Posted on 02/07/2004 2:26:21 PM PST by quidnunc
Among America's culture wars, one of today's most intense controversies rages around the issue alternatively identified, depending on one's point of view, as "normalizing homosexuality" or "accepting gayness." The debate is truly a social-ethical-moral conceptual war that transcends both the scientific and legal, though science and law most often are the weapons of choice. The ammunition for these weapons, however, is persuasion.
This article explores how gay rights [3] activists use rhetoric, psychology, social psychology, and the media — all the elements of modern marketing — to position homosexuality in order to frame what is discussed in the public arena and how it is discussed. In essence, when it comes to homosexuality, activists want to shape "what everyone knows" and "what everyone takes for granted" even if everyone does not really know and even if it should not be taken for granted. [4]
The first strategy of persuasion is to establish a favorable climate for your message so that the communicator (marketer) can influence the future decision without even appearing to be persuading. Pratkanis and Aronson refer to this as pre-selling. [5] This is at the heart of the homosexual campaign: to get consent via social construct today to determine whose idea of personal freedoms will prevail in our legal codes tomorrow.
Part II of this article provides a brief overview of the social climate and politics that ultimately led to the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) imprimatur of homosexual behavior. The declassification of homosexuality as a disorder by the APA provides context for the propaganda war proposed by Kirk and Madsen's homosexual manifesto fifteen years later. The section ends by reviewing the main elements of the campaign including the call to specifically discredit, intimidate, and silence opponents with particular attention paid to conservative Christians.
Part III presents the connection between persuasion and democratic processes. Rhetoric, persuasive communication, propaganda, and social psychology theories are foundational to the concept of selling homosexuality as presented in this article. The purpose of this section is to provide a greater understanding of why persuasion works in order to strengthen the later discussion of how it is applied in the mass persuasion techniques evidenced in today's "gay rights"-style marketing.
Part IV moves to the "4-P's" of the traditional marketing paradigm — Product, Price, Place, and Promotion — to deconstruct and to illustrate how homosexuality is packaged and sold as a competitive product in the marketplace often through education [6] and through positive media coverage. "What is pitched is different — a product brand versus an issue — but the method is the same. In each case, the critical thing is not to let the public know how it is done," [7] states Tammy Bruce, a self-described lesbian feminist and ex-president of the Los Angles chapter of the National Organization for Women. [8]
Part V presents several real examples of how this strategy is employed in five important markets of social influence. The areas examined, which touch every citizen in America, are government, education, organized religion, the media, and the workplace.
Part VI concludes by recapping some achievements of the gay rights campaign and discussing what these may portend for their opponents and American society in the future.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at regent.edu ...
Up until 1973 the American Psychological Association considered homosexuality to be a mental disease. Since then they have been over-run and infiltrated by gay political apologists and the radical left. Since the title "Nurse practitioner" is a comparatively new one, the reader could reasonably suspect you were educated by some of the latter-day possibly even post-1973 high priests of psychobabble.
As you claim, you are a nurse practitioner. But merely a "nurse practitioner: a glorified RN who likely can prescribe and dispense... ritalin - maybe. You are neither a doctor, nor a clinical scientist.
Politics aside, lets talk science, shall we? Exactly what scientific peer reviewed homo"factual" study(s) can you cite which refutes the pre-1973 position of APA? Better yet, what clinical studies have you designed and conducted that have been subjected to peer review which support your current view of the medical status of homosexuality? Are you currently on a peer review board vested with evaluating clinical studies for quality of publication, quality of study design, and statistical interpretation of the data submitted to support the findings? If so please name it, or them, as the case may be.
Absent evidence which you can provide to conclusively substantiate your credentials with something more weighty and credible than what you have to this point, you are not in anyway qualified to speak on behalf of anything involving scientific or clinical "merits" of "studies" used to support the current political thinking of the APA. You are nothing more than a useful mouthpiece for parroting the political pap and psychbabble you were weaned on in what ever trade school you went to somewhere.
For those of us with such credentials and experience in interpretation of both scientific and clinical data in other areas, you will have to show us something far more convincing than what you think about...
...what somebody thought about...
... what somebody wrote about and prostituted themselves about to get publication in...
...what was at one time a medical journal somebody with scientific interest in psychology even cared to read in a location somewhere out side of the corporate wash room.
Until then....
"Psychology" is the study of the art and power of influence over the minds of others, which, while it can be dressed up with at times impressive if not authoritative-sounding terminology, fails for being anything more than a subject which merely pretends to science.
OK. I'll call it a fetish. I'll go one further and call it deviant behavior! I'll go one MORE and call it disgusting behavior!
I'm not so sure about that. With "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy", the Britany-Madonna kiss etc. it seems that American IS buying homosexuality far more than most of the world.
And is it "peer reviewed?" ;^)
Very interesting post...
Why? If there's no reason for homosexuality to remain in the DSM, what is the problem with Gay Marriage?
If homosexuality is not a disorder, who's to say they can't be married?
For 1, 2, and 3 above I will refer you to Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is Doing to People by Dr. Tana Dineen who had over 30 years experience in the field of psychology and the collected works of Dr. Thomas S. Szasz .
If that is not enough, please consider a) Past Life Therapy, b) Alien Abduction Therapy, c) Recovered Memory Therapy, and others ad nauseam.
For 4 above again refer to the works of Dr. Szasz as he was the pioneer in noting the difference between behavior and disease.
Finally in reply to your many references to 'peer review' please understand this is not peer review as science generally understands peer review. This is the mumbo jumbo of witch doctors dressed up in suits and ties or dresses and jewelry in the western world - but it is still mumbo jumbo and most practionioners are little different from witch doctors in comparison to those who work in the real sciences where real peer review occurs.
Cheers!
RileyD, nwJ
"It's not what you don't know that will kill you. It's what you do know and it's wrong that will kill you." Will Rogers
You've got to be kidding. Anyone who looks at the circumstances surrounding the the APA removing homosexuality from the DSM can see that it was politically calculated move made under pressure from the gay rights advocates, and had nothing to do with science.
The APA caved in to the homosexual agenda.
It doesn't take a genious...ANYONE can look at the biological design of human sexuality and see that homosexuality is a disorder and deviation from nature and the created intent.
The APA should have never removed homosexuality from the DSM.
"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."
"A study appearing in the March 2003 issue of The American Journal of Psychology found higher rates of non-fatal suicidal behavior among those with homosexual attractions than among the heterosexual population."
Invasion of the mind snatchers - The homosexual blueprint to change America's mind
Be that as it may, it begs my original question. Is social deviance synonymous with mental illness?
I think perhaps another categorisation is called for in this instance.
You do realize that all the hullabaloo about pedophilia was abouit one article in an American Psychological Acadamy publication in 1998 that was roundly debunked by the entire psychological and medical community?
Research Studies and Journal Articles of Interest
The Pedophilia Debate Continues --And DSM Is Changed Again
International Academy of Sex Research Joins the Debate: Is Pedophilia a Mental Disorder?
On Positive Reports of Adult-Child Relationships: Taking a Closer Look
Seminar poster. Gay Mau-Mau.
Adios, nice of you to drop by.
Absolutely.
Do you suppose there's an "action central" someplace, a gay skunkworks where someone is field-generaling this sewage?
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