Anne Widdecombe is not a Tory MP.

She retired from politics almost 2 years ago.

Nor is her article “a breach of the ethical standards of journalism”, or ” an incitement to anti-gay verbal and physical attacks”.

This OP is illiberal and silly.

Will unhappy heterosexual people be helped by assisting them to become homosexual?

“an incitement to anti-gay verbal and physical attacks” – how do you make this leap?

The failed strictly dancing contestant was drawing attention to an apparently mutual arrangement between 2 consenting adults (if we take the bones her account at face value) – now a therapist faces censure for trying to ‘help’.

I am reminded of the exchange between Billy Crystal and Bob DeNiro in analyse this when the therapist Dr Sonel (Crystal) says to mobster, Paul Vitti (DeNiro) what is the aim of therapy here – to make you a happy, well adjusted gangster?

In my view this feeds into a worrying rise in a Tea Party style movement in the UK, and it is crucial our national leaders seek to defuse it.

Come off it! A worrying rise in Tea Party style movements? Where? And the idea that the Prime Minister should personally take steps to expel a party member (not an MP, not an elected representative at all, just a member) for writing rubbish in the Express is absurd.

There are over 150,000 members of the Conservative and Unionist Party. Do you expect the Prime minister to distance himself from the stupid comments of all of them or only the ones you’ve heard of?

[5] “Do you expect the Prime minister to distance himself from the stupid comments of all of them or only the ones you’ve heard of?” – perhaps he’d have to start by distancing himself from some of his own gaffs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/09/david-cameron-tourettes-ed-balls

Please don’t read more into this than I mean and flame me, but in the hypothetical scenario that a gay person did want to try to become straight, or vice versa for that matter, is there any reason they shouldn’t receive help?

I mean, Widdecome has no idea what she’s talking about – she seems to think that lesbians can’t bear children, and she posits the idea of gays wanting to be straight so they can get married, as if there’s anything stopping gay people getting married except her gang’s ongoing fight to keep homosexuals as second-class citizens. But I can imagine someone raised in a religious background feeling that it’s “wrong” for them to be gay. If they sought help, the only fair reason I can imagine for refusing it is if it’s simply not possible.

They’d be better off changing their religion, obviously, but it’s not like we can make that choice for them.

Dear Liberal Conspiracy – this sort of nonsense has to stop. Continuing with this ludicrous shrill shrieking about problems that simply don’t exist is making it impossible to take the opposition to the stuff that actually matters like welfare and health reform seriously.

Time to decide – are you a campaigning blog that is informing the debate – as you clearly can be – or are you just a poor leftie version of Private Eye?

More nonsense. Did you know that the ‘Tea’ in Tea Party stands for Taxed Enough Already and that the Tea Party is a very broad church?

Just because the majority want something doesn’t make it right. That’s what we call mob rule, and you can keep it!

Anne Widdecombe is surely entitled to her own opinions.
Why should anyone care what she says? Unless you think that her ideas are contagious and that ”weak minded” people need protecting from them.

The Daily Epxress on Wednesday gave a platform to Anne Widdecombe…

That is, of course, Express and Ann. I’m not a member of the Gestypo but, come on…

…that includes protecting them from the prejudice of Tory MPs who think they have an illness that needs cured…

An excellent claim, sir, with only two minor drawbacks. First, she’s not an MP, and secondly she didn’t say that homosexuality is “an illness that needs cured” [sic] but that homosexuals should have the right to seek “cur[ing]“.

Not only is this a breach of the ethical standards of journalism, it is an incitement to anti-gay verbal and physical attacks.

No, it wasn’t. I suspect Ms Widdecombe does have a measure of distaste for homosexuality but it isn’t expressed in that column. And, even if it was, expressing one’s distaste for a sexual inclination is not the same as encouraging people to aggressively express their distaste through insults or violence. That is, in fact, the kind of elision that’s helped to foster a culture where opinions aren’t seen as merely unpleasant but downright illegitimate – a phenomenon that’s as threatening as any weird Christian therapist.

David Cameron should show leadership by taking steps to expel Widdecombe from the Conservative Party.

If you want to call for that it’s your business, Monsieur Clark, but I’d propose that campaigning against a much-loved public figure on the basis of a column that – while disingenuous – is hardly the stuff of Victorian Britain ain’t the best way of endearing yourself and your party to the voters.

[7] Widdicome is promoting her usual god fearing agenda – a more interesting question is the (alleged) stance of the regulatory bods who seem to have taken a rather dim view of therapists offering help to those ambivalent about their sexual orientation?

“Anne Widdecombe is surely entitled to her own opinions.
Why should anyone care what she says? Unless you think that her ideas are contagious and that ”weak minded” people need protecting from them.”

This. In spades.

“it is an incitement to anti-gay verbal and physical attacks.”

Is it? How?

I mean, I can see how this would be a direct incitement to anti-gay attacks: ‘Go out and attack gay people’.

And I can see how this would be an indirect incitement to such attacks: ‘Gay people corrupt our children’.

But how does promoting the (false) idea that homosexuality a ‘curable’ condition incite violence against gays? I can see how it panders to the unpleasant idea that being straight is better than being gay; but does that really amount to an incitement to violence? (If I claimed to have invented a pill that makes you thin, I’d be pandering to the idea that being thin is better than being fat; but would that amount to inciting attacks on fat people? Surely not.)

I think the point is that Widdecombe should not be judged by our standards; but David Cameron’s. He has attacked or got rid of inconvenient people who do not have the prominence of Anne Widdecombe, for far less. The only reason he wouldn’t is blowback. She is popular with the Christian Right and it would reflect poorly after Cameron made that speech about Christian values.

@ 12 a&e

“a more interesting question is the (alleged) stance of the regulatory bods who seem to have taken a rather dim view of therapists offering help to those ambivalent about their sexual orientation?”

The “alleged” there is important, of course. The story has the feel of something that’s been mistold to garner sympathy. But it IS possible that a therapist would be unfairly treated if they offered help* to someone who requested it in these circumstances.

*As another flame-avoiding caveat “help” here means help from the patient’s perspective, not mine.

No, sorry, this just won’t do.

Leaving aside the factual inaccuracies in the piece, The Express (a word which can also be used to describe the squeezing of pus from a boil – and I do apologise for that image – which sums up that paper’s content and attitude pretty well) is entitled to commission pieces from whomsoever it pleases, and Deadly Doris is entitled to take up the offer.

If that means that the wretch is exposed to the constant peril of making herself look cloddish, then that might be seen as an added bonus for those of us who believe that her views are so ding-dong that Quasimodo might be observed swinging from them.

Bryan Potter @5:

“There are over 150,000 members of the Conservative and Unionist Party. Do you expect the Prime minister to distance himself from the stupid comments of all of them or only the ones you’ve heard of?”

If it keeps his mind off shafting the poor, the disabled and the unemployed, I would warmly recommend it. I suspect it wouldn’t however; the twerp enjoys that too much.

Shrugged @9:

(Is that ‘Shrugged’ as in ‘Atlas’, btw? I suspect it is)

“[t]he Tea Party is a very broad church”

Yes, so broad it goes from the Church Of Pat Robertson all the way across to the Church Of Fred Phelps.

I do wonder, though, why St Anne of Maidstone is content to take money from a pornographer…

As a socialist I have no plans to call on David Cameron to do anything (except perhaps resign). As far as I’m concerned, anything that helps Cameron’s image and credibility is bad for the workers.

Besides, this sounds an awful lot like “Ed Miliband must condemn Diane Abbott”, the battle cry of fake left-wingers everywhere.

@ 9

“Did you know that the ‘Tea’ in Tea Party stands for Taxed Enough Already”

Really? I thought it stood for a dried plant product often used as an aromatic beverage, large quantities of which were thrown into Boston harbour by people that the current Tea Party think they’re emulating.

Please don’t read more into this than I mean and flame me, but in the hypothetical scenario that a gay person did want to try to become straight, or vice versa for that matter, is there any reason they shouldn’t receive help?

Depends on your stance on quackery really. Just to be absolutely clear, ‘ex-gays’ identify their sexuality as ex-gay, and not as straight, which should give you a good idea of just how successful the ‘treatments’ and ‘courses’ are. (Most just go on to be unhappy celibates, which is really more of a change in their active sex life rather than their psychological health or sexuality)

There is a discussion worth having over the conflict that can arise between religion and sexuality in the instances that an individual’s religion trumps their sexuality, ie should they remain in the closet and follow the path laid out by their religion, or abandon their religion and be true to their sexuality, and which path would make them a happier and more stable person in the long run, but once you are already out of the closet there’s really no way of putting the genie back in the bottle. Still, at least if you try, you get to travel with Scott Lively to Uganda to convince everyone what a menace to society gay people are…

“Whatever your personal or religious views of homosexuality, we live in a democratic state where the majority are overwhelmingly supportive of protecting gay rights,”

So people ought to be forbidden from expressing unpopular opinions? Yes, very democratic of you.

Also, what’s all this rubbish about “a message of inclusiveness & tolerance not one more suited to Victorian Britain”? Either tolerance and inclusiveness are good things, or they aren’t; whether or not the Victorians supported them has no bearing on their value.

[21] “Depends on your stance on quackery really” – well in some respects this is a wider issue for therapy given that there is little evidence to demonstrate that any of it works – in fact the likes of Jeffrey Masson were so concerned about dubious practices that he wrote about it (Against therapy).

The claim for ‘cure’ comes from the article – maybe the therapist would have framed the therapeutic goals in some what different terms?

Chaise @ 20:

“Did you know that the ‘Tea’ in Tea Party stands for Taxed Enough Already”

Really? I thought it stood for a dried plant product often used as an aromatic beverage, large quantities of which were thrown into Boston harbour by people that the current Tea Party think they’re emulating.

I think it’s a bit of both, actually: the “Tea” stands for “Taxed Enough Already”, but they chose that name specifically because the acronym would recall the Boston Tea Party.

@Almost all above: Thank you for bringing liberalism back to Liberal Conspiracy.

The OP, Eoin Clarke, quotes Ann Widdecombe: “A man who wants to be a woman will receive not only the necessary operations but also a huge amount of psychological support and counselling.”

And there are very sound reasons why men and women identifying with a gender identity crisis are required to seek psychological counselling* before the NHS will perform surgery. After or as part of counselling, there is normally a requirement for a lifestyle test — living as the identified sex whilst pre-op. Counselling is provided to help individuals to understand their gender identity crisis, not to “cure” them.

Ann Widdecombe’s “crime” (that “he can be helped to become heterosexual”) is insensitivity and it is possibly a malady that can be corrected. I can even see why people who have explored their sexuality previously might wish to talk with a psychologist or relationship counsellor before getting married. Not to “cure” themselves but to understand.

* It is clinical, so it is probably psychiatric analysis as well.

