Lady Gaga
How many suicides will we blame on Lady Gaga years from now?
Hear me out: Our ruling elites insist that bullied gay teens commit suicide in greater numbers than the general population—a dubious statistic—so all children are now obliged to endure “anti-bullying” campaigns in school.
Of course, these “anti-bullying” campaigns are simply the latest, well, bullying attempts to normalize homosexual behavior and recruit youngsters into a promiscuous gay lifestyle.
Gay activists admit this, and this phony suicide “epidemic” was debunked over ten years ago, but straight “useful idiots” are in denial. And hey, decorating the classroom with rainbows is easier and more fun than teaching algebra, right?
Debunking be damned! Expert opinion only counts if it props up the gay and transsexual agenda. So what if the psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins warns that vulnerable people are being mutilated to help advance shaky theories about “gender identity”? Who cares? Denounce the bigot!
The trouble is, even when they live and work in inclusive environments—cities where Gay Pride Day/Week/Month is granted mandatory lip service—gay adults DO commit suicide and abuse drugs and alcohol (which is suicide in slow motion) in shockingly skewed numbers.
Yet the briefest survey of the pop-culture landscape, taking in Glee and Ellen and “Chaz” Bono on Dancing with the Stars (oh my!) demonstrates that homosexuality and its offshoots have never been more tightly embraced.
Which brings us to the highly derivative and unoriginal yet/therefore hugely popular celebrity Lady Gaga.
She’s appointed herself a champion of LGBT youth and is forever encouraging fans to “be themselves”—which, given her “Born This Way” anthem, paradoxically appears to mean “dressing like someone else” and even “changing your sex entirely.”
Take 16-year-old Campbell Kenneford, who told the Daily Mail that Lady Gaga inspired him to have a sex change. Exactly how many “Campbells” are out there is impossible to know, but no doubt you’ve noticed we’re being incrementally pushed to prepare a place for a multitude of trannies.
The trouble is, sex-change “regret” is very real and occasionally fatal.
Mr. Michalopulos,
95% tripe out of the gate, but as near as I can tell. the real science of statistical analysis has never seemed to agree with you. Agita, is it? I say, skip the PPI’s and go old school. Always works for me. Anyway…
I work with “bullies,” although at the point they connect with me, they are already referred to as “victimizers,” and “predictors.” Interestingly, they need no confirmation whatsoever as to anyone’s actual sexual orientation or preference. They posses a special sense that your son or daughter is “gay” because they are quiet, pensive, like to read, are academically oriented, like their teacher(s), dress “alternatively,” are “brash,” “loud,” “energetic,” “enthusiastic,” are musical & sing – and God help us – openly wear a Cross, bless themselves before eating lunch, refuse to curse, or refuse to have sex or use alcohol/drugs. Bullies sense and prey on vulnerability, and those, who in the course of their development experience trauma, attachment problems, and so on must be protected by us. Unfortunately, and with great sadness, I am able to report to you the numbers and effectiveness of these vicious characters; and sometime I’ll tell you about how they effectively manipulate and destroy the careers and lives of those enlisted to help them.
I am aware this is your site, this is a “hot topic,” and you are free to draw the lines as you will. But it seems to me that, even in a forum such as this, when it concerns our children, we protect first and debate later.
M. Stankovich,
If 95% of what George presented is “Tripe” in your opinion, what percentage is not and does the 2004 conclusions cited by Paul McHugh, University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University fall into the “Not Tripe category?”
Amos,
The “worth” of statistical research is in its ability to be replicated. Until an observation is replicated, it is considered an insignificant deviation – perhaps an “interesting” deviation – but an anomaly none the less. The reporting of a deviation is an “anecdote.” If I may simply draw upon Mr. Michalopulos’s initial link that refutes the “dubious” assertion that adolescents questioning their sexual orientation are at greater risk for suicide, a two minute, uncomplicated search of mine indicated :
Button, DM, et al. “Sexual minority youth victimization and social support: the intersection of sexuality, gender, race, and victimization.” J Homosex. 2012;59(1):18-43.
Marshal MP, et al. “Suicidality and depression disparities between sexual minority and heterosexual youth: a meta-analytic review. J Adolesc Health. 2011 Aug;49(2):115-23.
Langhinrichsen-Rohling J, et al. “Sexual attraction status and adolescent suicide proneness: the roles of hopelessness, depression, and social support.” J Homosex. 2011;58(1):52-82.
Zhao Y, et al. “Suicidal ideation and attempt among adolescents reporting “unsure” sexual identity or heterosexual identity plus same-sex attraction or behavior: forgotten groups?” J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2010 Feb;49(2):104-13.
All of this is to say, Amos, that in my estimation there is considerably more significant, contemporaneous data that defines and provides insight into this issue than Lady Gaga. That is, of course, assuming the intention is to actually provide insight. My original point: protect children first, debate later.
MS,
So if I read your selected excerpts from these studies, are we to conclude that taking the “I am OK and you are OK” approach is key to reduced levels of depression, hopelessness and rates of suicide in LGBT youth? Is that what you ascribe as to?
Amos, I doubt that MS will answer in a straight forward and simple manner if he answers at all. “Let your yes be yes and your no, no” seems to escape him.
Amos,
I was speaking to the issue of a “dubious statistic” and simply selected current research from reputable journals.
As the research would suggest, when you have a convergence of major depression and a co-occurring factor that markedly increases the risk of suicide – and the use of alcohol and drugs is the single most frequent risk factor associated with completed suicide – the necessity for intervention to save a life is preeminent, LGBT and everything else aside. After that, however, I would suggest there are “evidence-based,” though not “formulaic,” approaches to successfully treating depressive disorders.
Do I personally “ascribe” to an “I’m OK, you’re OK” approach? Certainly not. But neither can I begin to imagine how such an approach could even be remotely helpful. Perhaps this a problem with presenting abstracts rather than full-text articles – it is not, after all, my site – but I am confused as to how you might have reached such a conclusion. Please correct me if I have misinterpreted your question.
Unfortunately at least one nationally recognized anti-bullying organization has as its leader a homosexual man who delights in publcially humiliating and bullying Chrisitian teens.
This is not an either/or problem. All bullying should be dealth with including the institutional bullying of Chrisitans from within the government school system and those that are affliated with it. The institutional bullying of parents by school counselors administrators and failing teachers.
Make no mistake, the high profile bullying crusades that I have seen are all linked to normalizing homosexuality and other ‘alternative’ life styles and diminishing and bullying Chrisitians and others of traditional faith into submission.
When I read this, I think of my childhood friend who died of AIDS back in the nineties. Yes, he had a sex change, to which I could never really adjust to. Had he been able to overcome his demons, he would be a very well-known fashion designer to this day. I miss him a lot.
A few readjustments here have eliminated the option to pull up all the comments of anyone contributing to our conversation, but I saved these remarks I sent about six months ago, and I think they’re germane to our present topic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As Christians, we must deal with so-called ‘sexual minorities’ in a rational, compassionate, christian way — just as we must with larcenous minorities and murderous minorities: people who regularly commit crimes and sins of whatever sort are clearly operating outside our way of life, or at least the way of life to which we aspire. They are relatively very few among us, and they deserve our compassion more than our condemnation.
Acknowledging this reality does not allow us to condemn them, but encourages us to be compassionate, and to love them enough that they repent.
And if we fail to be compassionate, then it’s WE — not THEY — who ought to quit The Church, for we have failed to be christian. Classic patristic consensus tells us that The Church is the hospital where sinners may be healed. Who would deny people the healing they most need? Certainly not we Christians!
