Homosexuals are currently still being oppressed, but it’s not as bad as it used to be. Doctors, and psychotherapists would have special practices that was used to force the homosexual tendencies out of a person. However, not only doctors would try to cure homosexuality, even some churches would take it upon themselves to force “the devil” out of homosexuals. On top of that, the parents of homosexuals would make them go to these therapies, because they were not able to accept them as they are. Homophobic people may have the slightest thought that homosexuality can be cured, and the process has little risks to it. As a matter of fact attempting to cure homosexuality can be very destructive to one’s brain.
People who would have done a very minuscule
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amount of research on this topic would think that experiments done on homosexuals has actually caused them to become straight. John Smid, who is an ex-gay, would agree with this, being a man who ran a program named “Love In Action” that cured homosexuals (“Sent Mail to”). However, the patients had to obey in these experiments, otherwise they would be punished or manipulated in another way. For example: shock machines were used often. To start off with the experiment the doctors would hook up the shock machines to the man’s genitals, and then on a screen they put in front of the patient they would show a slideshow of pictures of women and men. In this experiment, whenever a picture of the same sex came up on the screen the victim would get shocked, unless they changed it with the remote they were given before the shock came (Scot, Jamie). The only reason these men were “straight” was because they didn’t want their reproductive organs to get shocked, or they were shocked there. Now every time they look at the same sex, they scare themselves from their previous traumatizing experience in fear of the pain of getting shocked in the genitals. Dr. Iscove is a very confusing corrupt doctor. How he supposedly cured his patients was by having them them tell him what their fantasies and desires were. These patients would only tell Dr.Iscove what they thought he wanted to hear, which were fantasies about him. In a misguided attempt to “cure” them, he would have some sort of sexual intercourse with his patients after they told him this(Berson, Scott). As you can see these victims of Dr. Iscove were being manipulated by Dr. Iscove, and even if they didn’t have fantasies about him, he would ask them, in part to get them to make up a fantasy about him. You can observe that these patients were very well manipulated, and weren’t cured, just scared out of their wits, and confused by these doctors, causing them to obey everything the doctor tells them.These doctors took advantage of their patients, and tortured them majorly, and also misled them at the same time. Many people believe that homosexual’s brains are not possibly affected by these harmless experiments, they need to be like everyone else and handle themselves in the same manner as them. As one doctor said to a transgender woman patient, “she was probably a gay man and an attention-seeker.” (Golubeva, Anastasia). Contrastingly, these experiments and therapies that were conducted by doctors actually ruin patient’s thoughts forever, and can only occasionally be reversed. Many of these experiments are very crude like the botched lobotomy conducted by Dr. Walter Freeman. He performed a botched lobotomy on Rosemary(John F. Kennedy’s sister) to control mood swings. This same surgery was conducted on homosexuals most commonly, and permanently disabled them, when they were perfectly normal functioning human beings before the surgery (Scot, Jamie). Walter Freeman didn’t stop after it didn’t work the first, or even third time, he just kept on disabling them, which obviously changes someone's thoughts, and how their brain functions. Conversion therapy was also a very commonly used operation on homosexuals.
It is considered a dangerous and discredited practice, and teenagers are the most vulnerable to it. They’re most vulnerable because “conversion therapy can lead to depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness and suicide.”(The Lies and Dangers). As you can see conversion therapy, also known as reparative therapy, doesn’t have the most splendid effects on people. A man named James Guay had a very tough time “dealing” with his gayness, and had a bad experience with reparative therapy. James Guay grew up in a church learning that being gay would him straight to hell (haha get it?). When he was 16 he started going to a conversion therapist, and was told by his parents and pastor that he should hate himself, which was the only thing that worked, because he did hate himself.The conversion therapy brought him to the point where “[He] would stand on cliffs, fantasizing about killing [himself].” but the only reason he wouldn’t was because of his fear of experiencing worse pain in Hell. The pain of all this hate from all those who “cared” about him eventually made him inflict pain on himself by cutting his wrists (Guay, James). These conversion therapy sessions he was going through were evidently ruining and confusing his brain, and had very crude effects on him. Psychotherapy is another used way of “fixing” homosexuality very similar to reparative therapy. A psychologist named Pavel Sobolevsky warned that …show more content…
“Attempts to change your sexual orientation through psychotherapy can be very damaging…” (Golubeva, Anastasia). Psychotherapy can do more that “fixing” homosexuality, it can be possibly be disabling. As previously shown these experiments gave people more, or different thoughts, crushing their brain and self esteem, and making them want to hurt themselves in ways that would end with them being in excruciating pain. Numerous personages who are inexperienced with this topic would think that experiments only help the brain and body to think on the right path.