@8. Thomas Hobbes: “Time to decide – are you a campaigning blog that is informing the debate – as you clearly can be – or are you just a poor leftie version of Private Eye?”

But, Hobbes, what is Private Eye? PE does not have a political position other than being liberal in the broadest fashion. Paul Foot, a Trot, delivered his most eloquent arguments and thoughts in PE, a journal that tears strips out of Trots.

What do you get inside PE? Firstly, PE has almost zero web presence: to read the gossip, buy the magazine. The magazine contains social gossip, political/business gossip, cartoons and satire, all mixed in; the cartoons may mean more than you think.

LibCon is about as far away from PE as you can get. The cartoons are exceptionally bad here. The only parallel with PE is when LC picks up on a political story with interesting angles that have been ignored by mainstream journalists. There is no wish to emulate PE, and Sunny has publicly discussed what readers and contributors wish LC to be.

This web editor delivers almost limitless lines, so I will discuss Paul Staines. Paul Staines is about as far away from PE as you can get.

Yet the unhappy paedophile should be denied any chance whatever to investigate any possibility of seeing if he/she can be helped to become sexually normal.

Discuss.

@27. pagar: “Yet the unhappy paedophile should be denied any chance whatever to investigate any possibility of seeing if he/she can be helped to become sexually normal.”

My starting position (acknowledging that there are other starting positions) is that adult sexual activity with children is wrong. Adults who wish to act sexually with kids require help — not a voluntary option. Can you cure an individual of paedophilia or can you moderate impulse?

@27

Yet the unhappy paedophile should be denied any chance whatever to investigate any possibility of seeing if he/she can be helped to become sexually normal.

It has been investigated, there are ‘good’ pedophiles who recognize and seek psychiatric help regarding their attraction toward children, before temptation gets the better of them. They cannot be cured of their desire. They can only manage it to ensure they do not rape a child.

@ 27

They cannot be cured of their desire. They can only manage it to ensure they do not rape a child.

Yes, I agree.

I am no expert in this area but I strongly suspect that any attempt to change the fundamental sexual drive of an individual is futile. The best we can hope for, from the paedophile, is that they choose abstinence.

But if, for whatever reason, a homosexual is unhappy with their sexuality, as postulated in the OP, is it unacceptable for them to seek help to try to change it?

That is what is being said here.

30. pagar

I am no expert in this area but I strongly suspect that any attempt to change the fundamental sexual drive of an individual is futile. The best we can hope for, from the paedophile, is that they choose abstinence.

Michael Portillo. Isn’t Chris Huhne’s wife a former lesbian? There is ample evidence that people move back and forth in their sexual identity. Or at least their sexual behaviour. The Gay lobby can claim someone was always “really” Gay and can deny that anyone can become non-Gay, but it is an absurd position.

If paedophiles are a different case it is presumably because their preferences are so offensive to most people that they must have fought and fought and lost. We only see the extreme cases. Presumably a lot of people have moderate urges but they do no express or act on them – look how popular girls dressed as school girls were until fairly recently.

But if, for whatever reason, a homosexual is unhappy with their sexuality, as postulated in the OP, is it unacceptable for them to seek help to try to change it?

That is what is being said here.

The British Establishment seems to think so given they have just struck off a doctor for offering to try.

14. G.O.

And I can see how this would be an indirect incitement to such attacks: ‘Gay people corrupt our children’.

I see. So every time Jim or Sally smears the Right that is an indirect incitement to hate crimes against little old women with blue rinses?

But how does promoting the (false) idea that homosexuality a ‘curable’ condition incite violence against gays?

Sorry but what makes you think it is false? The fact that a ton of political pressure is put on people who attempt such cures suggests strongly that they are afraid it might work. It may not be politically correct, but it was not science that said there was nothing wrong with homosexuality or it was not a disease. Gay activists physically disrupted and threatened bodies like the American Psychiatric Association until they removed it from their list of diseases.

I can see how it panders to the unpleasant idea that being straight is better than being gay

Why is that unpleasant? Surely that is an observable fact?

Mason Dixon, Autistic

I think the point is that Widdecombe should not be judged by our standards; but David Cameron’s. He has attacked or got rid of inconvenient people who do not have the prominence of Anne Widdecombe, for far less. The only reason he wouldn’t is blowback. She is popular with the Christian Right and it would reflect poorly after Cameron made that speech about Christian values.

Sorry but got rid of her in what sense? She is retired. You want Cameron to send some lads around to make sure she is sleeping with the fishes? Which she probably has some sort of moral objection to.

Chaise Guevara

The “alleged” there is important, of course. The story has the feel of something that’s been mistold to garner sympathy. But it IS possible that a therapist would be unfairly treated if they offered help* to someone who requested it in these circumstances.

It is not alleged. They have just struck off a therapist who offered to help someone deal with urges they were unhappy about – but of course he was a Gay activist who was recording it all. It is not nice how the modern world rewards nasty little snitches.

What else do you expect? The modern world is vastly less tolerant than it used to be. It follows that the Left will not tolerate someone who holds heretical views on an issue dear to their heart.

Sorry, a misphrasing on my part in the previous post – when I said “that was an observable fact” I did not mean to imply a conclusion. What I mean is that the question is open to study. We can test whether most Gay people are happier than most heterosexual people or not. We can test whether most heterosexual people have more fulfilling lives than most Gay people.

In that sense we can observe outcomes and come to a conclusion.

21. Cylux

Just to be absolutely clear, ‘ex-gays’ identify their sexuality as ex-gay, and not as straight, which should give you a good idea of just how successful the ‘treatments’ and ‘courses’ are. (Most just go on to be unhappy celibates, which is really more of a change in their active sex life rather than their psychological health or sexuality)

Really? And how do you get to speak for all ex-Gays? What is it about you that means you know what most ex-Gays think and feel? The world is full of people who have had some sort of homosexual experience. Kinsey suggested as many as a third. I see no evidence the majority of them identify as ex-Gay or as any thing other than robustly heterosexual. Ask Michael Portillo. Nothing Evelyn Waugh wrote ever suggested to me that he identified as an ex-Gay.

Most people who have had a homosexual experience seem to move effortlessly into heterosexuality without any problems at all.

Which is not surprising if you consider Kinsey’s claim that people lie on a normal distribution. Some people may never have a homosexual thought in their lives. Down the other end of the curve, some people may never think about women at all. Although many Gay people in my experience have managed sex with women in the past. But most people lie in the middle.

There is a discussion worth having over the conflict that can arise between religion and sexuality in the instances that an individual’s religion trumps their sexuality, ie should they remain in the closet and follow the path laid out by their religion, or abandon their religion and be true to their sexuality, and which path would make them a happier and more stable person in the long run, but once you are already out of the closet there’s really no way of putting the genie back in the bottle.

I love the way you phrase this. It is not that their religion trumps their sexuality in the vast majority of cases. People are more fluid than this. For someone who lies in the middle of the Bell curve, to avoid having sex with men is not denying their “true” sexuality. It is limiting themselves to only some of the options available to them. Nor is there the slightest reason to think that the path of accepting their attraction to men would make them happier or more stable. That is especially true of Transsexuals who have a terrible failure rate despite the best efforts made for them. You merely think it is. Presumably for ideological reasons.

I find myself in the odd position of agreeing with a significant portion of so much for subtlety’s commnets…

“Michael Portillo. Isn’t Chris Huhne’s wife a former lesbian? There is ample evidence that people move back and forth in their sexual identity. Or at least their sexual behaviour. The Gay lobby can claim someone was always “really” Gay and can deny that anyone can become non-Gay, but it is an absurd position.”

I agree with this statement. A person’s sexuality has a degree of fluidity, which can vary from individual to individual – or at least the expression of a person’s sexuality is fluid. I think rather it is the labels we use to define sexuality that are rigid.

So is it possible to alter someone’s sexuality? Probably not very successfully through therapy, which is the BACP’s position, but this is not what the Pilkington case is about.

The Pilkington case is NOT about offering therapy to realign sexuality, nor about people seeking therapy about their sexuality.

It is about what Pilkington said to the client during the first therapy session. Unfortunately BACP do not seem to have published the decision from this case, however I understand that one issue was that Pilkington stated that homosexuality was an illness that can be cured.

Now that is unethical.

Firstly the statement is untrue. Homosexuality is neither an illness nor is there good evidence to suggest that it can be altered. Ethically I would suggest that pilkington would fail on two BACP ethical principles – non-maleficence (do no harm) – telling a client they were ill could be harmful, and justice – she certainly is not promoting equality with that statement.

The point is that therapists should be aware of their own prejudices and take steps to minimise the potential for harm to clients. Therapists being human experience prejudice, and one of the steps that they may take is not to work with the group they feel uncomfortable with.

There is a further issue about the case, which is being conflated by Widdecombe and others. Firstly Pilkington hasn’t been struck off, she is expected to undertake training/personal development, which if she does not complete may lead to her membership with the BACP being cancelled. This does not in anyway prevent her from continuing to practice.

“Which is not surprising if you consider Kinsey’s claim that people lie on a normal distribution. Some people may never have a homosexual thought in their lives. Down the other end of the curve, some people may never think about women at all.”

Not quite. There is a distribution, yes, but it’s not a normal one (in the strict statistical sense, I’m not talking about hetero being normal and not-hetero not).

It’s a hugely skewed distribution: depending upon who you believe some 1-3 % of the population are gay/lesbian (exclusively so that is) and up to 10% is claimed by certain activists ( usually trying to include everyone who has ever had more same sex tryouts than an adolescent fumble).

We seem to be majority exclusively hetero though, which is why we’ve a skewed distribution.

Now, if someone wants to say that Teh Gay is either a disease or is curable then they’re wrong. However, there’s that rather larger group (if we believe the activists, that difference between the 1-3% and the 10%) where sexual behaviour (and note, behaviour, not attraction) is rather more malleable.

Now if someone in that group were to ask a therapist, or in fact anyone else, for aid in managing that malleability that seems like a reasonable enough thing to be provided. Could be all sorts of reasons why they might ask too: don’t want to upset mother, some religious reasons, possibly even that their moral education has left them thinking that same sex sex is wrong.

And no, it doesn’t matter what you think of any of these reasons: it is sufficient that the individual think this way and desires help. Such moral and ethical questions are intensely personal after all.

Or to put it another way: we very definitely have sex therapy where men who are tempted to root anything that passes by are aided in attempting to control this aspect of their personality. You know, encouraged to think seriously about monogamy for example. There’s therapy out there attempting to raise the self-esteem of certain women whose lack of it leads to serial relationships with abusive men.

We do already have sex therapy, we do already agree that sexual behaviour is to some extent malleable. And we do all already agree that those who are unhappy with their current situation should be aided in either adjusting to it or adjusting it.