This is not to be interpreted in any way as my/an approval of homosexuality or any other sinful way of life. This is merely my attempt to remind us that only Christ is the Judge Who will determine whether we will be sheep or goats on the last day.
May the Lord forgive us our sins and be merciful to us all.
» Posted By Monk James On October 3, 2011 @ 8:06 pm
The early research by Money and Green has largely been discredited, especially in cases of children born with ambiguous genitalia. Crude surgical ‘correction’ of such children failed to make them psychologically healthy in their ‘assigned sex’, and many suicides ensued.
Adult options for sex-reassignment surgery are much more available now than they were fifty years ago, but the emotional adjustments thought to follow such procedures have been much less than satisfying. And many suicides ensue.
Transsexualism is a psychosis whose etiology remains unexplained, and whose treatment remains primitive, at least insofar as the medical profession is concerned.
It’s my considered opinion that transsexualism is a diabolic affliction, and might best be addressed by prayer and confrontation and expulsion of those demons in exorcisms performed by Christ’s holy priests.
But someone must ask for that divine intervention. Truth be told, most transsexuals are not Christians and they — and their dear ones — wouldn’t be in a position to ask for that help.
Stan (Barbara Marie) Drezhlo continually presents as an orthodox christian and at the same time condemns nearly everyone, especially converts. It’s self-evidently true that anyone so negative cannot credibly be considered a Christian.
Lord, have mercy on Your servant Stanley and on us all.
» Posted By Monk James On September 25, 2011 @ 8:29 pm
Once in a while, it can be determined that someone’s been born with chromosomal irregularities which result in ‘ambiguous genitalia’, leaving confused parents and (often) overly zealous surgeons hoping to determine the sex of the child through medical procedures. Especially in the last fifty years or so, it’s become increasingly evident that such children ought to be left alone and helped to find their own identity.
On the other hand, though, there are perfectly normal people whose chromosomes indicate absolutely nothing irregular regarding their biological sex, but who later — for reasons yet unknown — suffer from a psychosis conveniently called ‘transsexualism’.
I met my first transsexual in the late 1960s while I was managing a psychotherapy clinic in NYC. This individual, born male, presented as a credible woman but was compulsively seeking to have sex with men. It’s my opinion that this was someone suffering from same-sex attraction, but driven to madness because it was socially unacceptable for men to have sex with men in those days — a few exceptions notwithstanding.
After Christine Jorgensen’s tour-de-force surgery in the 1950s, making a man appear to be a woman, a number of homosexuals started to reimagine themselves as women.
The medical profession, both psychiatric and surgical, completely caved on this issue. They found that the psychosis of transsexualism was so profound that they could not address it by any sort of psychotherapy apart from tranquilizers, and decided (by the Power Invested in Them — oy!) that it was ‘easier’ — for them at least — to treat transsexuals by surgery: that they could modify the appearance of the body rather than the delusions of the mind was, and remains, an abject failure on the part of modern medicine.
There are four interesting aspects of this problem which need to be acknowledged, at least on the societal level.
First, male-to-female transsexuals outnumber female-to-male transsexuals about ten to one. This disparity remains unexplained.
Second, only a small number of male-to-female transsexuals are outwardly undetectable and employable; many fall through society’s cracks.
Third, a significant number of both male-to-female and female-to-male transsexuals remain attracted to the opposite (of their birth) sex. This remains under study, and no conclusions have yet been drawn.
Fourth, there’s an amazingly high correlation between transsexuality and suicide, both pre-op and post-op.
This last point is a fairly reliable indicator that surgical treatment of transsexualism is the least elegant approach to relieving the psychosis. Better therapies have yet to emerge, but it’s clear that surgery isn’t the answer.
On the whole, we should be kind to people, even people whose mental illness stretches the limits of our indulgence. At the same time, we do no one a favor by pretending that transsexualism isn’t a mental illness of the worst kind. In fact, it might be a demonic delusion — a theory which I myself favor.
‘Let us entrust ourselves and each other to Christ, our God.’
» Posted By Monk James On September 25, 2011 @ 6:54 pm
Clearly you are correct Monk James and as long as people are not trying to change the moral teaching of the Church or turn sexual issues into a bludgeon against rational people in the larger culture we should be kind. The question comes when those in the Church are defiantely unrepentant and those in the larger culture seek our destruction.
I don’t know what the rest of the article is about, but I clicked on the first link in it; “a dubious statistic” and was taken to an article by a Benjamin Bradford which said, at the outset:
“Unitarian Minister Debra Haffner in a piece published in the Washington Post a few days ago: “We have known for more than thirty years that at least one third of all suicides to teens are to gay youth,” Haffner told the newspaper.
That one-third of gay teens may be killing themselves is indeed a shocking statistic.”
Mister Bradford mis-read Mme. Haffner’s post: she didn’t say that one third of gay teens may be killing themselves. She said something entirely different: one third of ALL teen suicides are gay.
Typical from this blog to promote bigotry and hate under the cover of Christianity. Shameful!!!
Joseph, you need more than a wagging finger and the cluck-clucking of disapproval to say something is “bigoted.”
This was not posted by the Canadian Joseph, but by an impostor… Joseph, the Impostor, get yourself another moniker please…
And by the way, I agree with what George M. said…
Smaller boys, especially if they acted big, were regularly bullied when I was a student.
Homosexuals? We did not even know they existed.
Should bullying of children for any reason not be discouraged? Does the author sincerely believe that people can be recruited into homosexuality any more than into heterosexuality? Can she identify when she was recruited? Naturally what one does with any desire is a choice. But bullying because of children differences, perceived or real, cannot be reconciled with the Gospel. “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
Daniel asks, “Does the author sincerely believe that people can be recruited into homosexuality any more than into heterosexuality?”
I hope the author believes it, because it is most certainly true.
Yeah, sort of like when the Army recruiter says to Bill Murry and Harold Ramis, “I know it’s ridiculous, but I have to ask: are you guys homosexuals?” Ramis asks, “Do you mean flaming?” And Murray responds, “No, but we’re willing to learn.” And on Memorial Day weekend…
Suffering, as I do, from the ravages of senility, I am uncertain what point Mr Stankovich has in mind to make—even less how his comment serves as a response to what I wrote.
The extensive “recruitment” of young people into homosexuality, however, is a fact well known to those who hear Confessions and bear the pastoral care of souls.
Mr. Stankovich delights in throwing handgenades of irrelvancy and refuses to abide by Matthew 5:37.
When challenged he falls back into the pit of empiricism which is the ultimate irrelevancy when discussing matters of the soul and the faith.
More than a bit like Ashley Nevins methinks.
I guess that “Legacy” thing didn’t quite work our for our friend MS. The Holy Spirit must have given it a “Thumbs Down.”
Let me confirm for you: Point taken, Mr. Bauman. Message(s) received. Loud and clear, Mr. Bauman. Yes, I read them, Mr. Bauman. All of them – “intellectual masturbation,” “pit of empiricism,” “service of evil” – got them. Let’s move on.
First, I believe it was completely inappropriate to bring the name of Mr. Nevins into your comments regarding me. Your analogy was sarcastic, lacked charity, and I believe you owe him an apology. Second, I have read here and elsewhere that I am beneath your attention, I am irrelevant, and “there is simply no further need to pay any attention to anything [I] say.” Have at it, Mr, Bauman, Have at it. Now, be a man of your word and shut up.
I will continue to engage the spurious and destructive ideas you propogate Mr. Stankovich…and anyway as much as I’d like to relegate your ideas to irrelvancy, they are a burr under a saddle. Left alone such a burr can kill a horse.
