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Health and Ben Levi:
Conventional science and medicine has rejected conversion therapy. No credible, reputable association or institution will make the claim that sexual orientation can be changed or that conversion therapy works. You can throw out “articles” all day from a handful of nutcases who are beyond the pale of modern scientific theory, but it doesn’t change the reality that those people have zero credibility.
The only thing that marriage therapy has in common with conversion therapy is the word “therapy”. So I don’t know what that point was supposed to be.
jewishfeminist02,
“Conventional science and medicine has rejected”
ludicrous
According to you ,anyone born with a predilection to murder or ,say,shoplifting will be unable to control themselves ??
Should we give them a free pass??
There was a article a short while ago that anecdotal evidence often give a better bigger picture than empirical evidence
“anyone born with a predilection to murder or ,say,shoplifting will be unable to control themselves ??”
Whether the answer is yes, or no, nobody sane or intelligent would cheer this person on as he paraded around taking pride in it!
usually pride parade are made with the idea, that people who are like that have a lower self esteem and the parade is to raise that esteem.
However the past Jerusalem parade became some sort of connection to a murder and people were protesting a murder as well, who murdered someone in the name of hate
A Gadol said some decades ago
“The greste k’fira in heintige tzeitin, is k’fira in bechira !!”
ZD -“However the past Jerusalem parade became some sort of connection to a murder and people were protesting a murder as well, who murdered someone in the name of hate”
Are you condoning this parade because s/o got killed in the last one?
Are you for real?!?
zahavasdad,
Who are You trying to fool ??besides yourself??
JF2 -“Health and Ben Levi:
Conventional science and medicine has rejected conversion therapy. No credible, reputable association or institution will make the claim that sexual orientation can be changed or that conversion therapy works.”
Stop with your liberal lies!
I’m actually surprised that YWN lets you post here, because you’re pushing the gay agenda which is against the Torah!
From the AMA’s website:
“the use of “reparative” or “conversion” therapy that is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that the patient should change his/her homosexual orientation.”
The obvious implication is that it works! Just you shouldn’t call gay people crazy or force them to change!
zahavasdad,
David Rubin
David Rubin
8/2/2015
..most of the worldwide LGBT organizations have a much broader, even aggressive political agenda that goes way beyond ensuring individual freedom. In recent years that agenda has intimidated many Americans, restricting freedom of speech and religious ex?pression by those who oppose .. marriage, and ultimately leading to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing .. marriage.
Israelis should be concerned, as well. In a blatant show of LGBT intolerance, and as evidence of the aggressive focus on that political agenda, Minister Bennett – along with Jewish Home MK Yinon Magal – were reportedly prevented from attending the Tel Aviv rally by the Israeli National LGBT Task Force, while Energy and Water Minister Yuval Steinitz (Likud), who did attend in support of the LGBT community was booed offstage by thousands of attendees. Only those public figures on the Left were allowed to participate, because they support “the agenda”, which aims to fundamentally change society by blurring gender identities, eventually leading to public acceptance and legalization of gay marriage in Israel, giving such sexual deviations an equal social status as the traditional family structure, the marriage bond between a man and a woman.
Social laws in a society are based on values, which generally are based on the heritage of the civilization. The traditional family and traditional religious social values are under attack in Western civilization. The international LGBT movement, as an integral part of the Left, is at the forefront of those attacks, which often are quite aggressive, and in some cases, even violent.
People AREN’T born with “predilections to murder or shoplifting” the way they are born with sexual orientations. That is simply false, and again, not backed up by science.
And pride parades have absolutely nothing to do with “raising self-esteem”.
I’m not so sure there aren’t people people born with predilections to murder or shoplifting. Working with people who have addictions and others who have painfully inappropriate taivos has taught me that there are lots of people out there who are working valiantly to walk in the Torah’s path despite their challenges.
And the pride parade is only about self esteem.
There is a difference between condoning something and not condemning especially when condemnation would be taken differently
you can say nothing and not be condoning the parade, pretend it never happend
whatever it is about, it is cheering on, normalizing, and in many instances promoting something the torah says not to do. for no other reason it is worthy of condemnation
“whatever it is about, it is cheering on, normalizing, and in many instances promoting something the torah says not to do. for no other reason it is worthy of condemnation.”
This much, I agree with.
Syag Lchochma, addictions are heartbreaking and can do incredible damage, and yes, at a certain point the addict actually loses his free choice. BUT, most people aren’t born addicted to anything. They are born with hardwired sexual orientations.
I don’t think you can say that definitively about either of them.
Actually according to Judaism it is a fact that people are born with predilections to murder any one born under the Mazal Maadim, every person is born with a personality that allows for them to either be a “rusha” a “a “beinuni” or a tzadik.