That such therapy isn’t going to be of any use to any at the extremes of the distribution doesn’t mean that it should not be available for those to whom it might be of use.

[35] Ethically I would suggest that pilkington would fail on two BACP ethical principles – non-maleficence (do no harm) – then the regulators are likely to fall at the first hurdle.

It is often said that therapy can be dangerous, and should even carry a health warning since it usually involves digging around stuff clients have spent a lifetime trying to shut out – it is a peculiar myth amongst therapists that such journeys are universally good – they may be, but not always, and there is certainly no guarantee that any therapist can be sure at the outset which camp the client will fall into (unless they have a particularly reliable crystal ball).

@ Tim W

That is very well put and the difference between the sexual instinct, or impulse, and what we do about it is a crucial one.

You rightly point out that there are a number of people who are attracted, in some degree, to both sexes and that where the homosexual impulse is in conflict with other personal or religious beliefs this can make them unhappy. In these circumstances they may, reasonably, seek help in order to moderate or eliminate their homosexual behaviour.

Of course the homosexual lobby will argue that they are only unhappy about their sexuality because of the background homophobia in society and it is this that needs to be “cured”. However that is becoming an increasingly difficult position to justify as society becomes increasingly tolerant .

Indeed, there are many people who have conflicts related to the unwanted or irrational nature of their sexual impulse headed, as I alluded to above, by the paedophile. All such people are surely entitled to seek help to live as they want to.

35. Mark Redwood

I find myself in the odd position of agreeing with a significant portion of so much for subtlety’s commnets…

Careful, it may be habit forming.

The Pilkington case is NOT about offering therapy to realign sexuality, nor about people seeking therapy about their sexuality.

You mean they will pick their publicly stated grounds very carefully. But in fact we know what this is about. And it is about realigning sexuality.

however I understand that one issue was that Pilkington stated that homosexuality was an illness that can be cured.

Firstly the statement is untrue. Homosexuality is neither an illness nor is there good evidence to suggest that it can be altered.

There is no scientific grounds for claiming homosexuality is not an illness. It was the mainstream opinion in the medical profession until political pressure made them stop. There may also be no scientific grounds for claiming it is an illness, but that is neither here nor there. Someone is not punished for saying they don’t think ADHD is not an illness or that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is. They will be punished though for Thought Crimes when it comes to the politically powerful.

Ethically I would suggest that pilkington would fail on two BACP ethical principles – non-maleficence (do no harm) – telling a client they were ill could be harmful, and justice – she certainly is not promoting equality with that statement.

Could be harmful? Not actually doing any harm was she? That depends on what you think equality means. Telling paranoid people they are ill will certainly make them feel less equal to others. Again if this was ADHD we would not be having this discussion.

The point is that therapists should be aware of their own prejudices and take steps to minimise the potential for harm to clients. Therapists being human experience prejudice, and one of the steps that they may take is not to work with the group they feel uncomfortable with.

Again you presuppose an end. That curing someone, or attempting to cure them, is a harm. They may not think so. It may not be so. What is more you assume that the therapist feels uncomfortable around Gays. Both are statements of prejudice.

There is a further issue about the case, which is being conflated by Widdecombe and others. Firstly Pilkington hasn’t been struck off, she is expected to undertake training/personal development, which if she does not complete may lead to her membership with the BACP being cancelled. This does not in anyway prevent her from continuing to practice.

So she is being sent off for re-education and if she reforms her thinking and promises to be a good girl, she won’t have her livelihood destroyed. Yes, very modern. No doubt she will come to love Big Brother.

36. Tim Worstallt

Now, if someone wants to say that Teh Gay is either a disease or is curable then they’re wrong. However, there’s that rather larger group (if we believe the activists, that difference between the 1-3% and the 10%) where sexual behaviour (and note, behaviour, not attraction) is rather more malleable.

Sorry but what? If someone wants to say being homosexual is either a disease or curable they are not wrong. They are making statements which we cannot resolve to everyone’s satisfaction. Being gay may well be a disease. We do not know enough about the causation yet. It may also be curable. The fact that some people work so hard to prevent any cure being offered or researched does suggest they tend to think it is curable. But if we banned all therapy for, say, cancer (and no, I am not comparing the two) and prohibited all research into cures, then we could say that as things stand now cancer is not curable. But it would not be true in the wider sense that cancer is not curable.

And no, it doesn’t matter what you think of any of these reasons: it is sufficient that the individual think this way and desires help. Such moral and ethical questions are intensely personal after all.

Alas, it may be sufficient for you, but it is no longer sufficient for either homosexual activists – and let’s remember once more with fondness Peter Tatchell and his role in the bullying and violence that has led to this – or for the government that listens more to them than to normal people. So that someone can face being struck off for a purely consentual act between two adults in private – therapy in this case.

Or to put it another way: we very definitely have sex therapy where men who are tempted to root anything that passes by are aided in attempting to control this aspect of their personality.

Really? Do we? I thought we had silly Hollywood stars and shysters who make money out of their self-dramatics.

@34

Really? And how do you get to speak for all ex-Gays? What is it about you that means you know what most ex-Gays think and feel? The world is full of people who have had some sort of homosexual experience.

Let me just stop you there, these are the Ex-Gays over here and here. Quite why you decided to go off on one discussing experimenting in your teenage years, sexual fluidity, the Kinsey scale and bisexuals, I’ve no idea. Plus Evelyn Waugh missed the ex-gay boat what with him dying in 1966, so I don’t see the relevance in bringing him up.

Back to serious posters, @30

But if, for whatever reason, a homosexual is unhappy with their sexuality, as postulated in the OP, is it unacceptable for them to seek help to try to change it?

That is what is being said here.

To be fair you’re confusing two issues here one being personal freedom, the other being professional standards. It IS acceptable for an individual for whatever reason to want to change their sexuality and even to seek help to try and achieve that.
The problem is that BACP has certain guidelines that those wishing to be in it’s membership have to adhere to, a case of ‘if you no likea the rules, you no playa the game’, which would be broken by passing the individual along to snake oil peddlers. There’s a known concept called internalized homophobia which is very likely to be the main driver behind those seeking to become straight or ex-gay, and a psychologist would be remiss in their responsibilities by not exploring if this is in fact the cause of the patients unhappiness prior to any other action.

I see a lot of Tories defending Anne. Pity really.

@ 21 Cylux

“Depends on your stance on quackery really. Just to be absolutely clear, ‘ex-gays’ identify their sexuality as ex-gay, and not as straight, which should give you a good idea of just how successful the ‘treatments’ and ‘courses’ are.”

Well, I assume that someone of any sexuality can choose celibacy, and that counselling would help in doing that, so it’s not really quackery.

Also, while I agree that the evidence points to sexualities being unchangeable, if that turned out to be wrong, I suspect there would be a lot of people who would deny the data because they found it to be offensive. So if someone says that sexuality can’t change, I’m never sure if they’re basing that on science, or if it’s an automatic reaction along the lines of “how dare you suggest that being homosexuality can be cured?”

Of course, the bigotry isn’t in discussing whether sexuality is changeable: that’s a scientific question. The bigotry is in acting as if gayness is something that needs to be “cured” in the first place.

@ 32 SMFS

“It is not alleged. They have just struck off a therapist who offered to help someone deal with urges they were unhappy about – but of course he was a Gay activist who was recording it all. It is not nice how the modern world rewards nasty little snitches.”

I agree that that’s how the story reads – but do you have a source that shows it’s accurate?

“What else do you expect? The modern world is vastly less tolerant than it used to be. It follows that the Left will not tolerate someone who holds heretical views on an issue dear to their heart.”

I think the world, or at least our little part of it, is more tolerant than it used to be. Gay people aren’t treated as monsters. It’s acceptable to have a non-Christian religion, or no religion at all. And so on.

[40] “Being gay may well be a disease” (presumably you are referring to a mental, or perhaps neurological disease?) – can you get anybody, other than Daily Heil readers, or Anne Widdicombe, to support such an assertion?

I thought the people who actually know stuff about diseases (doctors) rubbished this myth a long time ago (removed fro DSM in 1973).

SMFS @39.

I like you argument style – or rather lack of it. Bold statements do not an argument make.

“There is no scientific grounds for claiming homosexuality is not an illness.”

This statement is a) false, and b) irrelevant even if true. –

(with the power of google you too could falsify it within 30 secs – hows about http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_mental_health.html. There is even a bit of history in there too, which putss a slightly different slant than your emphasis that it was just political pressure.)

SMFS, you seem also incapable of understanding the application of ethics. Ethics is not about outcomes, it has been and always will be about actions. Why? because outcomes are uncertain. Sometimes bad outcomes occur even when you make good decisions.

To tell someone within a therapeutic relationship that a core part of their being is an illness has the potential to do serious harm, and is therefore unethical whether it does so or not.

“So she is being sent off for re-education and if she reforms her thinking and promises to be a good girl, she won’t have her livelihood destroyed. Yes, very modern. No doubt she will come to love Big Brother.”

She isn’t being sent anywhere. And again you are suffering from Widdecombe-like delusions about the power and influence of the BACP.

The most serious action that the BACP can take is to cancel Pilkington’s membership. That is their ultimate action. This does not stop Pilkington from continuing to practice, so cut the ludicrous melodrama, about destroying livelihoods.

When Pilkington joined the BACP, she would have been aware of their ethical guidelines. The BACP are also extremely clear about how they deal with complaints. The BACP also make it clear that therapists should keep abreast of recent developments. Homosexuallity was declassified as a mental illness in 1974. How long do you think it should take Pilkington to catch up?

The bottom line…

If she disagreed with their ethical stance she shouldn’t have joined.

It is not nice how the modern world rewards nasty little snitches.

I’d be remiss in not linking this newsthump article: http://newsthump.com/2012/01/30/liverpool-fans-gather-outside-court-to-boo-assault-victims/

Mark Redwood @46

‘To tell someone within a therapeutic relationship that a core part of their being is an illness has the potential to do serious harm, and is therefore unethical whether it does so or not.’

You’ve said a couple of times that Pilkington said that ‘homosexuality was an illness that can be cured’ as part of the counselling session. There’s no reference to this in the original Express article and no-one (including Dr Clarke) has cited any proof.

Do you have proof?

Well, I assume that someone of any sexuality can choose celibacy, and that counselling would help in doing that, so it’s not really quackery.

That isn’t what is being sold though, ex gay programs do not make the claim to help people stay celibate, they claim to make people not-gay. Do you think it’s okay for chiropractors to advertise that they can cure cancer by spinal manipulation? It’s a similar situation.

[49] “Do you think it’s okay for chiropractors to advertise that they can cure cancer by spinal manipulation? It’s a similar situation” – yes, and no.

Psychiatrists cannot ‘cure’ schizophrenia, in fact they can’t cure anything (not least because the basis of virtually all psychiatric illnesses remains unproven).