Additionally they may clueless to the fact that physical abuse was used in striving to eliminate homosexuality. When in actuality, the experiments can physical damage someone’s body and not just mentally hurt them. Many of these experiments are more of tortures towards the homosexuals, and usually the church is the ones who do in expectation to get the demon out of them. A girl who was 13 came out to her parents and then was taken to her church to be fixed. Later on she told the BBC, “They covered me in holy water and forced me to drink. Sometimes they hit me with rods. I feel like they broke my mind.” (Golubeva, Anastasia). Not only did they physically punish her for being gay, saying that they were fixing her, but the beating led to the corruption of her mind as well. In most cases in which I have read: churches don’t have any boundaries and will just beat someone because they are homosexual, and the church is taught to be homophobic. In another case, a gay man who went to a Word of Faith church was attacked by about twenty members of his church. He was punched, beaten, and choked for two hours, in which he thought he was going to die. In an interview, One of the abusers said that this was “‘to break [him] free of the homosexual demons they so viciously despise’” (Schmidt, Samantha). For this extent of time you would’ve thought
that they’d stop after maybe thirty minutes, but no, those homosexual demons were being too dang stubborn. Straying from the church beatings we’re going to move on to a scientific side of physically abusing homosexuals. With an effort to expose a practice, volunteers were sent into a Chinese hospital with secret cameras. On the first attempt the doctor at the Chinese hospital didn’t prescribe the undercover volunteer any shock therapy or anything. On the second try the second volunteer went in to check out the shock therapies that they would administer to homosexuals. This time the doctor actually prescribed the shock therapy, and during the therapy the volunteer exclaimed how much pain he was in and that his face had gone extremely numb. The doctor after the experiment told the undercover volunteer that this therapy isn’t just a one and done situations, he needed to come back and pay more than an average Chinese worker gets paid a year (Graham-Harrison, Emma). Not only do these doctors cause great pain to their patients, they also make them pay unruly amounts of money for the experiment that most likely won’t do anything but damage their body and brain. What I’ve presented to you now helps you to understand that these experiments weren’t just physically damaging but were completely intentionally abusive towards the victim. Some individuals who are homophobic, or are uneducated on this specific topic, and haven’t done research on this topic may think that homosexuality is a disease that can be cured with little to no risks to the patient . This topic is something that people can be very passionate about, and that's the main reason why I have done this research, because this is very important to me, and to some people in my family. This research has also shown that being who you are should be accepted by other people because there is no way to fix it if it is not a disease. Doing the extensive research on the experiments that not only doctors have done on homosexuals, but also churches that have done to change their thoughts on who they’re attracted to, does more than change their thoughts (which rarely happens) but also “breaks” their mind.
In the first chapter of Psychology in Christian Perspective by Harold W. Faw the author talks about psychology as a subject, the different aspects of the subject and how psychology fits into the Christian world. Faw begins the chapter by describing what others think psychology and his views on psychology as well. He describes that “psychology can be described as a systematic attempt to understand human behavior and conscious experience” (Faw, 1995, p. 12). He then goes on to describe the many different types of specialties of psychology which include, neurobiological, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, and psychoanalytic. These specialties are then integrated into the Christian worldview. They are all different so they all fit into
This is David Entwistle 2nd edition book published in 2010 by Wipf and Stock in Oregon. Entwistle is a Christian and a licensed psychologist; he has affiliations with Molone University in Canton, Ohio serving as chair of the Psychology Department and has taught courses related to his licensed field. This book clearly is not written for any newcomers to religion. However, it was written for those interested in the integration of science and religion. The authors’ purpose for writing this book was to define the relationship between psychology and theology. There are three specific areas this book touched upon to help readers’ better approach psychology and Christianity in a personal and more professional manner: The context of philosophical issues and worldview, to help the readers become aware of assumptions or beliefs- making the reader a more critical evaluators, and to introduce and familiarize the reader with five paradigms for integrating psychology and theology.