As to the comparison of you and Ashley Nevins: Verbose rhetoric, no new ideas from post to post, unwillingness to answer simple and direct questions, destructive ideology…hmm. Actually he has more useful insights than most of what you post and he is hurt.
So you are right, I apologize to Mr. Nevins for putting him in the same category.
Michael Bauman writes, “More than a bit like Ashley Nevins methinks.”
I truly wish Michael Bauman (a bright man and a genuine source of comfort on this blog site) would not overly tax those of us who cannot keep up with him.
The name “Ashley Nevins” is beyond me. As an experiment, I googled this name and got very mixed results.
I am just too old and feeble for this sort of thing.
Unfortunately, the functionality on this site that would allow you to see what Mr. Bauman means and
who Ashley Nevins iswhat Ashley Nevins writes is no longer is functional. Ashley Nevins has frequently posted on this site, railing against Orthodoxy, monasticism, and so on for four or five screens at a crack. He has been hurt in some way (his son at a Ephramite monastery?) and bitterly denounces us all. Occasionally, there are some diamonds hidden in his endless missives, but they are obscured by the eternal droning and moaning.…and so my point about context is proved. Although Mr. Nevins posted quite frequently for some time on this site and others, he has been gone long enough to be out of thought for many it appears and so the context of my criticism of Mr. Stankovich was lost.
My apologies to all.
Aha, thank you.
Father Patrick, bless. If this fact is well known to pastors and confessors, I am curious if you have any theory about why the fact has not made its way into the teachings of the Catholic Church, whose Catechism states simply “its [homosexuality’s] genesis remains largely unexplained”?
Further, are there any published studies that substantiate this assertion – e.g. has anyone canvassed pastors and confessors and written up a summary of results, or is it simply your impression from your own conversations?
Genuinely interested, thanks.
R. Howell asks, “Further, are there any published studies that substantiate this assertion – e.g. has anyone canvassed pastors and confessors and written up a summary of results, or is it simply your impression from your own conversations?”
I don’t know, honestly, if there are such studies.
I am just a simple parish priest. I hear Confessions (just shy of 50 years), but I read precious little in social psychology.
Recently, for instance, I have come across new studies about the relationship of pornography to the internet.
i was surprised there anybody thought that sort of thing needed to be published.
None of material was new to those who hear Confessions.
I’m not speaking for Fr. Patrick here, but your question is compelling and there are different ways to answer it. In Orthodox anthropology for example, homosexual desire is understood as a disordered passion (Catholic teaching calls it an “intrinsic disorder”) the origin of which, like all passions, lies in the effect of the fall on the human body; the body somehow distorts the direction of the natural energy of the soul (sexual desire for the same sex, for example). A passion, in other words, is distorted energy. All desire is rooted in the desire for God the Fathers teach, so a disordered passion is also a kind of pathology the healing of which occurs in deeper communion with God.
This also indicates that homosexual desire may have a physiological dimension, something that science may be able to shed some light on down the road, but the assertions that it is rooted or grounded in physiological events alone is premature at best and does not conform to Orthodox anthropology.
So the statement that “its [homosexuality’s] genesis remains largely unexplained” may mean nothing more that the origin of the passion is poorly understood — which it is. But I would argue that the origin of many passions are poorly understood which leads me to conclude is that the next great question the Church must address is what is the nature and makeup of the human person.
I framed the latter point in a larger context in an essay I wrote a while back: Orthodox Leadership in a Brave New World.
I suspect that this is as close as Abouna Ioannes will concede, but, in effect, he portends what is being discovered as the impact of epigentics.
Epigenetics is the investigation of the complex interactions of human biogenetics and “environment.” In this case, environment would include any event that occurs post-conception – meaning past the point of genetic influence – but still “intra-uterine” pre-delivery, and forward. This would account, for example, why twins who are genetically “identical” but experience intra-uterine events differently (e.g. nutritionally, hormonally, maternal stresses, etc.) could be born with an “unequal” risk for certain heart diseases. Epigenetics is to say that there are frequently pathological processes profoundly rooted in physiological events, but are multi-variate, meaning a single genetic marker will never be identified. A fascinating study was published in June, 2011 by Dr. Richard Francis regarding the genetic impact of starvation on generations following the Nazi’s forced famine on the Netherlands. A single “genetic marker” or deviation will never be found for this phenomenon, but to say it lacks foundation in physiological event is silly. And wrong.
We do not need a genetic marker to say SSA is inheritable and familial, nor to say its foundation is physiologically rooted. But I believe errors has evolved from ignoring Abouna Ioanne’s complete statement: rooted or grounded in physiological events alone. My message has been consistently that we need to acknowledge that some individuals inherit a vulnerability for SSA that cannot, nor should not be addressed as a spiritual problem, or a psychiatric problem, or a societal problem alone. We face the individual of Orthodox anthropology, the bio-psycho-social-spiritual creature, created in the “images and likeness of God,” “as it was in the beginning,” and to which it will be again.
Finally, I believe the question, “what is the nature and makeup of the human person” has been completely answered in the resurrected Master, the New Adam, who was, quite literally, unrecognizable to his closest friends and loved ones. We are merely debating the consequences of our Fall from the Paradise the Creator had entrusted to us.
Finally we are getting somewhere. This is the first time you have come clean about your thesis.
The problem is that restricting your definition to SSA alone is arbitrary. All passions have an ‘orientation’, the alcoholic to alcohol, the porn addict to porn (the effects of porn on brain chemistry are well documented), the glutton to food, and so forth.
Further, in grounding SSA attraction to the ‘hormonal wash’ in the developing embryo does not explain other ‘sexual orientations’ like pedophilia (where the perpetrator makes no distinction between the sex of his victims) or bestiality, for example. IOW, while the ‘hormonal wash’ differentiates male and female sex in the embryo, tying it as closely to SSA attraction as you would like (to ground SSA in biology presumably — until now you shrouded this point) does not explain the various ‘sexual orientations’ that exist apart from SSA.
I’ve mentioned before that your arguments are more polemical than scientific even though you like to cite this and that study as authorities. Nothing wrong with polemics of course as long as we are clear about it.
To say I have finally “come clean” is to suggest a willful withholding of vital information in order to bolster my ‘specious’ argument; implying, perhaps, a “weak” or insufficient argument that would otherwise wither at your “tough talk.” In effect, you are accusing me of manipulation and lack of integrity. I would venture to guess that you only vaguely appreciate the import of such a comment in my world.
In my estimation, I have invested more time arguing and “defending” what I have not said, what people think I said, what people think I will say, who I might be delivering messages for, and, ultimately, what groundwork I might be laying to undermine the Church. My response has been to suggest that you not trust me, but rather refer to the literature, scientific & theological, that I meticulously referenced for you. My thought was that any ensuing “debate” would refer to the merit of the research. Not so much.
I would again be emphatic in repeating that we are not debating “the nature and makeup of the human person,” at the hand of the Creator “as it was in the beginning.” We argue over the dynamics and pathology endemic to our tragically corrupted nature, in a broken world after the Fall. Would I be the least bit surprised to learn that within a bio-psycho-social-spiritual construct of our anthropology in this fallen world that a biological vulnerability for paedophilia and bestiality are discovered? Certainly not. But they are not of God, nor at the Hand of God. I have hardly been “arbitrary” in my selection of data.
What I said was that you have come clean about your thesis, but even there some murkiness remains. So what you say here:
…is true to an extent, but only because communication is poor from your end. If you are investing too much time explaining what people think you said, it’s because your writing is not clear from the outset. We have told you that before.