Some say over reliance on psychiatric drugs IS a kind of quackery and certainly that conditions such as ‘drapetomania’ epitomise the cultural rather than biological aspects of ‘disease’ classification.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj7GmeSAxXo

[51] just to add, both the scientific basis or use of evidence for what goes on in the therapist’s consulting room is rather thin on the ground – certainly, early pioneers such as Freud developed all sorts of crazy ideas.

Remember the case of Emma Ekstein?
Freud diagnosed “nasal reflex neurosis” and sent EE to an ENT surgeon who immediately operated on her (nasal cautery) – the procedure did not go well.
According to wiki, “She suffered from terrible infections for some time, and profuse bleeding. Freud called in a specialist, his old school friend, Dr Ignaz Rosanes who removed a mass of surgical gauze that Fliess had not removed. Eckstein’s nasal passages were so damaged that she was left permanently disfigured. Freud initially attributed this damage to the surgery, but later, as an attempt to reassure his friend that he shouldn’t blame himself, Freud reiterated his belief that the initial nasal symptoms had been due to hysteria”.

40
There have been many attempts to ‘cure’ homosexuality, some religious therapies focus on celibacy, however, ECT was used extensively as an aversion therapy in the 50s and early 60s.
The thing is, views about homosexuality are culturally relative, in the past being left-handed was thought to be a ‘disability’.
But I am rather curious about your position on this subject considering you are normally critical of labelling ‘behaviours’ as an illness. Perhaps you feel that we should redirect funds from treating schizophrenia, depression and bi-polar to convincing people that their choice of sexual partner is, in fact, a disease..

@ 29 Cylux

“That isn’t what is being sold though, ex gay programs do not make the claim to help people stay celibate, they claim to make people not-gay. ”

We’re at cross-purposes. I’m talking about this specific sting on Pilkington, not anti-gay programs. And no, I don’t think they should make claims they can’t back.

Eoin (and Sunny for publishing)

This article is an embarrassment to LC. As a gay man, I don’t feel the need to unpick your completely flawed article. Plenty of people have done that already.

However, it does help me understand, Eoin, how your various political ventures have thus far failed. Goodness only knows how you secured your doctorate.

54 ovaljason

Thank you. Your comment is like a breath of fresh air in this incredibly turgid debate.

Eoin,

If a homosexual is unhappy in that state and wishes to seek help to see if s/he can find a way of living that s/he is more comfortable with, s/he has every right to do so.

If a heterosexual is unhappy in that state and wishes to seek help to see if s/he can find a way of living that s/he is more comfortable with, s/he has every right to do so.

Your suggestion in effect is that the second of these is acceptable but the first is not. So it is you who are guilty of discrimination, actually.

To all those on here who have mentioned paedophiles, I really don’t think the situation is at all comparable. Homosexual relationships between consenting adults are completely legal and hurt no-one. Paedophilic relationships are by definition non-consensual, abusive and criminal. The effectiveness of therapeutic intervention to try to enable paedophiles to live in the community without endangering young people is disputed.

I have worked closely with someone who has been convicted of a minor sexual offence against a minor. He was – and is – desperately unhappy about his attraction to young teenage boys and voluntarily sought therapeutic help so that he could develop better relationships with people his own age. Really he was hoping for a “cure”….but the reality is that he IS attracted to young boys and has to learn to live without acting out that attraction – and among other things that has meant that he has had to come to terms with the fact that he is actually gay, about which he was in denial. Much hangs on his own determination not to repeat the behaviour, and that in turn depends on him developing sound adult relationships….. Psychologically this is probably similar to someone with a chronic medical condition that is not curable but is manageable with drugs and therapy. It is similar to Widdecombe’s “unhappy homosexual” scenario in so far as behaviour can be changed with therapeutic support, but inclination cannot. But the reason for doing so is very different, and it really isn’t fair to unhappy homosexuals (if they exist) to lump them in with paedophiles.

Max @48

“You’ve said a couple of times that Pilkington said that ‘homosexuality was an illness that can be cured’ as part of the counselling session. There’s no reference to this in the original Express article and no-one (including Dr Clarke) has cited any proof.

Do you have proof?”

Can’t find the original independent article. however there is a guardian article by Strudwick from May 2011, from which the following are quotes…

“Was homosexuality a mental illness, an addiction or an anti-religious phenomenon? “It’s all of that,” said Pilkington.” [paraphrase of session dialogue between strudwick and pilkington]

A quote from the hearing

Was it, the panel asked, her belief that homosexuality was wrong, sinful or unnatural? “Oh yes,” she replied. “There’s no question about that . . . but there’s a way out.”

[56] “Your suggestion in effect is that the second of these is acceptable but the first is not. So it is you who are guilty of discrimination, actually” – while I agree that consenting, capacitated adults should be free to set their own existential agenda in therapy, we cannot dismiss the fact that antipathy toward homosexuality, especially amongst the god fearin’ may be an important contributory factor toward how somebody feels about themselves (and thus how therapeutic problems might be framed).

Lets imagine a gay man is unlucky enough to be brought up in an environment were family, friends and then school and church reinforce negative messages about homosexuality – such messages may hold great significance, especially if they are heard when you are young enough – hell, even unspoken stuff can have a huge effect as well?

Such negativity, based purely on sexual orientation is aimed at one group and not the other, so like for like comparisons are never going to be straight forward?

56
There are so many people out there who want to change who they are, such as winning friends and gaining influence, even having a photographic memory. I’ve even seen claims in books that the author can make you a millionaire in six months.
This is fine if you want to finance your life-changing experiences, but not if it involves being financed by the public purse. Now you might believe that I am being discriminatory by suggesting that there are certain areas of life which should remain the individual’s responsibility, but, so many people are unhappy about certain aspects of their personality, phsysical appearance or social position. If they want to address any of those areas, they should be free to do so, but at their own expense.

59 the a&e charge nurse

I would suggest that being brought up in such an environment would be likely to encourage someone to deny their homosexual orientation, actually – as was the case with the person I described in my second comment. I would expect that therapeutic intervention with such people would be framed around helping them to embrace their orientation rather than try to change it. For that reason I don’t agree with your baseline scenario.

I work in a sector of performing arts where arguably (for men, at least) homosexuality is the norm. Would you agree that in that environment there might equally be pressure to conform, and that therefore therapeutic support to help people maintain a heterosexual orientation might be a good thing?

I am also concerned about your implicit criticism of non-directional counselling and psychotherapy. No decent therapist should be framing intervention on the basis of such external influences and beliefs. But in the end it is an individual choice – and if a person decides to adopt a lifestyle which is at odds with their natural sexual orientation, surely they have the right to do so?

@ Francis

It is similar to Widdecombe’s “unhappy homosexual” scenario in so far as behaviour can be changed with therapeutic support, but inclination cannot. But the reason for doing so is very different, and it really isn’t fair to unhappy homosexuals (if they exist) to lump them in with paedophiles.

You are quite correct that paedophiles should have our sympathy because they have no legitimate means of ever expressing their sexuality. So it must be suppressed and they should be helped to do it. Of course if they prey on children they should be utterly reviled.

In the same way, someone with homosexual inclinations who is uncomfortable, for whatever reason, with expressing them should be helped, if that is what they want. The entrapment and isolation of a therapist who offers that help is not a good thing.

[61] “For that reason I don’t agree with your baseline scenario” – my baseline scenario is simply that one group face a set of problems that the other doesn’t, based on a prejudice that is worldwide and perpetuated by a variety of institutions.

Don’t forget homosexuality is criminalised in many countries and was only decriminalised here less than 50 years ago – while of course until 1973 psychiatrists even regarded it as a form of mental illness – straight people probably have very little insight into the cultural aftermath of these negative stereotypes (hence the difficulty of comparing people with different orientations).

I have already said that what consenting, capacitated adults do in the privacy of a consulting room is entirely a matter for them, while the role of therapy is now so all encompassing, and schools of thought so diverse (behavioural, humanistic, systemic, psycho-analytic, cognitive, structural, etc, etc) that ‘therapy’ can virtually mean anything you want it to.

Stuff like “Manufacturing Victims” makes for an interesting read – according to Dineen “There are two things that everyone should know about psychotherapy. The first is that almost every study ever done has shown that it is no more effective than a placebo, or even no treatment at all. The second is that most people who have had therapy feel that it has benefited them in some way”.
http://tanadineen.com/MEDIA/Guardian.htm

Oops, meant [62]

64 the a&e charge nurse

Crikey. I’m appalled by what you’ve just written. It amounts to an attempt to destroy the credibility of the entire counselling & therapy industry in one post. BACP should have right of reply.

No-one is suggesting that people of different sexual orientations should be “compared”. That is frankly ridiculous. And to suggest that people may be helped to change their lifestyle towards one sexual orientation but not towards the other is discriminatory.

I note that you don’t address my point about pressure to conform to gay norms in some sectors of the performing arts. Perhaps you don’t think that it matters. Nor have you addressed my point that the effect of social and religious pressure on gay people has historically been to encourage them to deny their sexuality in the first place, not to acknowledge it and then try to change it as you suggest.

In the end, people have the right to make whatever choices they wish to make, and if that includes repressing their natural sexual orientation because of religious beliefs or social pressures that is THEIR DECISION. No-one has the right to interfere with that or to deny them the help they need to support that decision. The only question is whether the state should pay for it, and on that I have some sympathy for those on here who have suggested that the state should not pay for voluntary therapy to support such lifestyle choices. But if the state does pay, then it should pay for ALL of it. The idea – implicit in this post – that the state should pay to help people adopt gay lifestyles but not to help them adopt straight lifestyles if that is their choice is disgraceful.

The idea – implicit in this post – that the state should pay to help people adopt gay lifestyles but not to help them adopt straight lifestyles if that is their choice is disgraceful.

I don’t suppose you could point out where in the op this occurs could you?

Cylux

I did say “implicit”…..but to be fair this debate has extended so far from the original post that I was confusing it with things said in the comments!

Mark Redwood @59

I think the report of the hearing is the important one here – do you have a link to the BACP judgement or a verbatim report of the hearing?

[66] “I’m appalled by what you’ve just written. It amounts to an attempt to destroy the credibility of the entire counselling & therapy industry in one post”.

‘Appalled’ ? – what have I said that is so appalling, and has not already been said by many others about the efficacy, indeed the pitfalls of therapy – from the very outset Freud demonstrated that it was not only the client who was susceptible to some very odd ideas indeed.

Let me turn the question round – what evidence is there that therapy works, by that I mean which study best demonstrates that there are tangible benefits, and that these benefits can be quantified in some way? – I would have thought that this was a perfectly reasonable question given that a rational and scientific basis should underpin ANY activity that aspires to have professional credibility?

