Snoopy!Snoopy's my bud. He types all my stuff on FR. And he really respects the new spell checker :)
Posted on 11/21/2003 9:50:23 AM PST by scripter
Yeah, it was! But it's a team effort. I have an update in the works but it's getting so large I'm not sure what to do...
Even in the world of private industry, DOMA has a big impact. A third of Fortune 500 companies offer health insurance benefits to domestic partners, but employees must pay income tax on the value of such partner benefits because that insurance is not recognized by federal law as a deductible corporate expense.
'Domestic Partnerships': An unfair tax break for the (gay) rich
"Two recent studies published in the Archives of General Psychiatry found higher rates of psychiatric disorders among homosexually oriented men and women than among the heterosexual population (Herrell 1999 & Fergusson 1999). Those articles mentioned that a third study, not yet published, had confirmed their findings."
Dr. Robert L. Spitzer played a pivotal role in the 1973 decision by the APA to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder. Spitzer used to believe homosexuals couldn't change but after studying the results of therapy he now believes homosexuals can change
Spitzer Study Just Published: Evidence Found for Effectiveness of Reorientation Therapy
"The results of a study conducted by Dr. Robert L. Spitzer have just been published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 32, No. 5, October 2003, pp. 403-417.
Spitzer's findings challenge the widely-held assumption that a homosexual orientation is "who one is" -- an intrinsic part of a person's identity that can never be changed.
The study has attracted particularly attention because its author, a prominent psychiatrist, is viewed as a historic champion of gay activism. Spitzer played a pivotal role in 1973 in removing homosexuality from the psychiatric manual of mental disorders...
Although examples of "complete" change in orientation were not common, the majority of participants did report change from a predominantly or exclusively homosexual orientation before therapy to a predominantly or exclusively heterosexual orientation in the past year as a result of reparative therapy.
These results would seem to contradict the position statements of the major mental health organizations in the United States, which claim there is no scientific basis for believing psychotherapy effective in addressing same-sex attraction. Yet Spitzer reports evidence of change in both sexes, although female participants reported significantly more change than did male participants..."
Getting your facts straight: Jon Dougherty says PC crowd bucks new homosexual study
It never fails. When a researcher finds evidence of something that goes against the current grain of politically correct thought, that researcher and his data are trashed like yesterday's issue of Salon.com.
According to Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, the professor of psychiatry at Columbia University who has just authored a new study on gay-straight behavior, at least "some" people who used to be homosexuals have been able to "convert" themselves into heterosexuals.
Spitzer said he isn't able to estimate what percentage of homosexuals can change their sexual orientation, but he did say that his research "shows [at least that] some people can change from gay to straight, and we ought to acknowledge that."
Having been on his end of the anti-PC bandwagon, I pity Spitzer. He's broken a cardinal rule: Questioning conventional PC wisdom in public and from a position of knowledge and authority while clouding a traditionally PC issue with annoying facts is strictly verboten.
His treatment at the hands of the PC police will be worse that it already has been after the results of his study are published -- and they will be published somewhere, I guarantee it. He'll be vilified and pilloried by the press, his colleagues, and the various gay groups out there who see his study as a threat to their existence, if not their way of life -- though nowhere in his study does he call for a ban on homosexuality.
Spitzer Forced to Cancel Appearance to Discuss His Ex-‘Gay’ Study
"Citing concern for his family, Dr. Robert Spitzer, author of a just-released study about people overcoming homosexuality, canceled his appearance at a press conference on Monday. Dr. Spitzer had caused an uproar last week with his survey of 200 former homosexuals. An architect of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders, Spitzer said he had reassessed the issue and now believes that some people can change their desires from homosexual to heterosexual.
He had planned to appear at a press conference at the National Press Club, hosted by Anthony Falzarano of Parents and Friends Ministries, a support group for families with loved ones who struggle with homosexuality. But Falzarano, himself a former homosexual, instead read a statement by Dr. Spitzer announcing his regret and citing the vitriolic tone that critics have taken toward him since the study’s release. Falzarano released copies of several e-mails sent to Spitzer and to Columbia University, where Spitzer is a professor of psychiatry. One of them, sent by James Minter, Columbia's Associate Director of Undergraduate Admission, read, in part:
You are an embarrassment to the University and a disgrace to science. Your “findings” are, in a word, despicable. If you are in need of a gay-related topic on which to do some constructive research, why not address the pathological homophobia of the bigots and reactionaries who will embrace your latest pronouncements? Better yet, why not address the crippling self-hatred and internalized homophobia of the desperate men and women who will find your hogwash a misguided reason to prolong their anguish, rather than to come out of the closet and into the light?