Don’t forget, you brought your writing forward in the “We Are the Legacy” context and so forth, a highly charged political arena from where the polemical cant flows that seeks to establish moral parity between homosexual coupling and heterosexual marriage (yes, we’ve heard the arguments before; they were the same ones used in the Episcopal Church before their moral collapse). That burden is one of your own making, and that’s why you owe readers more clarity about your presuppositions.
M. Stankovich says:
What you refuse to acknowled Mr. Stankovich is that the debate on homosexuality is precisely about the “nature and makeup of the human person”. Your refusal to acknowledge that is at the core of many of the disagreements. While I will, to a limited extent, believe that such is not the case with you, you are naive, at best, in not realizing that you are giving aid and comfort to those who’s agenda is precisely the reforming of the the idea of the human person.
You are so stuck in your empiricist armor that you refuse or fail to see the wider consequences of your arguments. Not uncommon.
While scientist may argue that may believe that data selection can be anything but arbitrary, historians know other wise. You are fooling yourself if you persist in the stupifactingly isolated notion that science is objective and that some how the data that is used, particularly in the area of behavioral studies somehow just appears free of human agendas.
The very act of observing people alters their behavior. The level of bias involved in the studies of homosexuality on both sides of the question is so gross as to make any study void at inception.
Well, Abouna, your memory appears to be as challenged your science. Look for the thread on this site where Mr. Michalopulos fell all over over himself in creating a separate thread of one of your responses to me. Most notable to me was your observation that you could not imagine where my “thesis” could lead but to a subtle groundwork for the “normalization” of same-gender sexual activity. And, of course, this was massively punctuated by the personally offensive & hurtful hostility of Cardinal Ximénez of Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition, expertly played by Mr. Bauman. This, of course, is in the face of citation after citation – scriptural, patristic, and scientific – provided for your examination. You, on the other hand, speak on your own authority to virtually every matter, and the only attribution I have seen are to articles you have written. I repeat: you never speak to merit and you are expert at distraction.
Mr. Bauman, I outright challenge your comment that “[I] persist in the stupifactingly isolated notion that science is objective and that some how the data that is used, particularly in the area of behavioral studies somehow just appears free of human agendas.” Your ignorance of the fundamental concepts of medical research is as ridiculous as it is embarrassing. Perhaps you would be so kind as to demonstrate some recent studies regarding homosexuality – perhaps one from “each side” – that have been judged “void at inception?” I won’t hold my breath.
That’s because I don’t see merit. I see opinion, which is not to say that the citations you offer are de-facto false (i don’t offer an opinion on them; I don’t know if they are reliable or not), only that the arguments you make around them seem strained, and somewhat contrived. Sometimes it seems the science is quoted solely as an appeal to authority.
I analyze from what I know: Orthodox anthropology grounded in the Fathers to the extent I understand it. If I miss something or am wrong about something, others can correct me because I am clear in expressing how I see it. You tend to dance around points. No real thesis has been offered. Usually when you are pushed to offer one we get instead what we see above — ‘You don’t know science.” “Spanish Inquisition,” that sort of thing.
Why not just spell out your thesis? Show us how you think scientific findings might be related to Orthodox anthropology, particularly the understanding of the passions, and so forth. You have some baggage because you first started writing alongside people who want homosexual normalization in the Church, so tell us straight up where you stand on that.
I don’t rule out a scientific dimension in discussions about anthropology by the way. Passions arise when the energy of the soul is directed through the body so there may indeed be effects that can be quantified. The problem is, you seem to equate quantification with determinism, again seem since you never really say. You have to admit though that the ‘hormonal wash’ theory and the one to one correspondence you drew between sex differentiation in the developing embryo and heterosexual desire and homosexual orientation is speculation, not science — which is why I brought up ‘orientations’ like pedophilia and bestiality that lie outside of the tidy male-female structure that creates the appearance of congruence. Offering a rebuttal like that is well within the bounds of reasonable discourse because your idea is speculation — an opinion, and not established fact.
A lot of this can be straightened out through better communication, but we’ve said that already and yet the explanations remain opaque.
I am accustomed to the rigorous environment of academic research, where discussions are frequently “contentious” and the challenges and exchange of ideas is “fast and furious.” Therefore, I must ask in what world of debate and discussion could you ever get away with using statements like “your argument is strained,” “[seems] contrived.” [is] science quoted solely as an appeal to authority,” or “the explanations remain opaque?” These are “rhetorical gibberish” that sound profound – “Yes, I detect strain… it is consequential.” Certainly, everyone understands what an “opaque” explanation might be. “No real thesis offered.”
I suddenly have a childhood memory of a postcard embossed on a slab of pine, depicting two men holding a gigantic northern pike, with the inscription, “Even a fish could stay out of trouble if he just kept his mouth shut!” I have been spinning in a circular argument going nowhere, and so I step out…
The quotes you cited are the stuff of polemics M. Stankovich, and I still contend your arguments are polemical, not scientific. No problem with that as I’ve said as long as we are clear about it.
Look, you entered the discussion alongside the brouhaha of the normalize homosexuality crowd a few months back. You were writing a thesis on homosexuality — to prove what? You never really said. You were one of the “We Are the Legacy” crowd that has apparently gone defunct.
Do you really expect anyone to put all that aside because you claim your conclusions are scientific, and that the claim precludes any questioning about how your conclusions conform to the moral tradition, Orthodox anthropology, and so forth? Are we supposed to remain silent while you posit theories but refuse to reveal the thesis directing your ‘research’?
Look, you posited a claim that the “hormonal wash” may be the cause of the homosexual passion (‘orientation’?) in some people. As soon as I read that I knew it was speculative but it could have led to a good discussion about passions and physiology. But you never allowed that. Instead, then, as so many times before, we were met with either 1) another recitation of your resume, or 2) assertions that science trumped any other kind of knowledge (in so many words), or 3) another point citing another study.
Do you wonder why people felt you were dancing around their questions? That’s why. The one way to avoid ‘circular’ arguments is to be clear about your thesis.
If you will allow me to “school” you in the history of my “dancing,” you might check with Fr. John Whiteford, who in October, 2011 on this very site, asked me very pointedly, and very directly my views in regard to Orthodox Marriage being exclusively between one man and one woman, and if I held any views that were in contradiction to the Scripture, Patristical Teachings, Canons, or Tradition of the Orthodox Church. His response, “I accept you at your word.” October, 2011. I resent you filling the air with a fabricated “vagueness” of purpose, opacity of thesis, and the veiled implication of dishonesty. Fr. John questioned me pointedly and directly, and I answered him pointedly and directly. That was October, 2011.
Secondly, last fall I posted to your site a comment that included, “It is this initial embryological phase [gender differentiation] that has drawn scientific attention, with emergent data suggesting that sexual orientation may be influenced independently by hormonal “cascades” in early neural development,” with the offer, “(Citations available on request).” You apparently interpret “emergent data” to mean “interesting but insignificant,” a “curiosity” while, in fact, the research is cutting edge and beyond speculative. I also stated, “I openly deplore the tactics of NARTH who make claim to “scientific research” that is limited to their own journal.” You made not a comment. Look it up on your own site. Suddenly this is indicative of “polemic” rather than science? Demonstrative of my “caginess” in purpose? Reciting my resumé? Please. And now you are emboldened to speak in the collective “we!”
There is no question in my mind that you are not about to concede a point in this “discussion” because it is about you. I am not interested in how I am perceived personally because it is not about me. It is only important to me that what I have presented is accurate. Period. If I have made a factual error, then correct me. Seriously, nobody is interested in reading this. I apologize to Mr. Michalopulos for my part in this gross hijacking.