I find your question about ‘straights’ being in need of therapy because of a higher than average % of work mates being gay difficult to answer – maybe I have misunderstood you? – would anybody need recourse to therapy because colleagues were either gay/straight, black/white, male/female, etc – anyway, at the risk of repeating myself if somebody wants to go to a therapist to talk about it then that is a matter entirely for them ……. for whatever reason.

I can see one or two people are tying themselves up in knots about who should pay for such sessions – perhaps commentators could hold onto that thought?
I mean if therapy really is a legitimate treatment, why, unlike other mental health services, should be rationed for approved groups only?

Would you agree that in that environment there might equally be pressure to conform, and that therefore therapeutic support to help people maintain a heterosexual orientation might be a good thing?

If someone needs therapy to help them deal with their particular job, I would suggest that they might need a different job. Remember, heterosexuals exit that environment when they go elsewhere, for gay people they exit the opposite environment when they get inside their home or enter a gay bar.

67 Cylux

Have now re-read post and the Express article. What I said was correct.

Widdecombe’s point was that if someone wanted to change from gay to straight they had as much right to help with this as anyone else wanting assistance with matters to do with sexuality and fertility. Eoin argues that her view is an attack on gay rights. I assume that this is because, like several people on this thread, he believes that their reason for wanting to make this change is due to social and religious pressure. That may indeed be the case, but in the end it is their choice and if they decide they want to attempt that change, they have every right to do so and to obtain therapeutic support to help them.

As I’ve said elsewhere, I question whether it is really possible to change someone’s natural sexual orientation. But as I’ve pointed out above, we expect paedophiles to make this change as a condition of being allowed to live in society. We must, logically, therefore also believe that it is possible for someone voluntarily to live an opposite lifestyle if they are sufficiently determined to do so and have appropriate support. In effect what Eoin is saying is that people who make that choice are undermining gay rights and that therefore therapists shouldn’t be allowed to help them. So much for freedom.

Can I make it clear that I don’t believe that denying or repressing natural sexual inclination is generally a good thing and I’m not anti-gay. I just think people should have the right to choose, taking into account ALL the things that matter to them – which may include their religious beliefs and their family’s attitude – and that we as a society should support people in their life choices even if we don’t agree with them, as long as they aren’t choosing to do something that hurts others or is criminal.

“ethical standards of journalism” – that’s a new one on me LOL!

70 the a&e charge nurse

I’m not qualified to decide whether counselling & psychotherapy is or is not effective, and by the sound of it neither are you. You should ask that question of the BACP, as I suggested. Clearly you think it’s a waste of time, but that’s your opinion.

The real issue is in your final paragraph. Whether or not you think therapy achieves anything, if the NHS pays for therapy for one group seeking to make changes in relation to sexual orientation, lifestyle and fertility, then it should pay for all. Deciding who should receive therapy on the basis of a political agenda is in my view unacceptable.

71 Cylux

Blimey. You really think someone should change their JOB – their career – because their sexual orientation doesn’t conform to the norm in that industry and they are pressured to change? If you said that about a gay man in the police, we would be talking about institutional homophobia. What a disgrace.

[74] “You should ask that question of the BACP” – he,hee, that would be like asking a surgeon if a knife was preferable to drugs.

By the way – what helped you to decide that I was not ‘qualified’ to understand evidence about different psychotherapies?

76 the a&e charge nurse

The way you dismissed all therapy smacks more of prejudice than of any real knowledge. And your dismissal of the BACP supports this view.

Max @69

The BACP publishes decisions/hearings on it’s website – the info is detailed and specific, however the complaint against Pilkington which happened in may 2011 is not published, so there is only the reporting from the guardian that I could find

link here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/27/gay-conversion-therapy-patrick-strudwick

The reference to Tana Dineen by a&e charge nurse, and quote…

“The first is that almost every study ever done has shown that it is no more effective than a placebo, or even no treatment at all.”

Is incorrect – CBT studies almost invariably demonstrate better outcomes than no treatment, or allocation to self-help group. There was a study I read a while back that attempted to isolate the interventional aspect of CBT from the relational aspect. The study compared CBT to other interventions where relationship was important. What it demonstrated was that the intervention components were only effective in depression.

Alternatively you can grab a book any by Rogers – he meticulously references his research. There is research going back to the 50′s that shows that certain kinds of relationships have consistently better client outcomes.

“The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy has recently completed a systematic review of the world’s literature on LGB people’s experiences with psychotherapy (King et al., 2007). This evidence shows that although LGB people are open to seeking help with mental health problems they may be misunderstood by therapists who regard their homosexuality as the root cause of any presenting problem such as depression or anxiety” – as I say a questioning approach remains vitally important although some might mistake such a posture as a slight on the poor old therapists?
http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/rollofhonour/specialinterestgroups/gaylesbian/submissiontothecofe/psychiatryandlgbpeople.aspx

Blimey. You really think someone should change their JOB – their career – because their sexual orientation doesn’t conform to the norm in that industry and they are pressured to change?

You do realize you haven’t provided any evidence that straight guys in the performing arts feel any sort of pressure to become gay, and indeed your basis for the accusation is that there is a noticeable number of gays that take it up. What exactly does “therapeutic support to help people maintain a heterosexual orientation” actually mean? Do straight men in close contact with gay men for long periods catch teh gay?

What I actually said, and I’ll quote myself – “If someone needs therapy to help them deal with their particular job, I would suggest that they might need a different job.”
That’s ‘therapy’ in general dear, if your job stresses you the fuck out to the point that you feel compelled to seek out psychiatric counseling, maybe it’s time to admit that the job just isn’t for you. No point flogging yourself to death over work after all.

If the stress is caused by bigotry in the workplace, then you combat that bigotry, and there’s now plenty of laws and disciplinary procedures you can undertake to achieve that. No need for “therapeutic support to help people maintain a heterosexual orientation”, that would be the path of not dealing with the problem anyway.

79 the a&e charge nurse

“May be misunderstood” does not equate to “will be misunderstood”. Once again, you display your prejudice.

As you say, a questioning approach is important. What a pity you don’t practise what you preach.

And no, I don’t interpret reasonable scepticism as a slight on the “poor old therapists”. But I do interpret unreasonable criticism based upon inaccurate information in that way.

80 Cylux

What a pity you can’t distinguish between the stresses of the JOB ITSELF and stresses imposed by the expectations of people who happen to do that job.

I deliberately put up a straw man on this because so many people on this thread believe that gay people – most of whom, let’s face it, are in a straight-dominated environment – are pressured to change their orientation. I reasonably asked whether, if this is true, straight people in a gay-dominated environment such as the performing arts might feel similar pressure. It was a QUESTION, though you don’t seem to have noticed that. Your response is that they should stop working in the performing arts. Astonishing.

And your idea that addressing bigotry in the workplace would deal with this just shows how little you know about the performing arts, where everything works on relationships and socialising is essential to your career. Yup, laws preventing sexual discrimination in the workplace are really going to address how people behave in the bar and at after-show parties. Just as legislation outlawing discrimination against women in the workplace really helps them break into the decision-making cliques that meet in the pub and on the golf course.

@82

It was a QUESTION, though you don’t seem to have noticed that.

Actually I did answer it. – “Remember, heterosexuals exit that environment when they go elsewhere, for gay people they exit the opposite environment when they get inside their home or enter a gay bar.” – It’s the difference between ‘people on the job’ and ‘the rest of society’.

So with that in mind:

I reasonably asked whether, if this is true, straight people in a gay-dominated environment such as the performing arts might feel similar pressure.

No, they won’t, re: see above.

Satisfied?

Be grateful she doesn’t have a peerage. It’s something of a cause celebre among the righty blogosphere that she has been ‘deprived’ of becoming Baroness Widdecombe of ConservativeHome.

And in answer to your question – well, I think you know the answer. A considerable portion of the Conservative party are homophobes or at least ambivalent, and he doesn’t want to be fighting a battle which will make him unpopular with the grassroots and make them look like a nutcase. Especially since he’s planning to introduce gay marriage in the near future.

P.S. the next time an ex-Labour MP says something similarly barking, I will await a similar breathless demand for Ed Miliband to ‘distance himself’ from him or her.

83 Cylux

Excellent.

So we can also put aside this notion that gay people in a straight environment also feel pressured to conform, because according to you workplace legislation will prevent discrimination at work and how people behave when they are socialising outside work doesn’t matter. Gay people can go to gay bars, straight people can go to straight bars and they never need to socialise together at all. And if people who know they are gay choose as adults to adopt religious beliefs that regard homosexuality as sinful they are frankly on some kind of masochism trip so don’t deserve help. And as for all this “influences from childhood” stuff that a&e charge nurse raised – well, adults don’t have to carry on believing what they were taught as children, do they? Not many of us still believe in Santa Claus, after all.

So no-one really has a problem, do they?

42. Cylux

The problem is that BACP has certain guidelines that those wishing to be in it’s membership have to adhere to, a case of ‘if you no likea the rules, you no playa the game’, which would be broken by passing the individual along to snake oil peddlers.

You don’t know they are snake oil peddlers, although they probably are, and the same applies to, say, Uganda. People there know the rules. If they choose to be part of Ugandan society, well, you no lika da rules….

But notice the charm of the modern world. Psychologists who argued being Gay was not a disease before 1974 suffered no adverse career consequences at all. They were certainly not sent off for re-education. Psychologists who argue that it is now are. The lack of tolerance in the modern world is striking.

There’s a known concept called internalized homophobia which is very likely to be the main driver behind those seeking to become straight or ex-gay, and a psychologist would be remiss in their responsibilities by not exploring if this is in fact the cause of the patients unhappiness prior to any other action.

Cylux goes one better – if you have urges you don’t like, you’re mentally ill. Great. Does this apply to, say, rapists?

Steven

I see a lot of Tories defending Anne. Pity really.

Why?

Chaise Guevara

Also, while I agree that the evidence points to sexualities being unchangeable, if that turned out to be wrong, I suspect there would be a lot of people who would deny the data because they found it to be offensive.

Why do you think the evidence points to sexuality being unchangeable? Given that the vast majority of Gay people are likely to become ex-Gay people more or less on their own? Although I will agree that the Gay community, or at least that part of it involved in these discussions, seems to pick and choose according to their political agenda. So if it helps to argue that homosexuality is in-born and unchangeable, they will do so. But if it doesn’t, they will argue otherwise.

Chaise Guevara

I agree that that’s how the story reads – but do you have a source that shows it’s accurate?

You don’t trust a paper of record?

I think the world, or at least our little part of it, is more tolerant than it used to be. Gay people aren’t treated as monsters. It’s acceptable to have a non-Christian religion, or no religion at all. And so on.