Someone born under the Mazal Maadim essentially enjoys “blood’ so they can be either
1) A rotzaech, murderer which is a rusha
2) A Shocheit, ritual slaughterer, which is a beinoni.
3) A Mohel, circumcisor, which is a tsaddik.
And what I have written is essentially a quote from the Vilna Gaon brought in Even Shelaima.
Medical experts have said that. Do you disbelieve them?
Jfem,
I am wondering why you are ignoring the thrust of the posts.
Karten is a practicing psychologist, He affirms it does work in his practice and his essential point is that you are dead wrong.
All actual scientific studies done with the same methodology used for any study have proven that it has the same rates of success of any other therapies.
That is a fact and he goes through the actual studies.
There are no studies done that show it not to work much less to be harmful.
Is there anecdotal tales from those it’s failed on?
Sure.
A majority is not ruled out by a minority.
Much as marriage therapy is not deemed harmful because of the anecdotes of those who have been harmed by therapy in specific circumstances.
I have quoted articles, and pointed to exact studies.
You refutation is what?
Are there any specific studies you can point to?
And please do not point to the AMA again, I went through all six people who did that study, and showed how the idisputable facts are on record.
They rejected any attempt to have non-biased people do that study in favor of those who publicly admitted they were biased and had formed opinions beforehand.
if your question was directed toward me – yes. I have been in the health field long enough to know that what’s written does not always match what is. And that ten years from now they, too, will change their minds about half the things they swore to this year. I only say it because I have seen too much evidence supporting it.
So you are right, because of what you’ve seen anecdotally, and ALL of the leading medical experts are wrong?
Ben Levi, you have your majorities and minorities mixed up. You’re quoting a minority nutjob against the consensus of the leading medical experts.
SL -“I’m not so sure there aren’t people people born with predilections to murder or shoplifting”
Well there are people who are sure! J. Fallon is a neuropsychologist who has proven that he and others can be born a psychopath!
i didn’t say i was “right”. I said that i would not make such a statement definitively and i also said that medical science changes their conclusions regularly over the decades (that is a fact). I also don’t believe that ALL the medical experts have said what you claim, nor do I believe you know what ALL the medical experts claim.
You seem to have disregarded what I actually wrote.
I can only act upon what I have seen and experienced and learned from local experts I work with. If you know of experts who feel differently – great. That is why I did not speak definitively, and said nobody else should either.
Yes, science changes over time, but that’s neither here nor there because that line of thinking can lead you to question EVERYTHING. Who says gravity is real– maybe the experts will change their minds in ten years! Maybe sugar is really good for you, that might change in ten years also! etc etc.
The current consensus among leading medical experts is that sexual orientation is hardwired at birth, while addiction is not (unless the mother was addicted to something during pregnancy). Period, end of story, and anecdotal evidence is irrelevant.
jewishfeminist02,
People are born with predilections for EVERYTHING
Are you deluged by the zeigeist?
Or are you so deluged by your elegant brainwashing which you mistook for higher education?
People are born with predilections for EVERYTHING under the sun
.
12/3/13
When two scientists announced that rape is a “natural adaptation”, controversy was bound to follow. But with weeks still to go before the UK publication of Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer’s book, A Natural History of Rape: The Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion, there has already been an eruption of criticism…
All aspects of living things, including morphology, physiology, cognition and behaviour, result from a complex interaction of genes and environmental factors. Genes alone do not determine any aspect of living things, and neither do environmental factors. Indeed, the interaction of genes and environment is so intertwined that no aspect of a living thing can be accurately depicted as either primarily genetic or environmental..
Neither does the identification of the evolutionary basis of a trait imply anything about the inevitability of the trait, a point many recent critics of our work also fail to comprehend. Instead, identification of the specific ways that genes interact with the environment to produce a behaviour can increase our ability to change the environment in ways that will decrease the chances of the behaviour taking place.
Syag, your comments on this thread particularly show strong strong values. The respectful tone and clarity in sensitive form are an inspiration. Thank you.
jewishfeminist02,
Do you follow the medical consensus of the 1950s ?
The consensus of the 1960s ?
The consensus of the 1970s ?
The consensus of the 1980s ?
The consensus of the 1990s ?
How come?
In a 2009 in Canadian Medical Association Journal, Tom Koch discussed the Polio epidemic in the 1950s.( He noted how everyone scrambled to save every life. Gymnasiums were turned into wards and cots were lined up from wall to wall. Steel lung machines were made and people were kept alive in these big negative pressure boxes. It was an imperative to save as many lives as possible. Nobody considered the costs or the quality of life of the people that were saved.) He lamented that “in todays society the polio victims would be counseled against seeking treatment and most would die.
There is a drift in values that would have been unthinkable has become the norm”
Zehavasdad et.al,
“And the pride parade is only about self esteem.”