I have a lot more confidence in the findings of the hard sciences than I do ‘behavioral science’ simply because the hard scientists have a better grasp of the limits of science. Cancer cells replicate in certain ways, planes fly, that sort of thing.
Behaviorial science is an entirely different thing. Morals, values, ideological biases and so forth drive and interpret research as often as not. Back in the 1930s there was a lot of ’emergent data’ on the inferiority of blacks and feeble minded too — or so a lot of the ‘scientific community’ thought. Look where that led, the Tuskegee experiments, Buck vs. Bell, and other eugenic fantasies. A lot of that early ‘research’ was exported to Germany and became the ideological ground for the Final Solution. This is a historical fact, indisputable as it turned out.
That’s not to say that the research you cite is tainted with this kind of ideological bias. I have no way of knowing if it is or not. It is always prudent however, to maintain a healthy does of skepticism towards those whose interests reach beyond the findings of their own research. The APA and other professional organizations are right at the center of this storm, positioned as it turns out to confer the imprimatur of their authority on either this or that side of the question. Many pressure groups have an interest in the outcome and to think that they don’t influence funding, research topics, and so forth is naive.
You see the appeals to the certainty of science elsewhere. Take the atheist debates for example. People like Richard Dawkins who are accomplished scientists in their field, leave their disciplines and become philosophers and historians. They know absolutely nothing about these other fields, yet they invoke their ‘objectivity’ and the ostensible authority that it confers to argue that ideas outside of their field have inherent credibility. They don’t of course, and most people with even a cursory grounding in philosophy or history see it. Nevertheless, those who have a interest in the outcomes tell us again and again that Dawkins and others should be believed (“They are scientists after all”).
I warn gay activists to be very careful about associating homosexual behavior too closely with deterministic logic, especially the search for a gay gene or other ostensible ‘scientific’ explanations for the pathology. It creates the appearance of protection, but the protection is good only as long as the elites remain sympathetic to the pathology. If allegiances shift however, the pathology may become a justification for persecution just like the Progressives against Blacks and the poor in the 1930s. Homosexuals become even more vulnerable if Obamacare is not reversed and rationing begins. Homosexuals require an expenditure for AIDS treatments (and research) far beyond their numbers. As pressure to shift those funds increase, the idea that homosexuality is a chemical or genetic abnormality can easily boomerang and become the justification for reducing the treatments associated with the behavior.
We already see these pressures against the aged and infirm, or the permanently disabled like Terri Schiavo for example. Those who are morally confused about the value of human life (abortionists, the judge who decreed Terri Schiavo should die, euthanasia advocates, Planned Parenthood, Progressive Feminists, etc.) can turn against the homosexuals on a dime given the utilitarian logic that governs their thinking.
More is at stake here than you realize. Homosexuality is a flash point in culture because it encapsulates different visions of the human person. To argue that science is somehow above the fray (part of your implicit thesis) is simply not true. Behavioral science cannot maintain this level of objectivity. It cannot speak to the veracity of one moral vision over another. The political wars in the APA make this abundantly clear.
Again, there is a boatload of difference between the physical and behavioral sciences. It is always prudent to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism towards those whose interests reach beyond the findings of their own research.
As to being “recruited,” I too believe it is how children are sexually initiated. There is a “tipping” point in every young human’s life which determines which form of sexual acting will take place later in life. There are many environmental factors which influence this phenomenon.
George:
Not so. We are all born either male or female. Maybe a male in female body and vice-versa, but no “tipping point.” Those psychologically effected need to seek help; those who need a sex change should do so.
Listen up all, Diogenes, the anthropologist and theologian of modernity, has spoken.
obviously Diogenes, you did not read the above essay “Death by Diva,”
Diogenes proclaims, “Those psychologically effected need to seek help; those who need a sex change should do so.”
I have tried and tried to grasp what all this means.
By way of experiment, for instance—and with a sense of desperation—I have altered the expression, “psychologically effected, to “psychologically affected,” since the words “psychologically effected” convey no thought whatever. The adverb simply won’t fit the passive participle in a recognizable sense.
At least, the expression “psychologically affected” actually conveys a recognizable thought. The thought it conveys, however, is not particularly helpful, since everybody with a psyche falls into the category, “psychologically affected.”
Then we come to the second half off the sentence, “those who need a sex change should do so.”
Do what?
The answer is not clear from grammar, since “do so” does not seem to have a syntactical antecedent in the sentence.
Nor is the meaning clear from logic, since a “sex change” is biologically impossible. No one can have a “sex change.” It can’t be done. The most a person can seek is a surgical mutilation that mimics the impossible.
We await the clarification that only Diogenes can provide.
Why aren’t you teaching an AP English class?
Mr. Michalopulos,
I read your impassioned “turn of leaf” on the AOI site to demand that liberals demonstrate the truthfulness of their claims, “the research says…” It would then seem appropriate to ask you to objectively support your own claim that “recruiting” and “environmental factors” are significant in the development of same-sex-attraction.
I do not intend my statement as “mockery” or a set-up to challenge you, but I have invested considerable energy scouring the National Library of Medicine, the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s Human Genome Resource Center and Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (the database of the Human Genome Project), the specialized sites of Genetics & Cancer, Entrez Genetics, and more. I have found nothing proven that any environmental factor occurring after the “intra-uterine hormonal cascade” known to determine our gender has any impact on sexual preference. To the best of my recollection, I posted 6 separate contemporaneous – all late 2011 – meta-analysis from respected journals, who independently reached the identical conclusion: there is no evidence.
If you speak from an authority of I which I am unaware, I look forward to reading it.
The tools of social science can’t measure what you want measured. It’s like the claim “there is no evidence that capital punishment deters crime.” Of course there isn’t. No tool exist to determine the truth of falsity of the assertion.
How can a relationship between a “hormonal cascade” and SSA be conclusively proven? It can’t. So why is your assertion that there is “nothing” to prove that, “any environmental factor occurring after the “intra-uterine hormonal cascade’…has any impact on sexual preference” used as a positive claim against George’s point? It doesn’t negate George’s point in the least, and not because George is right necessarily (although I believe he is), but because you are misusing science.
It is clear that you are very eager to prove that SSA has a biological basis. But don’t make what appears to be a scientific argument that in fact is a rhetorical sleight of hand.
Abouna Ioannes,
This is medical science, not social science. If you are not aware of the fundamental embryological and genetic processes by which you were transformed into a male and not a female, and the bio-genetic influences of sexual preference, you have absolutely no business entering this discussion. I have posted references galore for my every contention on your site. I do not believe 1) you actually pursued the references, 2) understood my conceptualization of the concepts contained in the research, and 3) I not believe you understand them now. This is sloppy, dishonest “rhetoric” disguised as scholarship. You never challenge pursuant to the merit of the scholarship I present, but only on tangential, peripheral points; and I’m laughing as I recall a “debate” with you & Dn. Mitchell (the topic was x-factor inactivation as an influence in maternal fecundity) and actually writing, “Do you even understand what I’m talking about?” I will re-iterate that I did not learn human medicine, genetics, and psychiatry from the “Google Medical School.” I am not eager to prove SSA has a biological basis, but rather I am fascinated because it does.
There is no evidence that less boys will have SSA if they have strong same-gender role models; there is no evidence that children who are sexually abused are more likely to have SSA or are themselves more likely to perpetrate child sexual abuse; there is no evidence that SSA is longitudinally unstable, suggesting it is “phased,” “transitional,” or “transient” (e.g. you cannot “convince” someone they are homosexual when they are not, or vice versa) ; and there is no evidence that any environmental factor significantly impacts the development of SSA. Are these “absolutes” as to the nature of SSA? I have no idea. For now, this is the best science available, and offered in the most responsible fashion possible.
