OMG! The Christofascists and professional Christian crowd - who already despise the United Nations and fret about "one world government" - are going to go berserk at the news that the UN has begun considering the harmful effects of "ex-gay" therapy in the context of protecting LGBT individuals' human rights. As many blog posts here have indicated, many of the foulest anti-gay hate groups in America are busy exporting anti-gay animus and "ex-gay" batshitery to backward and ignorant nations in Africa since their snake oil isn't selling so well anymore in the developed world. Every legitimate mental health and medical association in the United States condemns "ex-gay" reparative therapy and it is time that its exportation overseas be stopped. It serves absolutely no purpose other than to oppress LGBT individuals and to keep the lie alive that one's sexual orientation is a choice. Here are excerpts from Huffington Post:
A panel of mental health experts, human rights advocates, religious leaders and a former patient gathered Thursday at the United Nations Church Center to discuss a controversial therapy that claims to "cure" gay people and make them straight. Although such practices have been around for decades, the concept has come under increased scrutiny over the last five years as lawsuits and litigation attempt to curb the "conversion therapy" and the mainstream mental health profession renounces it.
The panel is the first at the U.N. to directly address this so-called therapy, sometimes referred to as sexual orientation change efforts. Those who organized the event said they hoped it would be the first of many similar conversations, and part of a larger push from the U.N. to address gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.
Mainstream mental health organizations, from the American Psychological Association -- where a 2009 task force found the practice to be both harmful and ineffective -- to the World Health Organization, have said there is no evidence that the practice works and have concluded that it may lead to depression, anxiety and even suicide. Meanwhile, the dwindling pool of supporters, nearly all connected with religious organizations, insist that change is possible for some people, and that those people who do wish to change should not be denied the opportunity.
Those gathered at the U.N. on Thursday were careful to stress that the point of the meeting was not a debate over the effectiveness of these "conversion" practices. "The other side tries to present it as if it's a debate," Jack Drescher, a psychoanalyst and a member of the American Psychiatric Association, told the crowd. But, Drescher added, there is no longer any real debate about this therapy among mental health professionals. The debate now, he said, is not clinical, but cultural. And the harms of this practice, those on the panel all stressed, go far beyond any suffering an individual may experience in the therapy.
The panel began with a preview of an upcoming film about Uganda and the so-called "Kill The Gays" bill, a law that is currently sitting in that country's parliament and would impose harsh penalties on gay people. "The fact is that many people see that bill being born of the influence of Western evangelicals who came en masse to Uganda to spread the gospel, specifically the notion that LGBT people can change," Levovitz said as the discussion got underway Thursday.
"The idea is that gay people are somehow broken, that we need to be fixed," Wolfe said. "You can see the line of reasoning: therefore we're not entitled to equality under the law and we're not due equal respect and to be treated well," Wolfe, who described himself as a "survivor" of conversion therapy, explained.
"What we're really talking about here is creating a world and a society where sexual orientation change efforts are looked upon as as ridiculous for LGBT people as they are for a heterosexual person," said Toiko Kleppe, a representative of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. "That is also a world that human rights law is in favor of."
Reason, logic and legitimate science needs to trump religious based ignorance and bigotry. As this process advances, expect louder and more violent shrieks and opposition from those who enrich themselves and control others through the opiate called religion.
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