David Rubin
8/2/2015
..most of the worldwide LGBT organizations have a much broader, even aggressive political agenda that goes way beyond ensuring individual freedom. In recent years that agenda has intimidated many Americans, restricting freedom of speech and religious ex?pression by those who oppose .. marriage…
The traditional family and traditional religious social values are under attack in Western civilization. The international LGBT movement, as an integral part of the Left, is at the forefront of those attacks, which often are quite aggressive, and ..violent.
SL -“That is why I did not speak definitively, and said nobody else should either.”
Now there is a difference between a theory and observational study.
He has a physical study. Although it’s not foolproof, his observations are more likely to be correct than yours!
JF2 -“The current consensus among leading medical experts is that sexual orientation is hardwired at birth”
What proof do you have?
jf2 – you seem to be getting very upset and carried away about things that weren’t even part of this discussion. Gravity?
I never had any questions. You made a statement that sexual orientation is hardwired and other things aren’t. I am saying that I don’t believe either one is definitive, there are way too many cases that don’t concur. If you want to tell me that there are MANY who disagree with me, fine. I don’t doubt that. But why would you even make a statement saying that it is all that one way and period. end of story?
As an educated and highly intelligent person you are well aware that there are very, very few things in science or medicine that are definitive to that extent. You want to say it is definitive in the eyes of x, y, and z? fine. You want to say it is the accepted theory in the institute of ___, fine. But I can’t imagine you are not well aware that there are many people out there with their own studies and statistics who disagree with your statements and you are welcome to follow your leaders while I follow mine.
I am highly confused about why you are finding this so upsetting. Not only is it common for there to be conflicting beliefs in science, but I have not negated your words in any way, I only claim that there are exceptions to your rule.
Ben Levi -“And please do not point to the AMA again”
Why not? They implied conversion therapy works!
It’s just that the APA bought into the PC!
People can avoid engaging in certain behaviors if they truly have the will to do so. If a person feels they’re attracted to the same sex, their only recourse is lifelong celibacy.
Or as is recently happening, surgically change ones self into the other gender.
Syag Lchochma, I am not “getting upset and carried away”, actually, I’m not sure why you think I am…Gravity was an example to illustrate the point I was making about scientific consensus and how at a certain point you have to accept that consensus and consider it a done deal– UNLESS and UNTIL the medical establishment itself decides to reconsider. A handful of “studies” published by people who are not recognized medical experts and whose work is outside the pale, should be disregarded.
I’m almost afraid to hear the response, but I’m curious whether or not anybody here believes that man-made climate change is real. That would be another definitive conclusion reached by the scientific community. Are there a minority of people who deny climate change? Yes. Do some of those people have scientific degrees? Sure. But when 99% of scientists, including the best and brightest in the industry, the leading voices of modern scientific theory, when they all come to the same conclusion, what good is it to cry “But Dr. So and So did a study!” It just doesn’t make any sense.
Health, what are you talking about? The AMA says that conversion therapy does NOT work.
dovrosenbaum: Correct. Their actual sexual orientation will never change, but they can choose celibacy.
Jfem,
You are aware that the “consensus” medical opinion until fairly recently was that homesexuality was a “mental disorder”.
So according to you up till the diagnosis was changed everyone was to believe that it was so and if they disbelieved it they were minority “nutjobs”.
The morning after the changed diagnosis, those who disagreed became “nutjobs”.
As for questioning everything.
Not at all.
There was one truth that God gave us and attested to the fact it will never ever change.
It’s called the Torah.
JF2 -“Health, what are you talking about? The AMA says that conversion therapy does NOT work.”
And where does it say that?
I quoted from them above:
From the AMA’s website:
“the use of “reparative” or “conversion” therapy that is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that the patient should change his/her homosexual orientation.”
The obvious implication is that it works! Just you shouldn’t call gay people crazy or force them to change!
edited
Health: Are you unable to make a point without stooping to an irrelevant insult? Mods, what was the point in allowing Health’s last line through?
Sam2 -“Mods what was the point in allowing Health’s last line through”
OK Sam – they removed it for you!
“Health: Are you unable to make a point without stooping to an irrelevant insult”
That was very relevant!
No one, including you, have cleared up the AMA’s actual position!
If you look at how the APA deals with homosexuality and other matters, it’s obvious it’s a political process.
I value the opinion of the AAPS over the liberal AMA, which functions as a politicized tool towards social engineering.
That…doesn’t say what you think it says. It tells you what conversion therapy was designed to do. Conversion therapy as a treatment for homosexuality is, by definition, based on the assumption that homosexuality is a disease or disorder. Otherwise there would be nothing to “treat”.
It is a fact that that is how conversion therapy was designed. But acknowledging the fact of what it’s for and how it came to be is not a statement on its efficacy. Those are two very separate things.
Jfem,
As I showed previously there is the AMA and APA cannot state that those therapies are proven scientifically not to work because when they were actual scientific studies were carried out they were proven to work.