I recently attended a conference on Capital Punishment in CA: there are superb tools available to measure of the deterrence value of capital punishment.
There is a world of difference between the biological differentiation into male and female of the developing embryo, and “bio-genetic influences of sexual preference.” You join the two to imply that one is as certain as the the other, when if fact no scholarly consensus exists concerning the latter.
Further, you have a philosophical problem if you stick to the nature side of the divide alone. What about pedophilia (no differentiation in the desire of the pedophiliac). What about bestiality? Are those “preferences” determined by a pre-natal chemical wash as well?
Really? Consensus exists there too? You know it doesn’t so why dispute the point?
I was disputing that tools do not exist, not consensus. I am currently reading Lethal Injection: Capital Punishment in Texas during the Modern Era, particularly the statistical work of criminologist Thorsten Sellin, who prepared data for Justice Thurgood Marshall in the Furman v Georgia decision. Obviously, the tools have been greatly refined since Dr. Sellin died in the mid-90’s, but the tools are being used in CA to this day to argue the elimination of capital punishment.
And just in case you haven’t hears that the result of statistical analysis can be indeterminate, research showed a dramatic fall in the number of murders committed in Texas in the years following the re-instatement of capital punishment. There was, however, no correlation with the death penalty.
That’s my point. Linking scientific findings to behavior is dicey business. You cite this and that study implying authorities exist that buttress your thesis that SSA must be understood as having physiological origins, but avoid making the thesis specifically. I can understand why you avoid it because no tools exist to support the thesis, but this does not absolve you from being clearer about it.
Bauman was correct in his assessment earlier that you tend to confuse categories of knowledge. “No evidence” is not a positive statement. It merely indicates that there are areas of human experience (and thus knowledge) where science can never provide conclusive answers.
Especially science which is bound to the ideology of the world as all ‘social’ science is and always has been. What truths there are in it need to be carefully sifted from the much larger amount of detritus by someone solidly grounded in the Orthodox Tradition. Fortunately, we have people who are willing to take on that labor. Unfortunately, we also have people who wish to use the whole corupus of such dubious ‘science’ to reinterpret the life and teaching of the Church. These folks need to be challenged and, I pray, they will be brought to repentance.
Since the Fall brough corruption into the world we are each of us born into situations and with stuff in our genes that predispose us to certain passions. To use a Russian term, these are our life podvig, i.e, our Cross to bear. Some of these passions may be over come, some may not. It is still up to us to praticipate in the victory that our Lord has already won.
We do that by facing our life (picking up our Cross) with the joy of worship, the silence of prayer, the genorosity of almsgiving, the discipline of fasting and the tears of repentance-seeking Christ in all and everywhere present; acquiring virtue by the Grace of the Holy Spirit in the process.
I am not a quietist by any means so adherence to the life of the Church would not elminate passions or sin or fulfill our calling to dress and keep the earth as the Church is also called to the activities of Prophecy and evangelisim.
We are not victorious over sin by proclaiming victory or defining it down and walking away. The battle must be engaged in our own hearts first and then in increasingly larger realms as we are called,
No matter how much biological evidence proponents of the normalization of homosexual sin fabricate by their ideologically based quest (they know the answer they want and wow! there it is if the arrange things just so). Even if there are real biological basis for some of the passions (sexual or otherwise), it makes no difference.
God did not make us for this world, He made us for communion with Him. The disorder, corruption, struggles and tragedies of this life are our doing. They are allowed by God. His love is sufficient to allow us to navigate them so that His Holy Spirit can conform us to ourselves. That doesn’t happen if we accept our lot in the world and give in to the passions.
in the process of our struggles, God miraculously re-sanctifies the world and all that He has created. “Behold, I make all things new!”
Why would we want to be left in our sins as if that were normal? We are not determined by our biology, our raising or anything else. To assume we are is to deny God and the Incarnation and Ressurection of His Son.
Michael Bauman says (May 28, 2012 at 10:46 am):
‘We are not determined by our biology, our raising or anything else. To assume we are is to deny God and the Incarnation and Ressurection of His Son.’
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not to mention that such a determinist/fatalist position completely does away with free will and hence denies that we are free moral agents.
This is not the sort of theological anthropology which can be recognized as christian, since it leaves no room for vice or virtue, just a level playing field for all behavior without the parameters we usually identify as ‘conscience’.
Michael Bauman ;wrote this: “Since the Fall brough corruption into the world we are each of us born into situations and with stuff in our genes that predispose us to certain passions.”
“Stuff in our genes that predispose us to certain passions?”
There’s nothing of Orthodox Tradition in that bizarre thesis. Why we are subject to (sinful, of course) passions has never been declared in the Tradition to involve a predisposition in our “genes.” Neither is that even “popular” science. The Roman Catholic teaching on Original Sin might support such a thesis, since it hypothesizes that we are born helplessly sinful and unclean. That is not the Orthodox Faith.
One can’t claim to be supporting a totally religious, spiritual, traditional approach to the question of SSA, etc., if one is going to insert passion-producing “genes” into one’s claim. What an idea!
And it’s astonishing that someone who states that we are NOT determined by our biology would cite the totally biological idea of “genes” in the same breath!
Just saying….
Linking scientific evidence to behaviour is “dicey” only when you are not honest. Obviously an oversimplification, but there are correlations, degrees of correlation, lack of correlation, indeterminate correlation, and lack of sufficient data to draw a conclusion. What’s so dicey?
Well, I could offer the example of my own primary care physician who, two weeks ago, among other lab work ordered a PSA (Prostate-specific antigen) screening for prostate cancer (I would note that she is also the Lab Director). The PSA has become very controversial in that it has proven prone to both false positive & negatives, thereby leading to further costly, unnecessary tests, and vice versa. She said “every once in a while” she has caught a “suspicious result” that resulted in a diagnosis of cancer. Thus, she tests everyone because “it can’t hurt.” The research, however, is indeterminate, and significant groups (e.g. the VA health system) are moving away from “casual” use. All told, there is no evidence that the PSA is substantially more useful in screening for prostate cancer in the general population of males than a digital rectal exam.
Somehow I fail to see this as anything but reasonably conclusive, as well as quite positive if your treating physician was relying on the PSA as the sole screening exam for prostate cancer.
You are not thinking like a scientist.
Correlation isn’t proof, it’s correlation — that’s why we use two different words. For example, there’s a correlation between single motherhood and poverty (single motherhood is the single most reliable indicator of childhood poverty). It does not follow however, that programs subsidizing single-mothers will decrease the incidence of poverty. See the distinction?
Put another way, facts gleaned through correlation always require a larger narrative to give them weight and meaning.
So when you cite this and that study, fine. What is the larger point? That part remains murky.
I have no issue with your PSA test example. Physical science can be a very reliable indicator of the efficacy of certain treatments. But again, there is a world of difference between physical science and behavioral ‘science’ in that the latter is inextricably bound to the ideals and values of those who interpret the research in any prescriptive way. That is unavoidable. That too is why it is dicey.
Remember, your field is not the physical sciences, it’s behavior (you often remind us of the fractured people you work with as if that gives you a leg up in these discussions — it doesn’t frankly but it does confirm you are not a physical scientist). Your ideas and values shape the ‘hard data’ you want us to accept as proof. Well, maybe the data is reliable, maybe it isn’t, but the fact it is presented as proof makes the request that you clarify the narrative through which you assemble and give weight to such data a reasonable one.
Thank God! that a priest is not thinking like a scientist (at least your version of what that means).