Noting he also works at a camp in Vermont, Behrman said some of the 13 and 14 year olds there also are exploring bisexuality.
Could this "camp in Vermont" actually be this "youth retreat?"
Homosexual Activists Solidify Hold on Schools
"...With a three-year grant worth $121,575 from the Vermont Department of Health, Outright targets middle and high school kids. Kathy Hoyt, Vermont Secretary of Administration, proudly asserted that Outright Vermont "developed a training program for public schools that was designed to support diversity and safe schools for Vermont’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth."
As in Massachusetts, however, "safety" has begun to bleed into "sex." That’s the serious charge leveled by Nancy Sheltra, a six-term state representative and founder of Vermont’s pro-family organization, Standing Together And Reclaiming the State (STARS). According to documents provided to AFA by STARS, Outright Vermont has gone lightyears beyond the simple purpose espoused by Hoyt.
For example, Outright used taxpayer money to provide "safer sex activities" and "parties" for teens. These events included, according to Outright’s own documents, "demonstrations, guided practice & skill evaluation" for the use of prophylactics, and the distribution of free condoms, lubricants for sexual intercourse between males, "dental dams" for oral sex between lesbians, and latex gloves for mutual masturbation.
The number of such items requested by Outright Vermont for distribution to teens was mind-boggling: 5,000 condoms, 750 dental dams, 750 latex gloves, and 2,000 packets of lubricant.
Outright also spent monies on youth retreats, including the "recruitment of youth participants," which utilized mailing lists and youth-related meetings to stir interest in the gatherings. Kids who expressed an interest in attending were transported - again using state money - to the retreat site, where youth and adult staff again taught kids how to engage in homosexual sex practices. Outright’s own quarterly report said, "All retreat participants practiced and were evaluated on their (prophylactic) barrier use skills and were given a variety of barriers to take home. Participants joined in role plays"..."
The Problem with Equivalence: "Pedophilia Chic" defended
In 'Pedophilia Chic Reconsidered,' Eberstadt raises questions about the mixed messages on appropriate sexual behavior for minors given out by the youth websites of many gay organizations. Eberstadt is concerned that these sites are encouraging young boys and girls to think sexually at ever younger ages. The parents disturbed by the Outright Vermont program agree. During the campaign, these parental groups complained loudly about graphic pictorial illustrations of, and instructions for, gay oral sex, fisting, and "rimming" ("mouth to ass," as the pamphlet describes it) made available to young people by Outright Vermont. Interestingly, supporters of Outright Vermont were, by their own account, "visibly shaken" by these attacks. What so shocked the partisans of Outright Vermont was that anyone could be horrified by the act of distributing to youngsters the sort of "safe sex" material gay organizations now ignore as commonplace.
The cultural fault line here is profound, and no aberration. The gay adults who operate gay-straight alliances and organizations like Outright Vermont seem to have a very different view than most heterosexual parents on the extent to which sexually explicit material ought to be made available to young people. And to be sure, explicit material about homosexual sex is even more disturbing to most parents than explicit material about heterosexual sex. With good reason. The most disquieting thing of all is that programs like Outright Vermont are now targeted at GLBTQ's. That's an acronym for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Questioning youth. A "questioning" youth, of course, is uncertain about his or her sexual orientation. But it's entirely commonplace for children who end up heterosexual to go through a youthful phase in which they question their own sexual orientation. Will these children now be told they have a gay gene, be handed a dental dam, and directed to an adult gay porn site?..."
Snoopy!Snoopy's my bud. He types all my stuff on FR. And he really respects the new spell checker :)
I believe somebody is working on that. The site doesn't yet exist but it will be http://www.infoworm.net. The site will also have additional info there, but I'm not sure what.
To: rface; Alamo-Girl; marron; unspun; logos; xzins; lockeliberty; P-Marlowe; Vernon; restornu
We are watching attitudes change, one generation replacing another, in the direction of full acceptance of gay Americans. We're not there yet. But this time it's the conservatives pushing the most radical idea: a constitutional freeze on social change.