“Integrative Approaches to Psychology and Christianity” (2010) is about the purposeful integration of psychology and Christianity. Entwistle, discusses the integration of scripture and nature, holding to historic orthodox Christianity that “Scripture and the natural world have their origins in God’s creativity and revelation” (Entwistle, 2010, p. 136). Theology clarifies the Word of God (Bible), and Psychology corresponds with the works of God. A working definition of integration is offered,
In the past decades, the struggle for gay rights in the Unites States has taken many forms. Previously, homosexuality was viewed as immoral. Many people also viewed it as pathologic because the American Psychiatric Association classified it as a psychiatric disorder. As a result, many people remained in ‘the closet’ because they were afraid of losing their jobs or being discriminated against in the society. According to David Allyn, though most gays could pass in the heterosexual world, they tended to live in fear and lies because they could not look towards their families for support. At the same time, openly gay establishments were often shut down to keep openly gay people under close scrutiny (Allyn 146). But since the 1960s, people have dedicated themselves in fighting for
Even though these practices have hurt, or even killed some of their “patients,” there are still some survivors, and journalists that have proven that conversion therapy does not work.
Despite the leap in time, humanity has advanced no further in its acceptance and tolerance of those who are different. Discrimination has always been present throughout past societies and will more than likely persist in future generations. It is Australia’s most detrimental and prevailing issue, with victims ostracized, bullied and even suffering physical abuse. In our society today, homosexuals in particular are still falling victim to unjust oppressive societal attitudes. But why? They are still human, are they not?
Scientists in fields connected to neurobiology and psychiatry remain mystified about the cause of Conversion Disorder. The disorder is characterized by physical symptoms of a neurological disorder, yet no direct problem can be found in the nervous system or other related systems of the body. This fact alone is not unusual; many diseases and symptoms have unknown origins. Conversion Disorder, however, seems to stem from "trivial" to traumatic psychological events and emotions rather than biological events. The extreme symptoms often disappear as quickly as they appear without the patient consciously controlling or feigning them. Thus, Conversion Disorder serves as a significant example of how blurred the conceived demarcated divisions of mind/body/behavior can be.
The background of homosexuality in the 1940’s and 50’s was harsh, but people started to be opened toward the rights. There were criticisms toward homosexuality in the early days of Milk. Gay men carried the labels of mentally ill or psychopathic. Often times, gay men committed suicide from harsh judgement and criticism that always followed them. Even though population of homosexuality grew and had jobs, they were harassed and beaten by the police. There were a lot of disapproval and hostility of homosexuality. Anita Bryant, a singer, made a campaign to oppose the rights of homosexuals. Christian forces and activists withdrew gay-right legislation which lead to Proposition 6. The harshness from background of homosexuality back in the 1940’s and 50’s took the freedom away from the homosexuals. After the harshness, there came a little bit of hope for the homosexuals in San Francisco. Castro, a city in San Francisco, became the center of gay neighborhood. In 1964, gay men formed Society of Individual Right (SIR), and 1,200 members joined. Homosexuals started having good views when Sipple who was gay saved the president from a gunshot. Finally in 1972, Board of Supervisor banned the discrimination law for homosexuals. Even though in 1940...
Conversion therapy has been a topic of heated debate for the past several decades and has sparked many issues morally and ethically, alongside the fact that many medical organizations advise against it and discredit it and the vast first hand accounts claiming it as a horrible practice it is no surprize that people are fighting against it. conversion therapy should be banned, this is because the methods used are dangerous and ineffective causing more harm than good.
