January 22, 2014

The following PFOX commentary is reprinted in its entirety: Normal sexuality – heterosexuality – is not a disease, yet legislation outlawing heterosexual counseling treats it as one. Promoted by the gay lobby, these bills take away the rights of minors to be treated for unwanted same-sex attractions by a licensed therapist. The bills usually cite a select list of mental health organizations to back up their dubious claims, choosing to ignore other organizations that say the contrary. Regardless, no mental health association bans therapy for unwanted same-sex attractions, which is why gay activists turn to politicians to use government force against choice. In doing so, the activists point to long-ago horror stories about harm by electroshock therapy for individuals undergoing heterosexual therapy. If this is true as they claim, why not simply outlaw shock therapy? Why not indeed? Because homosexual activists are not concerned about shock therapy or any other horror story therapy. They want to outlaw the idea of normal sexuality and prevent any individuals, including children molested by homosexuals, from receiving therapy to address their sexual confusion. They leave them only one option — gay-affirming therapy.

Hence, such children are molested twice –– once by a homosexual predator, and then again by lawmakers who prohibit them from seeing a licensed and credentialed therapist unless that therapist is gay-affirming. This totalitarian scheme ensures that the molested child is recruited and confirmed into homosexual behavior and identity.

Heterosexual therapy, also known as sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) therapy, operates like any other psychotherapy, with the therapist talking through emotional difficulties and issues the child is dealing with. Yet talk therapy toward a heterosexual outcome is being outlawed for the first time. Homosexual activists are telling parents and children that their only recourse is to falsely tell the child that he is born “gay” and to get over it. Why would you say this to a molested child who is now sexually confused because of his experience with a homosexual predator? Or a child who had his first sexual experience with an older teen of the same gender and now wonders if he was targeted because he was perceived as being “gay”?

What is more dangerous for children – homosexual sex or talk therapy by a licensed therapist? Recent CDC statistics demonstrate that male children are especially in danger of contracting HIV/AIDS. In 2011, an astonishing 94.9 percent of HIV diagnoses among teenage boys (13-19-years-old) were linked to homosexual (“male-to-male”) sex. And parents are supposed to go along with this behavior under penalty of law?

AIDS kills, yet no one has died of heterosexual therapy. Politicians buffeted by the gay lobby and its wealthy donors must stop outlawing even the idea of normal sexuality and instead start criminalizing sodomy for minors under any circumstances or demand vigorous enforcement of existing criminal child sodomy laws. In this way, minors will be able to freely seek out licensed therapists for their unwanted same-sex attractions, sexual confusion, or trauma from homosexual encounters. Parents will no longer have to fear the gay lobby denying them the freedom to make health care decisions for their own children.

Heterosexuality is not a disease, and legislators shouldn’t treat it as one.