest of their remaining life look at a woman over thirty. Is he less sympathetic than the other figures? More responsible for his own problem?
You might think so, but only, I think, because of prejudices that you bring to the discussion, not because anyone really understands the mechanisms of sexual attraction.
June 22nd, 2005 at 3:47 pm
Reparative: look at the paragraph following the one you quoted. That is where I say where your rhetoric has become overheated.
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Yes, I didn’t try to convince anyone that homosexuality is wrong, but I said it is wrong, or strongly implied that it is wrong. I’m not sure I get your point here, but just to be clear: I believe that homosexual sex is morally wrong. That’s why I’ve been called a homophobe before (and I’m apparently about to be called one again).
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As far as the homosexual struggle, I do get it. You think you’re special. And you’re upset that not everyone agrees that you’re special. That has been the whole point of this discussion. You think you have special trials and tribulations and others don’t.
I’ve pointed out how so many other people have struggles that are similar to yours, and instead of responding to my many innocuous examples, you cherry picked a few of the more extreme ones to say that I’m comparing you to pedophiles and rapists. (That was the “hyperventilating”, by the way.)
Your response is designed to let you dismiss my arguments without thinking about them. Still, there they are. Give me anything that you think makes your struggles special, and I will point to other classes of people who’s struggles are closely analogous.
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I’ve never thought that the whole structure of moral theology stood or fell on the idea that it all had to be retained intact and undisturbed. In fact, I don’t recall anyone ever expressing that belief to me, and doubt that it is very common.
Much more common, I suspect, is that when person A can’t convince person B to change his moral views, he uses such a claim as a way to explain how person B is being irrational. Some people just can’t stand the idea that their own beliefs aren’t so logicaly necessary that any intelligent, sane, and morally upright person would agree with them.
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Perhaps the Church would stop responding to homosexuals if homosexuals would stop initiating the arguments. Very few pastors and priests actually want to talk about gay marriage or other incidentals of the gay agenda, but when the popular culture is so aggressively pushing these things, they have a duty to respond.
When popular culture switches to defending bestiality, I’m sure they will then switch to talking about that.
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As to ignorance and bigotry: it’s always easy to say that to someone you disagree with. For ignorance: I’m willing to wager that I know at least as much about sexual temptation and struggles as you do, with most of it from first-hand knowledge.
For bigotry: it’s a bit rich to have you, the person who wants to set aside a particular class of people for special treatment, to accuse me, the one who thinks all people should be treated the same, of bigotry.
June 22nd, 2005 at 5:21 pm
This is not about making my struggles “special.” That’s what you have made it because you perceive that and so it must be so. You do not get homosexuality. If you did you would not compare it even to the “innocuous examples” you gave. (How convenient that you retreat you “innocuous examples” instead of owning the fact that you think that homosexuality and pedophilia are just part of man’s struggle. I mean we all have struggles. Perverts like you and the pedophiles are not special. See, you’re not understanding that I do not think of homosexuality as a “struggle” similar to those you have listed.
I have admitted to some degree that all people have their struggles. I made the point that you and many other Christians fail to see the struggles of homosexuals. You just dismissed that and went on and on about some sort of marketing strategy for gay acceptance because that is what you believe. I’m not arguing who has the bigger cross to carry. I have no idea how heavy someone else’s cross is. Apparently you’ve been given some insight into the fact that they all “weigh” the same.
Trust me, I know your argument. I know it through and through. I studied scripture, theology and philosophy at a very conservative Catholic university. I even stayed at a seminary for a time. I argued with gay people all the time and told them how wrong they were. I had it figured out. I know your arguments. Trust me. To be honest with you, I reject them not because they lack all value or are unworthy of debate. I reject them because I can see in your comments an irrational dismissal and borderline loathing of gay people.
You drone on about this “you think your special” thing and it is really tiresome. I have never claimed to be special. Where have I said, “I’m special?” I have claimed that my struggle is different than yours. I have claimed to be let down by the Church and most of her members. You, however, prefer to use the phrase you’re not special” because it is a way to arrogantly put some in their place, much like you used the line about “hyperventilating.” This was about reparative therapy and the methods some Christians use to achieve change in a homosexual person which is usually impossible and how ignorant and insensitive their comments to gay Church members often are.
You are the one who came back with “aw you just think you’re special. You’re not so special.” I have at least twice admitted that all people struggle and that I am not special in the fact that I struggle. However, you fail to see that struggles are different. They have their genesis and they impact different areas of our lives. Each one’s struggle is different and I do not subscribe to your -suck it up camper- theology. It’s easy for you to ignore people’s struggles if they’re all the same.
Perhaps the Church would stop responding to homosexuals if homosexuals would stop initiating the arguments. Very few pastors and priests actually want to talk about gay marriage or other incidentals of the gay agenda, but when the popular culture is so aggressively pushing these things, they have a duty to respond.
Did you really read what I wrote? Did you not see that I was mostly upset with the fact that they rail against “the gays” when they don’t realize that not all of “the gays” are the same.
Some people just can’t stand the idea that their own beliefs aren’t so logicaly necessary that any intelligent, sane, and morally upright person would agree with them.
I could say the same to you.
As to ignorance and bigotry: it’s always easy to say that to someone you disagree with. For ignorance: I’m willing to wager that I know at least as much about sexual temptation and struggles as you do, with most of it from first-hand knowledge.
I have surmised form your comments that you are ignorant of the feelings and interior struggles of homosexual persons. I maintain this position.
For bigotry: it’s a bit rich to have you, the person who wants to set aside a particular class of people for special treatment, to accuse me, the one who thinks all people should be treated the same, of bigotry.
You think that accepting homosexuality is giving one group of people special treatment because you think that homosexuality is wrong. Therefore, why should “they” get to be bad and I have to be good?
Are you really this afraid of admitting that while we all have our struggles not all struggles are the same? Sure we all fall short of being worthy of Christ, but you seriously do no think that people are different? That their struggles are different? I mean, perhaps you have experienced extreme sexual temptation and perhaps you have figured where that compulsion comes from. If this is the case I applaud your efforts. However, please do not project the discoveries you have made about yourself on to everyone else because they likely do not apply.
You did not answer why you think homosexuality is wrong. Try to remove homosexuality as an abstraction from the your perception (and apparent distaste) for homosexual people. I’d sincerely like to know why you think it is wrong.
For the sake of clarity:
1. Homosexuality is really not much of a struggle for me anymore.
2. I do not use words like homophobe.
October 25th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
[...] Camassia has a very good post on Zach, the young gay man sent by his parents against his will to a "Love in Action" camp. Even XRLQ gets on board with the "right side" on this issue. The good guys at Ex Gay Watch have more news on Love in Action here. [...]