I dunno, but this line of reasoning appears quite specious to me. Ms. Goodman is espousing the "individual rights" argument, alleging that gay men and women are somehow being deprived of their constitutional rights. But this is a total canard.
First of all, the Constitution does not confer rights, it secures them where they already exist. And as far as, say, Thomas Jefferson was concerned (if we want to take the DoI seriously), rights are endued in humans by their Creator; they are not, nor can they be, grants of the state, national or otherwise.
Moreover, gays cannot show that they are being deprived of the right to marry, within the traditional definition of that term. They just choose not to do so.
What is the traditional definition of marriage? William Bennett, on the O'Reilly show last night, had the pithiest definition I have ever come across. He said the purpose of marriage was "to civilize men, protect women, and raise children." Indeed, this is marriage's natural purpose, having been established over some 40-plus millennia ago, and a common feature of human existential experience in all cultures, all places, and all times ever since. It goes without saying that marriage has had enormous "fitness" (survival) value for the human species over time, and continues to be the bedrock social institution of a civilized society.
Here we have a situation when roughly 5% of the American population -- that part of it self-described solely according to preferred sexual practices that have never been regarded anywhere as "natural" -- is agitating on the basis that the other 95% is depriving them of their individuals rights. Yet no one is telling gays how to live their lives, or what they may or may not choose to do in their private lives.
Marriage is a public institution in a way that homosexual relations are not. For homosexual liaisons (of whatever duration) are mainly about sexual gratification, erotic experience; they are not concerned with the public purposes that marriage serves: civilizing men, protecting women, raising children.
Personally, one wonders why gay folks want to get "married," really. Civil unions would give them equal benefits with married folk; but this is somehow not good enough: They must have the term itself.
And so one asks: Why? The more radical activists hate marriage because they believe it is a "sexist institution." For such people, that's quite sufficient reason -- all by itself -- to mow marriage down. For it offends one by its "sexism."
And so society is to be stood on its head, just to gratify the narcissism and aestheticism of a tiny minority of the population who have zero sympathy for families, the demands of child-rearing, or respect for the requirements of our rule of law. And the means to do this is to execute an end-run around the Will of the People, expressed through duly-constituted legislatures, and head straight to confused public officials and (ultimately) activist judges for "judge-made law."
This hardly looks to me like a case of tyranny against a minority being perpretrated by the majority. It would be much more accurate to say this is the case of a minority tyrannizing the majority. And it is judges and justices acting outside the scope of their constitutional authority which makes all this possible.
As we saw in the case of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's one-judge majority, ordering the state General Court to accommodate gay marriage in the Commonwealth -- after the Will of the People had already been expressed in a constitutional referendum. The people of the Commonwealth by a huge majority clearly said "NO." One judge said "YES"; and that's all that was needed to trump the will and wishes of society.
This sort of thing is practically the textbook definition of tyranny.
Weasel-worded Kerry is trying (as usual) to have it both ways. He's not in favor of a federal constitution amendment to protect marriage, but he IS up for Massachusetts attempting to pass an amendment to our state constitution. But this is so deceitful of him -- for well he knows that, absent a federal amendment, it's only a matter of time before the Article IV "Full Faith and Credit Clause" ends up getting litigated -- and thus the issue finds itself back in the hands of judges. (Kerry is such a hypocrit I could spit.)
Personally, I am chagrined that the issue of a federal constitutional amendment has even come up. I hate the idea of being driven to such measures by the progressive left which hates America and most Americans. But the fact is, a federal amendment is the only thing that can keep the "Full Faith and Credit" issue from rearing its head at some not far-off time....
Thanks for the post, rface!
20 posted on 03/04/2004 10:01:32 AM PST by betty boop (The purpose of marriage is to civilize men, protect women, and raise children. -- William Bennett)
Gay/civil rights debate splits black leaders: Local rev bucks stand by NAACP
The Corrosive Effects of the Gay Left's Coup
Kevin McCullough: Same-sex marriage hot potato heats up
"Homosexual Marriage Doesn't Effect My Marriage" (VANITY)
It won’t work (Same-sex Marriage)
Will teens, young adults embrace same-sex ‘marriage’?
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