Gay people have not been treated as monsters for a long time. But people who don’t like Gay people are. Britain has certainly allowed people to have non-Christian religions for a long long time. Although the West is noticeably hostile to Christians now. The British Army for instance went out of its way to make sure that non-Christians got the diet and religious offices they wanted. Unlike the modern world which is not willing to extend any tolerance to Christians and their beliefs at all, at least not where they can be forced to give up long held practices.

The world is not more tolerant.

the a&e charge nurse

can you get anybody, other than Daily Heil readers, or Anne Widdicombe, to support such an assertion?

I have no idea. But anyone who says it can’t be is not doing science. We don’t know what causes homosexuality. It may well be a disease. That is not to say it is, it is just that we don’t know much about the causes. Although by now we can be pretty sure it is not genetic, or not obviously genetic.

I thought the people who actually know stuff about diseases (doctors) rubbished this myth a long time ago (removed fro DSM in 1973).

Because they were bullied into it. Not because the science showed it.

Mark Redwood

This statement is a) false, and b) irrelevant even if true. –

(with the power of google you too could falsify it within 30 secs – hows about http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_mental_health.html. There is even a bit of history in there too, which putss a slightly different slant than your emphasis that it was just political pressure.)

It is not false. Nor does that link help. It is marked mainly by its dishonesty. A cohort of subjects recruited disproportionately among prisoners is unacceptable when used to argue that homosexuality is wrong? Then why is it acceptable when Kinsey uses it to, among other things, argue it is widespread and normal? Taking a small group of homosexuals selected by Gay organisations in an effort to prove that homosexuals are normal? This is acceptable practice? That letter from Freud is famous – I wonder if it is genuine? Or if it is, whether Freud was trying to be comforting? But notice what he says:

we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function produced by a certain arrest of sexual development.

Which the author is totally fine with. Only later psychiatrists are criticised for saying:

Other analysts later argued that homosexuality resulted from pathological family relationships during the oedipal period (around 4-5 years of age) and claimed that they observed these patterns in their homosexual patients (Bieber et al., 1962).

Which is pretty much exactly the same thing.

SMFS, you seem also incapable of understanding the application of ethics. Ethics is not about outcomes, it has been and always will be about actions. Why? because outcomes are uncertain. Sometimes bad outcomes occur even when you make good decisions.

Sorry but no. Ethics has to be about outcomes as well as intentions. I am not sure what you are specifically referring to, but any discussion of ethics will involve not merely actions – which are largely unimportant – but intentions and outcomes.

To tell someone within a therapeutic relationship that a core part of their being is an illness has the potential to do serious harm, and is therefore unethical whether it does so or not.

That depends if someone has a good faith belief that their “core part of their being” (and notice how this is a modern invention) is an illness or not. If they do, they have every right to say so. Not that there is any evidence I know of that such therapies offer any risk of harm whatsoever.

The BACP also make it clear that therapists should keep abreast of recent developments. Homosexuallity was declassified as a mental illness in 1974. How long do you think it should take Pilkington to catch up?

Before 1973, the equivalents of the BACP thought that homosexuality was a disease. You have just cited someone who praises those that stood against the tide and insisted that it wasn’t. Do you think they were wrong and they should have quietly toed the party line pre-1973? That those doctors should have been expelled and struck off for daring to question the orthodoxy of the time? Again we seem to have an ideology-dependent view of whether or not dissent is acceptable or not. If anyone agrees with your views, sure, that is fine, if they don’t, they need re-education. Great. But not ethical.

If she disagreed with their ethical stance she shouldn’t have joined.

Maybe it wasn’t their stance at the time?

79. the a&e charge nurse

“The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy has recently completed a systematic review of the world’s literature on LGB people’s experiences with psychotherapy (King et al., 2007). This evidence shows that although LGB people are open to seeking help with mental health problems they may be misunderstood by therapists who regard their homosexuality as the root cause of any presenting problem such as depression or anxiety” – as I say a questioning approach remains vitally important although some might mistake such a posture as a slight on the poor old therapists?

I think it is interesting to see that many therapists are ignoring the guidance they have had since 1974 and are continuing to view homosexuality as the problem.

Although it would be interesting to know if homosexual people seek therapy more often than heterosexual people.

@85

So we can also put aside this notion that gay people in a straight environment also feel pressured to conform

Yeah, that’ll be why gay people always feel comfortable holding their lover’s hands in public. Oh wait, no, they don’t. Why? Because they know they’ll suffer random abuse from passersby for it.
Now there’s REAL moderating behavior in order to conform, not your trumped up strawman example. You are trying to compare a workplace environment, an environment entered voluntarily (unless you’re going to make some weird claim that performing artists are slaves), to what someone experiences when they set foot outside their door and their own little collective spaces, which they cannot ever avoid doing, it’s mind-boggling that you even think they’re equivalent.

And if people who know they are gay choose as adults to adopt religious beliefs that regard homosexuality as sinful they are frankly on some kind of masochism trip so don’t deserve help.

What makes you think the primary method someone takes up religion is to adopt one at adulthood? Generally they grow up in it, those born gay and raised in anti-gay sects are the one’s more likely to lay all their life’s problems at the door of their sexuality, those in that boat who come out can often see their family and friends, all their social support abandon and disown them, and then to blot out the loneliness and despair from this they go on to the usual cycles of self destruction of renting, drugs, lots of risky casual sex, etc. Hence the ‘all my life’s problems are caused by my being gay’ attitude, rather than the ‘my family and friends were all a bunch of bigoted shits, I’ll show the fuckers’ – which allows those strong few who adopt it in response to their abandonment to dodge the cycle of despair. I even mentioned all the way up @21 that in some cases suppressing their sexuality might actually provide them with a happier life, given that coming out could potentially sever them from family, friends, their church, their spouse, their children.

Once you’re out of the closet though, no amount of throwing money at ex-gay camps where you can get hugged like your father apparently didn’t do to ya, and discuss ‘what makes a man’ is going to make you start hungering for the snatch. Or make your family forget you were a queer. It will allow those running the camp to coin it in at your expense though, they ain’t exactly run for free. (And get the camp runner’s end away! One-on-One late-night intervention sessions with the young good looking patients! You can take a guess at what ‘displays of weakness’ just manage to happen in them. The guys that took it upon themselves to infiltrate a few of these camps to report what went on were shocked, SHOCKED, I can tell you. Well, not that shocked.)

People there know the rules. If they choose to be part of Ugandan society, well, you no lika da rules…

Then the USA and Britain can tell Uganda that if it wants to kill gay people it can kiss it’s aid money goodbye. You no likea da rules…

@88 Cylux

I nearly added “bollocks” to the end of my previous comment. I wish I had, now, because you clearly didn’t realise I was being sarcastic. You were the one who suggested that how people behave in a social environment has no effect on whether or not others feel pressured to conform to a social norm. I was merely pointing out that if you arbitrarily decide one aspect of life doesn’t matter, then you can by extension argue that the rest doesn’t matter either. Perhaps you’d like to rethink what you said?

I wanted to see how people would respond if I put up a straw man for a possible situation in which straight people might experience similar social discrimination to that which gay people experience. I accept absolutely that my example doesn’t go far enough. But I’m concerned that you are so insensitive towards people who might find themselves in such a position. The issues are similar and the result could be the same – which was my point. Discrimination in practice, whether institutional or social, is wrong whoever is experiencing it. To extend the analogy with women’s equality that I started earlier (a subject I know the OP knows a lot about), promoting the cause of equality for women doesn’t in any way excuse discrimination against men – which I have seen happen in female-dominated workplaces. And the fact that men generally enjoy higher social status than women doesn’t invalidate the experience of the minority of men who are discriminated against and bullied by female workmates and bosses. Escaping from your workmates isn’t always that easy and changing your job may be the last resort of the desperate. I’ve seen a man who worked in a female-dominated environment forced to take medical retirement due to stress because of the bullying he experienced.

It’s all too easy to be discriminatory in practice for the best possible reasons. The OP believes he is defending gay rights. He is not – he is denying the right of a gay person to opt for a sexually repressive lifestyle if s/he so chooses. I admit it is pretty unlikely that a straight person would opt to adopt a gay lifestyle for social reasons – but if they did, the OP it seems would support their wish to do so. Therefore he is guilty of discrimination against gay people.

Oh dear. I seem to be broadly agreeing with Widdecombe and disagreeing with LC.

I’ll get my coat.

SMFS @ 86

I am very much reminded of the process of learning that people go through, where they start off as unconsciously incompetent. Curiously many people over-estimate their ability in this phase.

“There is no scientific grounds for claiming homosexuality is not an illness.”

Are you actually going to provide some scientific grounds to back this up? Or is it just another one of those bold statements you seem fond of making.

I found the historical aspect interesting – I found Freud’s assertions about homosexuality being a normal part of human sexual expression, particular telling bearing in mind time period. You also too quickly discount the work of Kinsey – the results of his research were absolutely groundbreaking at the time.

“Ethics has to be about outcomes as well as intentions. I am not sure what you are specifically referring to, but any discussion of ethics will involve not merely actions – which are largely unimportant – but intentions and outcomes.”

Here we go again – those bold statements. So seeing as we are talking about the BACP, here is the pdf link to their ethical framework.

http://www.bacp.co.uk/admin/structure/files/pdf/566_ethical_framework_feb2010.pdf

You will be mostly interested in pages 5-9. So here’s the challenge find those ethical statements which are about outcomes. Intentions is a bit trickier – it’s much harder to measure someone’s intention (although I do agree that intent is an important part of acting ethically). If you want you can even find the para’s where pilkington failed to act ethically.

“That depends if someone has a good faith belief that their “core part of their being” (and notice how this is a modern invention) is an illness or not. If they do, they have every right to say so.”

Tell you what why don’t you check out the BACP ethical framework and see what rights the BACP think therapists should have. I think you will find that the right to express your beliefs to your clients is most definitely not in there. In fact some of the guidelines specifically preclude you from expressing your personal beliefs to clients.

And see this is the problem you pronounce these bold statements without sufficient expertise in the subject. Which rather reminds me of the current tory administration.

“Not that there is any evidence I know of that such therapies offer any risk of harm whatsoever.”

Freud promoting nasal surgery wasn’t harmful for his client? See you could spend some time with google and check out those bold statements you keep making and see whether they are true

But then why bother when you can simply declare that anything that doesn’t conform to your viewpoint is a lie or dishonest?

@90

I wanted to see how people would respond if I put up a straw man for a possible situation in which straight people might experience similar social discrimination to that which gay people experience.

The problem with using strawmen is that they’re crafted out of bullshit, gay-4-pay porn actors, who will probably have more gay sex over their career than most gay men outside of porn will ever do, have absolutely no trouble maintaining their heterosexual identity (indeed gay-4-pay is pretty much the only way for male porn actors to gain the necessary experience to start doing regular porn, the prime British example being Matt Hughes). The man who took medical retirement from bullying from his female peers, was his response to this to want to change his very being, to become a women in order to fit in? I’m gonna guess no.