What they can state is there is anecdotal evidence of it not working since there are those whom it has no effect on.
Just as marriage therapy does not work on everyone and all other sorts of therapy.
However for some reason in all other cases the actual data is chosen over singular anecdotes.
JF2 -“That…doesn’t say what you think it says. It tells you what conversion therapy was designed to do. Conversion therapy as a treatment for homosexuality is, by definition, based on the assumption that homosexuality is a disease or disorder. Otherwise there would be nothing to “treat””
Actually your misrepresenting what they’re saying!
This is from a website called Faith in America:
If anyway it implied what you’re saying – they would spell it out!
They’re a pro-gay site.
“American Medical Association (2003)
American Psychiatric Association (1998)
They do bring other organizations that are more pro – gay.
Those two aren’t!
What they’re saying don’t force s/o to change from being gay because they aren’t all crazy.
If they want to change, they can!
Jfem,
Really this is all moot, even in a bizarre case where someone has zero attraction to the opposite gender.Does it matter ?
Such a person should stay behind the shtender
or devote themselves to the klal
There have been, in the past, more than a few such cases
Do you believe in the cardinal precepts of your religion for
all Humankind ,or.. ??
Do you believe these these developments cause downward spiral and degradation of every society ??
For your own enrichment
perhaps you also ought to read up on the research of Thornhill and Palmer referenced above
More importantly,that anything is inevitable due to genetics,environment,etc.:
“The findings of science have nothing to say about what is morally right or wrong.. The identification of the evolutionary basis of a trait implies nothing about the moral rightness of the trait. To think otherwise is to commit the “naturalistic fallacy”, a fallacy that some critics of our work continue to make despite having the fallacious logic of their position explained many times by evolutionary scientists. “
It also should further satisfy who gets to define the consensus:
“Thornhill and Palmer consistently state that their theory does not justify rape and argue that their aim is to eradicate the behaviour, but they have nonetheless encountered vehement opposition wherever they have gone. Scheduled lectures have been cancelled..
Almost as contentious as their theory of why men rape has been Thornhill and Palmer’s recommendations for how to prevent it. They have drawn fire for their suggestion that young women be advised of the dangers of plunging necklines and short skirts.”
Time for Truth: No, I do not believe that homosexuality “causes downward spiral and degradation of every society”.
Yes, a religious Jew who is gay should remain celibate and find a way to integrate into the community outside the framework of family life. However, this is far easier said than done, and honestly is irrelevant to the question of whether or not homosexuality is genetically hardwired.
I have no interest in reading the work of a pair of “researchers” who believe that the best way to fight rape is by telling women to cover up.
Health: You’re still not making any sense. The statements you quoted are not proof that the AMA and APA support conversion therapy.
They state that they oppose therapies that are designed to treat homosexuality as a disease or disorder. Then you mention that the associations do not recognize homosexuality as a disease or disorder. Well and good, but proponents of conversion therapy certainly do! So we’re back to where we started.
Jfem,
it seems you are having somewhat of a difficult time understanding Health’s point.
Health is pointing out that in the APA and AMA’s manual’s they do not address whether or not the therapies work, rather they simply state they oppose anything that would make someone feel that homosexuality is a problem.
What can be gleaned is that they themselves recognize that the therapies do indeed work, they simply oppose them because of what they imply.
What I have stated is simply that the AMA and the APA would have a very difficult time stating that the therapies have been proven not to work on a scientific basis since all actual scientific studies carried out showed that statistically speaking they do in fact work the same as any other therapy.
“statistically speaking they do in fact work the same as any other therapy.”
And how do those therapies work? Well, not well? Case by case basis?
On a positive note. The Evita club in Tel Aviv closed down 2 days ago.
Ben Levi:
It is true that the AMA’s policy manual simply states that they are opposed to conversion therapy, without giving a reason why or directly stating there that the therapy does not work. However, if you look at other materials and statements produced by the AMA, it is patently obvious that their stance is that the therapy is ineffective, and has even been shown to be damaging and harmful.
No links allowed here, but google “A Request for Conversion Therapy” and “AMA” and see what you find. It’s pashut that their position is not what you and Health believe it is.
More than anything, alot of this discussion is political in nature. Medicaid in NY State (my home state, which is why I looked up its guidelines – other states may or may not have the same policy)for example will not cover conversion therapy except in certain situations. The stated reason for non coverage is contradicted by the exceptions that are covered.
Actually I did not state what I personally believe their position to be. I merely explained what Health was deriving from their writings.
I do not know their current position nor, to be frank, do I much care what it is, when those that formulate a position state clearly and openly beforehand that they are biased I do not know how any intelligent person can take what they say with a grain of salt.
What I have stated is that regardless of what they believe based on anecdotal evidence of unproven theories, actually scientific studies have proven that it does in fact work.
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