Father Hans Jacobse wrote this: “single motherhood is the single most reliable indicator of childhood poverty.” I’d like to know what ALL the indicators were before agreeing with that.
Who collected and verified the childhood poverty of what single mothers, where and when?
No intelligent person participating here should be expected to take that ‘on faith.” I don’t want to know who else said that; I want to be referred to any study which proved that, so I can read it myself.
The phrase is too ambiguous as well. Does it claim that a single mother usually comes from an impoverished childhood, or that she is most likely to produce impoverished children?
Here’s one: Poverty Explodes, Root Cause Is the Collapse of Marriage.
There are many other studies. Gotta get out more, Your Grace.
Regarding your last sentence, either could be true. Liberal policies have institutionalized poverty so that it has become generational especially in the inner cities — a cycle started with the Great Society programs under Johnson; children of single mothers are impoverished simply because income is lower.
I can understand our modern society saying it’s OK to be gay being regarded as an extensive recruitment campaign by some, but for the life of me I can’t fathom the view that all gay people are led, tricked, deceived into homosexuality. The limited gay friends and acquaintances I have are pretty much consistent in their earlier struggles to be heterosexual and subsequent failure (?). And then I try to think how someone could convince me to give homosexuality a try–yeah, like that’s really going to happen. Homosexuality may be a choice for some, but I don’t think so in every case. I’m sure some say I’ve fallen for progressive pseudo-science chicanery. Yet, on the other hand, some of the same conservative commenters use what many would call pseudo-science arguments that contraception is abortion. It would be nice to have these discussions without all the histrionics, labeling, and such . . . (sigh).
Logan46, your post makes it clear why all so-called science is unreliable, even irrelevant when discussing morality and Chrisitan anthropology. What knowledge empirical facts can give us is very limited.
Even in the best of circumstances such ‘facts’ are often skewed by experimenter bias. (A study that my brother participated in at Michigan State in the 1970’s showed statisically significant experimenter bias even in properly designed double-blind studies). When there is a marked ideological commitment on the part of those who design the studies, what are we to expect except results that confirm their ideology and have nothing to do with the truth.
When that bias is further exacerbated by attempting to reinterpret the revealed Christian tradition in the light of ‘MODERN SCIENCE’, destruction ensues and people’s souls are put at risk.
Very well put, Michael. Being in the health sciences myself, I can not only attest to confirmation bias, but when it comes to the actual nuts and bolts of pharmacology, there is so much indeterminancy, it’s scary.
Medicine has always been more of an art than a science.
What you are, vaguely, describing is bias error that occurs in the process of gathering scientific data, not interpreting data. Both of you use the term “bias” to pejoratively imply a meaning of “with a known purpose or agenda,” or “with the intent to influence or obscure.” In statistics & epidemiology “bias” refers to factors which are unknown to the researcher, and are unknowingly influencing the results. Confounding bias could be, for example, the presence of an otherwise unreported medical condition , subject age, gender, general health, etc. that impacts the results; and selection bias is an unintentional selection of a “non-randomized” population.
It is no secret that both situations occur – and is probably the most repeated warning in epidemiology and medical research – but are both accounted for in the workflow of study design. Only after first determining the results are valid would a researcher proceed to determining what test is indicated to analyze the data, and then proceed to analyze the data.
Perhaps you can get away with a manipulative “ideological commitment” in self-published, self-refereed journals such as NARTH and similar “conservative” Christian groups publish, but it will not happen in our peer-reviewed and refereed system.
.
Mr. Stankovich you are either astoundingly naive or willfully blind.
In either case you insist on attempting to apply a very limited field of knowledge with, at best, a high error rate in what appears to be an attempt to re-define, modify and restate the revealed tradition of the Church.
Even granting everything you say(including all of the assumptions you make), you have the process backwards.
It is, of course, your assumptions which are most in question. That fact that you steadfastly refuse to even enter a discourse about your assumptions until now (Fr. Hans point I believe) is the big part of the problem.
It’s statements like this that tell me you lean more towards polemics than science. About 8 years ago, Robert Perloff the former President of the American Psychological Asssociation and staunch defender of a deterministic view of homosexual ‘orientation’ changed his mind. He discovered that homosexual orientation was not as fixed as he and many of his colleagues believed. Years earlier, Perloff was one the chief proponents in delisting homosexuality from the APA register of known psychological maladies.
He was invited to speak at NARTH, the organization that you summarily dismissed above. From the article describing his speech:
Note in particular the following:
Did you know about Perloff? If not, then you are not as informed about the internal debates within the psychological establishment as you should be. If so, how do we interpret your statement above except as disingenuous?
As for peer and a refereed system, well, that’s what we were told about global warming too until the East Anglia email leaks. It turned out to be a closed shop. I am not saying that the psychological finds should be distrusted, but skepticism towards claims about the veracity of studies by those who have an interest beyond the the research results is always prudent.
Let me digress for one moment:
Mr. Michalopulos,
Should you wish to address an issue that is truly driven by “liberal” discrimination that has no basis or support in scientific research (and one I would gladly support), I point out the case of Robert Spitzer, MD, retired Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University. Dr. Spitzer, ironically enough, was on the classification committee for the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and was instrumental in removing homosexuality from the list in 1973.
In 2001, Dr. Spitzer published a study entitled, “Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation?” where he demonstrated that some “highly motivated” individuals were successfully “reoriented.” There was a tremendous backlash against Spitzer, and the APA adopted a policy stating that “reparative therapy” was potentially harmful, and therefore unethical. Spitzer argued that there is no scientific evidence that “supportive-affirmative” therapy is helpful or lacks potential for harm, but to no avail. What this means is that any clinician who practices or researches forms of “reparative-reorientation” therapy jeopardizes their funding or licensing. In effect, we will never know if anything Spitzer proposed is true (Spitzer did retract much of his findings in 2012, but they were based on study design).
My criticism of NARTH is a well documented criticism: they are widely known to misquote, quote out of context, and misrepresent the scholarship of legitimate researchers and scholars. Robert Spitzer precisely articulated the tentative and preliminary nature of his data, and was outraged by NARTH’s misrepresentation as a promotion of “reorientation.” The Director of the Human Genome Project asked that his name be removed from their publication because of misrepresentation. You will not find their publications in any legitimate academic resource or listings of attribution (where significance of scholarship is measured by the use by other scholars). They don’t even mention they are a publication of NARTH, but would pose as an “independent” scholarly journal!
Where is the complaint of “bias” and “agenda?”
Logan46 confesses, “I can’t fathom the view that all gay people are led, tricked, deceived into homosexuality.”
I would never make such a claim.
Nonetheless, the often very different roles of homosexual partners (in which one of them functions as an ersatz sexual opposite) definitely can set the stage for exploitation, when one of the partners is significantly older.
Once again, those with extensive pastoral (or clinical) care of homosexuals are aware how often a vulnerable young person is seduced by an older homosexual.
The documentation on this phenomenon is vast, mainly in paedophilia among clergy, teachers, and other professionals.
I recommend Leon Podles’ SACRILEGE, if you have the stomach to deal with terrible and disgusting facts.
I agree. Although the reasons for homosexuality are numerous and varied—genetic, situational, fashionable, environmental, psychological, etc—it is flat out dishonest for anyone to suggest that children, especially male children, are not “recruited.” This is especially true of stepchildren and orphans–kids who often end up on the street. Yes, some homosexuals recognize this impulse in themselves at an early age, but just as many can tell a tale of abuse that ends up scarring them for life. This includes many married men.