There also seems to be a lot of shifting of the goal-posts going on,

he is denying the right of a gay person to opt for a sexually repressive lifestyle if s/he so chooses

is a somewhat different statement to

Yet the unhappy homosexual should, according to gay activists, be denied any chance whatever to investigate any possibility of seeing if he can be helped to become heterosexual

.

The fact that such ‘investigations’ that exist are actually religiously sectarian and exploitative, and the previous ‘secular’ ones were no better, seems to get glossed over as not being important. Might it not occur to the ‘defenders of individual liberty’ that sending someone off to be abused and fleeced might not, in fact, be good for their general well being, and would most certainly not be good psychological practice? And that’s dangerously assuming they’re attending by their own choice. You’d think Gay affirmative psychotherapy might be a better first step for a qualified professional to try first, no? Bearing in mind Strudwick’s claim here:

“The purpose of this investigation was to find out how conversion therapists operate. What I didn’t expect was that I would learn how their patients feel: confused and damaged. I began to constantly analyze why I found particular men attractive. Does that man represent something that’s lacking in me? Do I want him because he looks strong which must mean I feel weak? Did something happen in my childhood? The therapists planted doubt and worry where there was none.”

http://www.beyondexgay.com/narratives

Mrs A asks

Abdul, if only 3% of people bat for the other side why do politicians and ‘opinion formers’ make such a fuss over them.

On the other hand when 40% of the people want to stop immigration they are called ‘populist’ or worse.

It makes no sense.

I say to Mrs A

‘Woman get back in the shop’

Peace

93
We have a representative democracy which does not mean the tyranny of the majority.

@93 Cylux

I don’t know anything about “gay-4-pay porn actors”. Evidently you do, but as it was my straw man they have nothing whatsoever to do with it. You have absolutely no right to assume that my ideas are as weird as yours.

I haven’t moved any goalposts. Your second quote is from Widdecombe, not me. If you read my earlier comments you will see that I doubt if someone’s natural sexual inclination can actually be changed, so if someone chooses to adopt an opposite lifestyle they will need help to maintain it. By all means pick holes in what I have actually said, but don’t criticise me for comments that I haven’t made.

What I did say was that people have the right to choose their lifestyle, whatever their motivation, provided that they are doing nothing to hurt others or break the law. Attempting to prevent them from making that choice because of your beliefs and your political agenda is to deny them their rights as human beings. I don’t defend or support “abusive” therapy and I am assuming that people make free choices as adults about the lifestyle they wish to adopt, taking into account all the things that matter to them. You, it seems, think the only legitimate choice they should make would be one of which you would approve. That’s not freedom.

You have absolutely no right to assume that my ideas are as weird as yours.

Hey, I deal in facts, something you seem to have trouble with.

I haven’t moved any goalposts. Your second quote is from Widdecombe, not me. If you read my earlier comments you will see that I doubt if someone’s natural sexual inclination can actually be changed, so if someone chooses to adopt an opposite lifestyle they will need help to maintain it. By all means pick holes in what I have actually said, but don’t criticise me for comments that I haven’t made.

The reason I quoted Anne Widdecombe and compared it with your own is because these men are categorically NOT ‘opting for a sexually repressive lifestyle’ like you suggested, they really are trying to change their sexuality as Anne says, to become straight, which is impossible, and people are lying to them and taking advantage of that. So your framing of the issue is disingenuous at best anyway.

What I did say was that people have the right to choose their lifestyle, whatever their motivation, provided that they are doing nothing to hurt others or break the law.

Well Lesley Pilkington was certainly breaking the rules of BACP by performing counter to their ethical code, which is the issue here, not those seeking ex-gay treatment. You might think that perhaps BACP should change it’s ethical code to allow it to mislead gay people wishing to change their sexuality, and thus kinda accommodate their desire with false hope, but I wouldn’t call an ethical code that lies very ethical.

@So Much for Subtlety

Homosexuality is no more a disease than heterosexuality. It is a sexual orientation. As is bisexuality; people are not “ex-lesbians” or “ex-gay”, they are bisexual. As a gay woman, I have yet to find anyone else in the LGBTQ community who claims otherwise.

Also, gay people are not treated as monsters? You and I read very different news cycles. Try looking to the current GOP debates in the US, for example, and then tell me that Christians are treated without respect when gays are.

It’s already been said, but probably because she isn’t a member of his parliamentary party or acting as a spokesperson for any point of point of view other than her own.

Even if she were, the short shrift “calm down dear” treatment he delivered to a similarly zealous bible-thumping back bencher of his recently would be more than sufficient to how seriously he takes her brand of theocratically-led policy doctrine.

He’s under no obligation to pay any attention to her at all, even less so than the last half-dozen Labour leaders were obliged to repudiate such similar rhetorical drivel issuing from the lips of Lord Longford in the Lords on this issue. Or for that matter, issue a press release denying it was official Labour policy to release Myra Hindley if they won the next election.

The Tory Party is a broad church, just as the Labour movement is and just as Lib Dems tend to believe all sorts of varied and diverse things depending on whether or not the wind is in the West or a particular backbencher catches sight of his own shadow on his way into the chamber every morning.

Case in point: Lembit Öpik.

“Not only is this a breach of the ethical standards of journalism, it is an incitement to anti-gay verbal and physical attacks.”

No. It isn’t. It’s rhetoric. It is, quite literally, a rhetorical question.

The whole essence of rhetoric is that it’s not about the actual words you use or the things that you say, it’s about the reaction and resonance that saying certain things and asking certain questions aloud produces in other people.

Quite often that means exposes the prejudices and assumptions held by people who hear it, go “A-ha! I knew it!” leap into the fray to tackle what they think they’ve just heard head on, and in doing so let their own guard down.

You expected to see homophobic sentiment or incitement to violence or some expression of hateful prejudice in those lines and so you found it, even though it isn’t there.

We’re unused to rhetoric in statements or arguments by public figures, because people constantly seek to take the quick and easy route of either taking things at face value or applying a spin to some relatively bland statements in accordance with our own prejudices, rather than actually engage with the questions raised on an intellectual level rather than an ideological, partisan or tribal one.

Professional politicians rarely these days use rhetorical arguments or devices because they parse their words so carefully as to ensure they cannot ever be misquoted.

But Ann Widdicombe is not a professional politician anymore. And whatever else she is, she certainly isn’t stupid. Something that equally can be said of the last high profile serving politician who employed rhettorical arguments to lend his words more weight and prompt people into examining their beliefs.

That was Enoch Powell. And look what became of him.

Just as you can interpret Widdicombe’s remarks quite liberally according to your own expectations of what you think she is actually trying to say, you can attack the Rivers of Blood speech on the same basis.

Everyone says today (and it’s regarded as common folk-knowledge) that the Rivers of Blood speech was itself and contains an explicit incitement to racial hatred and social unrest caused by mass immigration – it’s called the Rivers of Blood speech for goodness sake! But it doesn’t.

And if you read it, it’s fairly clear that it wasn’t intended to. What it *was* intended to do was put a bomb under everyone and shock people out of their complacency by talking about what (in Powell’s view) *might* happen (and I personally think that he was wrong, as do most people) if nothing was done and if the issues he touched on were not discussed openly in an honest and intelligent way, rather than acting according to the orthodox view dictated by political ideologies that people in the country associated themselves with.

That’s why most of the support garnered by Powell in the immediate aftermath (following his sacking by Heath) came overwhelmingly from traditional Labour supporters – since both main parties were largely in agreement on the issue (other than details of policy), the rhetorical questions he raised publicly were not items of public debate, despite clearly by that point being of great interest and concern to huge sections of the public who had never heard these questions asked in public before. They may or may not have endorsed the appocalypticlly dire vision of his warnings about his fears, but whether they agreed with him in whole or in part or not at all, it made them feel something and feel there was a discussion to be had, at last. There’s the resonance.

I watched an hour long interview the other day with Powell appearing on Frost on Friday from 1968 and he’s a slippery devil, to be sure… Always eager to play both sides of the fence on any issue, very difficult to pin down on any point and keen always to emphasise his primary duty as an elected representative to represent the views and feelings of the people who elected him, rather than assert his own, which makes him again, difficult to draw an intellectual bead on… But he was an incredibly able and wily politician, if anything, nearly too clever by half and certainly too clever for his own good, if that can ever be said honestly about someone.

But Powell was a classical scholar (the Rivers of Blood quote, after all, originating from a similar warning lifted from Virgil), and he recognised the power and utility of arguing both sides of the debate and presenting counter-factuals and hypothetical scenarios to prod people out of their complacency and expand the discourse into a more honest and thoughtful debate.

We’re not used to handling that kind of approach to public discourse. We either assume that politicians either mean what they say and believe it or else are just lying (or bullshitting, at any rate). There’s no recognition of the capacity for someone engaging in a debate on a particular issue to expound on a particular view or interpretation that they don’t themselves necessarily endorse or subscribe to in order to explore the issue from all angles and take their audience on a journey before making up their minds as to what they really think about something.

Or, to quote Mark Knopfler, “Apart from the fact that there are stupid gay people as well as stupid other people, [the controversy of his use of the word "faggot" in the lyrics of his song"] suggests that maybe you can’t let it have so many meanings – you have to be direct. In fact, I’m still in two minds as to whether it’s a good idea to write songs that aren’t in the first person, to take on other characters. The singer in “Money for Nothing” is a real ignoramus.”

92. Mark Redwood

I am very much reminded of the process of learning that people go through, where they start off as unconsciously incompetent. Curiously many people over-estimate their ability in this phase.

And I am very much reminded of those with weak arguments and even weaker personalities who need to constantly reassure themselves and, they hope, the world about how morally superior and knowledgeable they are.

Are you actually going to provide some scientific grounds to back this up? Or is it just another one of those bold statements you seem fond of making.

No. I don’t need to. Those who insist that unicorns exist have an onus to give a reason why. Those who insist that homosexuality is affirmatively anything, whether a disease or not a disease, have an obligation to provide evidence. I simply point out that we have no basis for making a judgement either way. As can be seen by the fact that there is no scientific basis either way.

I found the historical aspect interesting – I found Freud’s assertions about homosexuality being a normal part of human sexual expression, particular telling bearing in mind time period. You also too quickly discount the work of Kinsey – the results of his research were absolutely groundbreaking at the time.

I do not deny they were ground breaking. The question is whether they were valid. And the answer is probably no. Using populations that were heavily biased, and with his own personal agenda, he seems to have greatly over stated the incidence of homosexuality among other things. That letter is interesting but given it is so at odds with Freud’s work, more has to be done to establish its provenance and authenticity.

