I didn't say it was a disease. How do you know for certain that it cannot be treated? Many behaviors are treated through therapy. Why is this any different?

Because homosexuality doesn't actually hurt anyone. The only reason it would need treatment is if it were actually harming anyone. The violent-nature thing, thus, doesn't apply, because someone with a violent nature causes harm to others, while homosexuality does not. A religious belief is not a valid reason to re-educate an entire class of people.

So I can't blame God for sin because sinning is each individual's choice, but even if they don't choose to, everyone's a sinner as soon a they're born anyway? Gotcha.

homosexuality doesn't actually hurt anyone

They're hurting themselves, by getting STDs, which could then spread to others through sexual contact.

But you didn't answer my question, you said why you think that it doesn't need to be treated. I asked why it couldn't be treated. As far as the question of whether or not homosexuality is an ethical behavior or not is a completely seperate issue.

They're hurting themselves, by getting STDs, which could then spread to others through sexual contact.

I can't see how that's any different from anyone else. Are you saying that only gay people get STDs? I sure hope not...

Oh, definetly not! I'm just saying, as seamusz said earlier that homosexuals get more STDs that heterosexuals.

I didn't say it was a disease. How do you know for certain that it cannot be treated? Many behaviors are treated through therapy. Why is this any different?

The most important fact about 'reparative therapy,' also sometimes known as 'conversion' therapy, is that it is based on an understanding of homosexuality that has been rejected by all the major health and mental health professions. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Counseling Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, and the National Association of Social Workers, together representing more than 477,000 health and mental health professionals, have all taken the position that homosexuality is not a mental disorder and thus there is no need for a 'cure.' ... health and mental health professional organizations do not support efforts to change young people's sexual orientation through 'reparative therapy' and have raised serious concerns about its potential to do harm.

Some people believe that homosexuality is wrong because God says it's wrong. OK. But why does God believe it's wrong?

I guess that he realised that people can choose to be homoseual.

I certainly think that God dosen't create homosexuals - others may disagree, but commiting a homosexual act is a conscious choice.

Zoophiles are discriminated too. Why aren't they allowed to marry their favorite animals? FIGHT FOR YER LAWS!

I know I wouldn't want to get in a relationship with a "changed" gay man. The risks that he could revert are too great.

but I believe that if you really want to be straight you can be

You're seriously telling me that the whole of the medical and psychiatric communities are united in telling me that coz I was once gay it's weird that I dig women now.

Not to be snarky, but that, I guess, is the difference between you and the medical and psychiatric communities.

Even Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, the self-identified secular-humanist atheist Jew, the Columbia University psychiatrist who led the charge to remove homosexuality from the psychiatric manual in 1973, was open to the findings of science. This pro-gay activist researcher conducted a study that was published in the prestigious Archives of Sexual Behavior.4 Spitzer's study population was comprised of 200 people who reported that they had changed from homosexual to heterosexual. He found that 66% of the men and 44% of the women who had participated in therapy to change their homosexual orientation had arrived at what he called "good heterosexual functioning." Additionally, 89% of the men and 95% of the women reported that they were bothered "slightly" or "not at all" by unwanted homosexual feelings.

In Spitzer's own words, "Like most psychiatrists I thought homosexual behavior could be resisted, but sexual orientation could not be changed. I now believe that's untrue--some people can and do change."5 Spitzer concluded that the changes occurred not just in behavior, but in core features of sexual orientation as well.

More recently, Wright and Cummings6 criticize the American Psychological Association (APA) for its suppression of research data on the efficacy of treatment of homosexuality. Referring to APA, Wright and Cummings note, "They also deny the reality of data demonstrating that psychotherapy can be effective in changing sexual preferences in patients who have a desire to do so."7

4 R.L. Spitzer, "Can some gay men and lesbians change their sexual orientation? 200 participants reporting a change from homosexual to heterosexual orientation?" Archives of Sexual Behavior 32 (2003): 403-417.

5 NARTH Press Release, "Prominent Psychiatrist Announces New Study Results-Some Gays Can Change," May 9, 2001.

6 Rogers H. Wright and Nicholas A. Cummings, Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm (New York: Brunner-Routledge, 2005), xxx.

7 Rogers Wright and Nicholas Cummings along with the endorsers of this book, Robert Perloff, Arnold Lazarus, Michael Hoyt, Fred Baughman, Jack Wiggins, Robyn Dawes and David Stein represent an academy award roster of Who's Who in the American Psychological Association. They include past presidents of APA, division presidents, and world-class scientists.

Interesting article, racer_x. Where are you quoting from? At first I was very interested, and was about to suggest you add the info to Wikipedia, but upon checking out the footnotes I became pretty dubious.

While Spitzer sounds like a respectable guy, and while his study had some interesting results, it doesn't seem to my untrained and biased mind very conclusive. He did phone interviews with a very small sample of people who, if not converted from homo- to heterosexual, were very motivated to appear that way. I'm not saying this invalidates his research, but it does lessen its authority somewhat.

...Mainstream psychological associations called the study 'heavily biased', because each of the therapists supplied data only on their 'success stories'." [1] If only we could all report only our successes and none of our failures.

if only seamusz had dug up this sort of stuff in that other conversaiton of ours

Heres my honist opinion:

It's just wrong, it ain't natural, and if everyone way a 'homosexual' then we would have no kids.

Go straights and bi's!

Whats the point IJ? I don't think that having the backing of psychiatrists that sleep on their left side validate your opinions, so why should I expect you to feel the point of view of psychiatrists that sleep on their right side to validates my point of view?

Heres my honist opinion:

It's just wrong, it ain't natural, and if everyone way a 'homosexual' then we would have no kids.

Go straights and bi's!

Heres my honist opinion:

It's just wrong, it ain't natural, and if everyone way a 'homosexual' then we would have no kids.

Go straights and bi's!

*sigh* Your ignorance is showing...