Bullying is very real, both school yard bullying and online bullying. It is agression and has no prejudice. We need not think this is just hype.I read the rest of Ms. Shaidle’s article and others and it was pretty predictable and seemed borderline racist although she has stated:
“A racist is anyone winning an argument with a liberal.”
So please keep calling me a racist. I wear the badge with reluctant pride, knowing that’s what the word has truly come to mean.
Anyway, I’d rather be a “racist” than an old hippie. ”
Toronto is lucky. The writer acts like a bully.
As many here have noted, bullying of individuals with same sex attraction or who are in some way different is wrong, and having programs to combat it is at least in theory a good idea. So one might wonder why any of us, apart from those who call themselves Christian but do not take seriously Christ’s command to see Him in all we meet, would have any objection to anti-bullying campaigns.
Here is the problem with some of the anti-bullying programs: people are being vilified for stating that, according to their faith, homosexual activity is wrong. Even if they show love and compassion to everyone, simply voicing their beliefs can be enough to get students into trouble with school authorities. Intended or not, anti-bullying programs sometimes result in bullying of those who dare to state their beliefs about homosexual activity.
A new type of bullying has arisen.
Maria speculates, “Intended or not, anti-bullying programs sometimes result in bullying of those who dare to state their beliefs about homosexual activity. A new type of bullying has arisen.”
She is correct, in my experience. To suggest that the homosexual affliction is a disordered state—and to proclaim that homosexual activity is a crime against the structure of nature—almost always brings on an accusation of “gay bashing.”
Maria,
It seems to me that whenever you choose to openly voice your opinion or belief, you do so with the reasonable expectation that someone can or may openly disagree. For children who are victimized and bullied, however, there is no such reasonable expectation. For that matter, there may be no logical sensibility whatsoever. The bully may or may not have a “reason” for bullying, and the victim may or may not be “informed” as to why they are being victimized. While both circumstances are deplorable, it seems to me that the obligation to protect children from fear and intimidation – which would otherwise impact their entire lives – is the greater good.
So Mr. Stankovich I understand you to say that bullying those you disagree with, even children, is acceptable if it’s done by people running anti-bullying campaigns that are otherwise worthwhile. It seems that you believe that, if my child comes home from school and says he’s been punished for stating that homosexual activity is, in his belief, wrong, I should tell him that he just has to suck it up because it’s part of suffering for Christ’s sake. Which it is. But it’s more than that. Schools and other institutions are strongly promoting acceptance not simply of people, but of their behavior– behavior that is contrary to the beliefs of Christians who are being told to shut up because what they/we are saying is considered to be in the same category as calling an African American classmate a “n*****”. Antibullying campaigns should teach people to be kind to those who are different, not that we must believe what those individuals do is acceptable, but that’s not what’s happening.
….and the Jews were slaughtered for the greater good as were the Christians in Soviet countries.
The concept of “the greater good’ is one that is amost always used in the service of evil.
Maria,
When you say campaigns due you mean programs that are govt sponsored? I know in my jurisdiction the programs are working well and there have been no reports of children being punished for their beliefs. You should report it if this is happening. Punishment is not part of these programs. The whole point is to protect ALL children despite their differences against harassment. Name calling is not acceptable and should not be encouraged as an expression of beliefs.
Anna,
I do not have personal experience with this. However, a couple of minutes using Google is all it took to find 4 articles regarding the kinds of bullying I’d heard about.
http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=36242
http://www.christianpost.com/news/wis-student-censored-punished-by-school-for-gay-adoption-beliefs-68061/
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/grad-student-claims-college-punished-her-for-religious-beliefs
http://www.redcounty.com/content/student-sues-after-punishment-his-religious-beliefs-homosexuality
It’s interesting that these cases seem to be only reported on religious media sites, or in one case on FoxNews. I don’t watch FoxNews or pay much attention to “conservative” media. If I did, I probably would have seen other such cases.
Anna,
Although I have no personal experience with such bullying, it only took a couple of minutes using Google to turn up 4 such examples:
http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=36242
http://www.christianpost.com/news/wis-student-censored-punished-by-school-for-gay-adoption-beliefs-68061/
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/grad-student-claims-college-punished-her-for-religious-beliefs
http://www.redcounty.com/content/student-sues-after-punishment-his-religious-beliefs-homosexuality
It’s understandable that you haven’t heard about it since it is not widely reported. And I doubt it’s coincidental that it isn’t widely reported.
It does seem that you are anxious to believe that this type of bullying does not exist.
Maria,
Thank you for sharing your search findings. I am not specifically focused on the bullying of LGBT students but, about the reality of bullying. Children are bullied for many reasons: weight, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, physical challenges, you name it . I AM ANXIOUS that we may overlook the real damage that bullying can do, especially when children face harassment day after day. I care about the victims and I also care about the teen bully and what he/she may become later in life.
It seems obvious that all Orthodox Christians (well, Christians in general) should be able to agree that bullying is wrong. Whether those being bullied are small or shy or appear to be struggling with same sex attraction or hold unpopular beliefs or whatever. I don’t see the point in going on about our concern that people are being bullied. We should all be able to agree that it’s WRONG and that it harms the victims.
There is reason for concern about some of the effects of anti-bullying campaigns. Insofar as they promote treating others with kindness, these programs are fine. If that’s all that was being promoted, there would be no controversy and no reason to be discussing these programs here. There would be no need for posters on Monomakhos to go on about their concern for those being bullied. WE GET IT. We’re all concerned about mistreatment!
What is worth discussing is this: the intent of some of these programs is to teach their audience that homosexual activity is acceptable. This is a concern and is worth discussing. As Christians, we know that homosexual activity is not acceptable and have good reason to oppose this particular purpose of these programs. Likewise, we should oppose school authorities and others who wish to punish those who state that their beliefs differ.
As for the origins of same sex attraction, we understand that scientists are trying to figure this out. Good. What we don’t need to figure out is the Church’s teaching. That’s already clear. Discussing the medical or psychological aspects of same sex attraction here may interest some posters, but it isn’t pertinent to what the Church’s teaching is. That’s already clear!
Fr. Irenei Steenberg’s post on monachos.net on September 28, 2000 gives, in my opinion, a good explanation about how the Church should deal with those suffering from same sex attraction.
http://www.monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?8601-A-sad-and-dangerous-movement-within-the-Church&p=113267&viewfull=1#post113267
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I apologize for the duplicate posts. My browser was apparently acting up.
This is the kind of logic we must reject.
To suggest anti-bullying campaigns are designed so we accept homosexuality is a logical error.
Bullying is not exclusive to homosexuals. Gotta be the craziest editorial I’ve ever read…sorry if I am offensive, but I found your editoral offensive. Especially if you believe homosexual’s logic that anti-bullying is all about them…it ain’t.
As for Gaga, simple pandering. And, for us to accept outcomes doesn’t mean we agree with the reasons or means. Being kind to a sex change recipient doesn’t mean we agree with sex changes, for example…
Bishop Tikon, as to ‘stuff in our genes’ that pre-dispose us to certain passions: It is quite easy for Native Americans to become alcoholics and quite difficult for them to quit because they lack a gene for metabolizing alcohol. I would say they are pre-disposed by their genetic make-up to delvelop alcoholism and therefore the sinful behavior that results. That does not make their behavior any less sinful, nor impossible to fight and overcome by God’s grace. Other such situations may very well exist. However, I am in no way saying “their genes made them do it.” Even if it is in the genes, Christ can redeem us. That’s the point.
Would you deny that corruption came into the physcial world because of our fall as is suggested rather strongly by Romans Ch 1, or was it already there waiting for us (a theory that is out there)?