You will be mostly interested in pages 5-9. So here’s the challenge find those ethical statements which are about outcomes. Intentions is a bit trickier – it’s much harder to measure someone’s intention (although I do agree that intent is an important part of acting ethically). If you want you can even find the para’s where pilkington failed to act ethically.

I see. So you have switched from talking about ethics to talking about what this particular ideologically motivated group calls ethics. Interesting.

Tell you what why don’t you check out the BACP ethical framework and see what rights the BACP think therapists should have. I think you will find that the right to express your beliefs to your clients is most definitely not in there. In fact some of the guidelines specifically preclude you from expressing your personal beliefs to clients.

Well by all means, I am sure there are any number of self-interested ideologically driven groups who would like to think their personal beliefs define ethnics. It is not a particularly interesting discussion for me. Except to note that all diagnoses are open to dispute. A therapist is morally driven to offer the best diagnosis they can – based on what they think is true and right. It is true that they should be objective, in so far as they can, and not allow their personal prejudices to get in the way, but if they have an objective scientifically-based belief that what they are seeing is a disorder and they have a course of action they believe is the best course to undertake, they are morally obliged to recommend it. No matter what the homosexual lobby groups may say.

Freud promoting nasal surgery wasn’t harmful for his client? See you could spend some time with google and check out those bold statements you keep making and see whether they are true

That was not the therapy I was talking about.

But then why bother when you can simply declare that anything that doesn’t conform to your viewpoint is a lie or dishonest?

I don’t recall doing either. But then we are back with your need to feel morally superior to everyone else aren’t we?

95. steveb

We have a representative democracy which does not mean the tyranny of the majority.

Except when it does. See Fred’s loss of his knighthood etc etc.

98. Gem

Homosexuality is no more a disease than heterosexuality.

That is a statement of religious belief. Not a scientific fact. We do not know what causes homosexuality and so we cannot say if it is a disease or not.

It is a sexual orientation.

And some sexual orientations are not diseases or at least disorders? Some guy who is sexually attracted to cars? Shoes? Children?

As is bisexuality; people are not “ex-lesbians” or “ex-gay”, they are bisexual. As a gay woman, I have yet to find anyone else in the LGBTQ community who claims otherwise.

Yes but in the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davis, they would wouldn’t they. It is not for you to define other people’s sexuality. If someone like Michael Portillo says he is not Gay, he is not Gay. If he says he is not bisexual, he is not bisexual. End of story. You have no standing to lay down the law about other people’s sexual identification.

And frankly it is hypocrisy to even try.

99. Gem

Also, gay people are not treated as monsters? You and I read very different news cycles. Try looking to the current GOP debates in the US, for example, and then tell me that Christians are treated without respect when gays are.

No they are not treated as monsters. By all means let’s look at American media as a whole. Where, like in the British media, being Gay usually means being absolutely fabulous – trustworthy, funny, intelligent, witty and persecuted. While being a Christian means, at best, you’re a serial killer.

Yes, the media is largely run by or for Gay people and their agenda. While it hates Christians.

@98, @102

“Homosexuality is no more a disease than heterosexuality.”

That’s true now, it wasn’t for many decades. Lesbian desire never has been classified as such or a mental disorder, but male homosexuality was only removed from the DSM-(IV) schedule of mental disorders in 1974. Medical consensus reconsidered their oppinion and decided that they had been wrong up until that point.

It’s something actually that we should be not-inconsider ably proud of in as much as for once, Parliament actually was ahead of the curve (or at least ahead of the science) in this country when it came to homosexual behaviour between consenting adult males. Gay sex was decriminalised in 1968, but not taken off the list of mental disorders until 1974. And it’s still not technically legal in most other jurisdictions around the world today, including some American states, most notably Texas.

There’s still plenty of work still to be done though; most forms of transgenderism (and there must be over a dozen at this point) are diagnosable and all of them are classed still as mental disorders according to the DSM. That’s much more contentious, but at the moment, by default, if you are transgendered, the purely medical view is that there is something wrong with you (which Widdicombe aludes to briefly in her piece). And wrong diagnosis or spurious diagnosis (for the sake of *having* a medical diagnosis) almost invariably causes as much or more harm than good.

@ 102 SMFS

“Yes, the media is largely run by or for Gay people and their agenda. ”

You dropped this. It’s your tinfoil hat. Quick, put it back on! The mind rays must be getting in!

@102

“Yes, the media is largely run by or for Gay people and their agenda. ”

That explains the existence of Page 3 for over 40 years and the continued existence of the Star, the Daily and Sunday Sport and Nuts in defiance of the vast bulk of straight women who find it sexist or offensive and the all-pervasive, all-powerful Gay Mafia, who presumably do not find it to be generally fabulous.

Bloody media lesbians.

[102] “Yes, the media is largely run by or for Gay people and their agenda” – what percentage is run by ‘gays’ – I mean do you have a number?

Perhaps you could also elaborate on the ‘gay agenda’, sounds interesting – I always thought the media was run by unassuming, and kindly figures like this man?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ps6XQkwQW-A/TiVQpPghazI/AAAAAAAADUc/KRyae45du3I/s1600/murdoch.jpg

@92

“I found the historical aspect interesting – I found Freud’s assertions about homosexuality being a normal part of human sexual expression, particular telling bearing in mind time period.”

Freud also persuaded his sister (possibly his sister-in-law, I may be misremembering) to have her own clitoris removed on her fortieth birthday, as he was absolutely adamant and insistent that it was actually DANGEROUS and potentially gravely injurious to the health of women to experience a clitoral orgasm post-menopause. He hectored her into going through with it in spite of her protestations and reservations in defiance of her own better judgement, the operation was botched and she was in pain for the remainder of her life.

I found it almost impossible to take any of Freud’s more outlandish notions serious credence once I learnt that.

Freud’s ideas and theories were groundbreaking and revolutionary, but he was as wrong as often as he was right.

That homosexual tendencies and desire is a normal and common albeit not universal human impulse is well-supported overwhelmingly by the body of peer-reviewed evidentiary studies available at the time and since.

As for Freud’s theories on the subject and convoluted attempts to rationalise inherently irrational sets of emotive and emotionally driven behaviours by grasping at all the visible straws present in his line of sight…? Conjecture and speculation at best, albeit often well-reasoned out and intellectually engaging speculation, but guesswork, none the less. He often barely had a clue on some issues as he freely admitted, but that wasn’t usually sufficient to prevent him proposing a theoretical model anyway.

Personally, I’d be reluctant to cite Freud as an authority today relating to *anything*… Much better work has been done in nearly every area of his own writings and we have much better science now than we did then in this particular field.

But as far as homosexuality goes, we have more information than ever before in history to support the view that it’s not only absolutely normal, but actually healthy from an evolutionary point of view.

@102 You keep bringing up Michael Portillo, which suggests you have little understanding of the issue at hand. Experimenting with various things in your youth, especially things that are/were taboo, has precious little to do with someone’s overall indentity. If anything the increasing acceptance of homosexuality is responsible for the drop in (largely male) straights trying out gay sex to satisfy their curiousity because it no longer carries the allure of the forbidden.

@102, @108

” Experimenting with various things in your youth, especially things that are/were taboo…”

Both George W. Bush and David Cameron have confirmed that they dabbled or at least tried sniffing cocaine in their youth. That doesn’t make either one of them a cocaine addict and it would be absurd to suggest that it might.

@109 Precisely!

@106

I actually saw a copy of the Gay Agenda once. One of their leaders left it in conference room where they were holding one of their clandestine secret meetings once and a cleaner found it afterwards and leaked it to a friend of mine.

It runs as follows.

United Gay Brotherhood of America and Western Europe: Media Divison

-:2010 AGM: Meeting Agenda:-

1) Be as fabulous as you possibly can.

2) Try to be kind.

3) Any Other Business.

-:Meeting Adjourned:-

I was underwhelmed, frankly.

“In my view this feeds into a worrying rise in a Tea Party style movement in the UK, and it is crucial our national leaders seek to defuse it.”

That’s misleading, and flawed reasoning, since the Tea Party’s raison d’être isn’t ideologically rooted in religiosity, bigotry or social conservatism in and of itself (although, certainly, a fair few people who associate themselves with the movement do hold those views and a fair chunk of them are bigots) – it’s grassroots origins lie partly in the paleoconservative originalist view of the US Constitution (we haven’t got one of those, so the hook isn’t there to hang a movement on, since the cause is absent) and anti-corporatist, anti-federalist libertarianism.

True libertarians are pretty much anarcho-syndicalist in their philosophy and in many respects have more in common with the far- left in politics than the far-right and place a high value on individual rights, liberty, and personal freedom, particularly in the bedroom.

Ideologically consistent libertarians have much in common with hippies in some ways (but are usually better armed, at least in most of America), but they’re certainly not beholden to a monolithic faith-based value system and prize the right to privacy, freedom of expression and the moral superiority of individual choice over tyranny of the state above all else.

The real Tea Party grassroots faithful are not the photogenic loony fringe with their banners showing Obama dressed up like Hitler or speaking in tongues; they’re the ones calmly explain that in their view, Women’s rights, gay rights, political rights or personal rights of any kind should extend as far as follows :- Equal protection under the law, as affirmed and guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment. And nothing more.

While I might disagree with that view and take the view personally that certain groups within society will always need to have additional protections in place to guarantee their rights are upheld (we live in a complex and nuanced world, after all), it’s a view that’s both easy to understand and clear, presents definite advantages (as well as several additional drawbacks), and makes a sound case from a purely common sense point of view, since it’s understood on the face of it to be fair to everyone affected by it.

But – here’s the real kicker – if you ever meet and talk to a true, ideologically committed libertarian, ask them their views on gay marriage. Even though they might profess to personally be opposed to the notion, based on their own beliefs (a lot of these guys will be Christians, as I mentioned), a libertarian with the courage of their convictions will point out that no-where does it mention in the bill of rights or anywhere else in the constitution that marriage is an institution recognised by the state and understood to be between a man and a woman and they will resist any attempt to alter the document to make it so.

I’ve actually heard that argument taken further – if the government cannot provide equal protection to the union of two men as it can to a man and a woman, then the government should get out of the business of recognising marriages altogether – keep the religious aspect of the various ceremonies if you like by all means, but if you recognise marriages only on the same level as civil unions exist now from the point of view of state institutions, there can be no sense in which they are somehow inferior.

That would keep everyone happy. Except for crazy hetro Christians who feel they need the validation of their government AND their God in order to make their public nuptials and union somehow more “real” .

[111] United Gay Brotherhood of America and Western Europe: Media Divison

-:2010 AGM: Meeting Agenda:-

1) Be as fabulous as you possibly can.

2) Try to be kind.

Sounds a bit too good to be true but you can still count me.
Hell, even Anne Widdicombe might be tempted!!
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