...were mentally ill or psychotic. Frank Kameny, a leader of the gay rights movement, perpetuated the idea that “Homosexuality is not a sickness…but is merely a preference, an orientation, or propensity, on par with, and not different in kind from, heterosexuality.” (Sherry Wolf, Sexuality and Socialism) Some schools even went as far as to create public safe spaces for gay students such as Columbia University’s Student Homophile League. Now, people are well aware of the presence of the LGBTQ community, and members are even trying to educate people who seem ignorant or bigoted. Many people currently dedicate a good portion of their lives to learning and teaching people about the gay rights movement and how it functions today. The community has evolved to include transgender, asexual, pansexual, and non binary people as well as a multitude of other labels and identities.
Conversion therapy is a treatment directed to change a persons sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. The American Psychiatric Association(APA) disapproves of the treatment given that people believe and see it as a mental disorder. They feel that trying to change a persons homosexual orientation is considered to be unethical. Debates are held on how it is highly likely for a homosexual to cause self harm giving that they are made to see themselves as being wrong. The APA feels as if the solution for this should be instead of a change in someones orientation, there should be a change in the way society views it.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, Conversion therapy is a practice that claims to be able to "turn gay people straight" through therapy. Conversion therapy leads to a variety of negative side effects. According to the Human Rights Campaign, "minors are especially vulnerable, and conversion therapy can lead to depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness, and suicide." Conversion therapy is a horrific practice that should be banned in all fifty states. Conversion therapy is a horrible practice that should be
Gay individuals were not hired in many jobs, could not attend the schools they desired due to people not accepting their difference. What many people brought up was The Declaration of Independence states, “That all men are created equal”. In this case, they were not treated equal at all. It wasn’t until the early 1950’s where Harry Hay, Chuck Rowland, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon funded groups to take action and “informed and outreach to thousands”(Cory, The homosexuals in America). These organizations were not as accurate because no one supported them and people did not want to be a part of it. Back in the 1970’s being gay or lesbian was labeled as an illness, and if these individuals were found, they would either arrest them, and send them to jail or send them to a mental health institute. People against gay and lesbians believed that they were “sick, criminals, or immoral,” (Cory, The homosexuals in America). These actions caused a lot of gay and lesbian individuals to hide who they truly were, and act like a person they were not. When the government found out that some parents were gay, they took their children away, and didn’t give the parents’ permission to see their
Medical Authorities said the Homosexuality was a Mental Defect, a form of Sexual Psychopath. “Gay people who were sentenced to Mental Institutions, because they were found to Sexual Psychopaths which means found to be homosexual” (Mixner). They were subjected to imprisonment, and often in many forms of surgeries such Lobotomies, castration, and sterilization. It was there to cure homosexuality. The most infamous of these institutions is an Atascadero State Mental Hospital. It was located in California. The brutal medical experimentation done on homosexual men in Atascadero. “At Atascadero State Hospital, doctors were permitted under the California Law to commit those who practiced sodomy into hospital” (Mixner). Even up until 1971, simply being a homosexual could result in a life sentence. “Twenty states had laws stating that the mere fact, you were a homosexual was reason for imprisonment” (Carlos Maza). It shows homosexuals are treated horribly in the past. They were being beaten and arrested just because of their sexual preferences. The government was also violating homosexuals’ human rights in America. LGBT supporters fought for their rights and surely enough, they got their results. “Until 2009, a 1969 federal law defined hate crimes committed on the basis of a person 's race, color, religion, or national origin when engaging in a federally protected activity. In October 2009,
When one hears the words “LGBT” and “Homosexuality” it often conjures up a mental picture of people fighting for their rights, which were unjustly taken away or even the social emergence of gay culture in the world in the1980s and the discovery of AIDS. However, many people do not know that the history of LGBT people stretches as far back in humanity’s history, and continues in this day and age. Nevertheless, the LGBT community today faces much discrimination and adversity. Many think the problem lies within society itself, and often enough that may be the case. Society holds preconceptions and prejudice of the LGBT community, though not always due to actual hatred of the LGBT community, but rather through lack of knowledge and poor media portrayal.