"Fundamentalism"

I have just got back to looking at your response to an earlier email I sent. Thank you for the reply but it doesn't answer my questions - indeed it only raised some more! such as "Just where do you get your ideas and figures from"

I shall go back to the numbering I used in my original email (to keep things clear...).

Before I begin; I accept your statement about having written the articles when 'younger' and that you would have said a good many things differently in retrospect. What things you don't spell out.

1. You have ducked my question. In your article you went further than merely pointing out contradictions in another author's article. Specifically, you said you believed that homosexuality was damaging to society.

   My question asked why you felt this to be so and any evidence you had for thinking this. This you failed to address. I can only presume you don't have any evidence, rather that you rely on a certain strain of opinion.ie the diatribe from fundamentalist Christian groups
   
   

2. I have given some thought to your question.

   I see nothing wrong, as such, with research into homosexuality and into whether or not it has an identifiable cause. However I see many problems with the use of such knowledge as a 'cure' or any such other.

   To do otherwise I would have to believe that homosexuality itself resulted in either a reduced life for the individual or that it was a cause of societal problems. There is no evidence of this.

   As I believe that the hardships encountered by gay men and women are not caused by their homosexual attractions but by ignorance I see the solution as one of education of those who are the real problem. As I also do not believe gay men and women present a social problem I again can see no reason for a 'cure'.

   One could reasonably argue that a condition such as cerebral palsy does cause real problems for the person involved, whether or not ignorance was displayed towards them.

   I also think playing around with basic and non-threatening human desires that have long been part of human society (that is, messing around with peoples minds for no good reason) is playing with fire.

   (The reason for placing comment marks around the word cure is that I'm not entirely sure what is meant by the word in this context - 'cure' of what, for whom, for what?).

3. Your response to this displays a curious dabbling in psychology.

   You claim that sexual orientation is a behavior defined state. Yet by definition a sexual ORIENTATION cannot be.

   Sexual ORIENTATION does not have to do with cognitive aspects of our existence as you claim. Cognitive means thinking and is matched with the non-cognitive elements of emotion and willingness. (This is a simple dictionary definition, I will deliberately steer clear of academic psychology textbook definitions). you may read this sentence as Grant politely deciding Scott as incapable of discussing psych. at this level - despite the fact Scott apparently "did" psychology minors at undergraduate level. Grant is not sure the lecturers at the Middle Tennessee State University would be all that pleased with Scott's level of understanding about cognitive and non-cognitive (leaving aside their application to sexuality)
   
   To argue that sexual orientation is cognitive alone you would have to argue that both emotion and willingness are absent. Are you really saying that a homosexual couple only think about sex but do not have emotional attachments and do not enter their relationship willingly? In other words, are you saying homosexual couples do not love one another?boy are we really putting it simply!
   
   This would be an interesting overthrow of all the evidence done through many decades of research that shows homosexual couples have as deep an attachment to each other as do heterosexual couples. Can you reference the counter evidence?Scott does not
   
   A change in ones sexual behaviour does not indicate a change in sexual orientation. A completely heterosexual person or a completely homosexual person will not change their behaviour, by definition they cannot (other than being celibate). A bisexual person (that is, having sexual attractions to both their same sex and their opposite sex) may with the ratio of the gender of their partners dependent on which personal desires are strongest.

4. Dear me, this was a shabby response. After me talking about the fraud that is religious-based groups such as Exodus you provided a web page connected to Exodus as 'proof' that I am wrong.Scott's problem with self-referencing again - a problem that would exclude him automatically from serious academia
   
   I am quite familiar with that particular web page. If nothing else it provides me with more than sufficient evidence to back-up what the academic sources say about the possibility of someone changing their sexual orientation.

   For your own interest I did review each of the testimonies from the men on the Stonewall Revisited page well before my original email to you. Grant only covered the men to avoid any problem with him interpreting sexuality from a male perspective on female cases They provide sad reading and do not support your case. Of the 35 testimonies; 3 are from people not claiming to be ex-gay, 15 are from men with a typically bisexual history, 7 are from people who's orientation cannot be established from the testimonies, 3 are from men with a typically gay history and 1 is from a heterosexual. Of the 35 testimonies 8 men have dealt with their orientation by being celibate - including all of the gay men. Quite unconvincing as far as change is concerned. note also that Grant was quite prepared to declare when he could not determine which cases did not fit any typical sexual orientation history - it probably would be safe to guess these 7 cases are heterosexual with fleeting same-sex fantasies because the people involved in Exodus are normally forthright in declaring any actual same-sex activity (as part of the "confessing" stage of their programme)
   
   Any basic textbook on organisational psychology can help explain why such testimony is unreliable to begin with. When involved in cult-like groups people will say almost anything if they believe it will further ingratiate themselves with their fellow members. What people say publicly does not indicate either what they truly feel or how they are in fact acting in private.

   What would be particularly interesting would be to keep case histories of those who made the testimonies over time. Exodus does not do so. One wonders why. A clue may lie in the only independent audit done on Exodus that concluded orientation is not changed by this group's efforts. There is also an active ex-ex-gay movement made up of people who at one time were making similar testimony as the current crop on the Stonewall Revisited page.

   Hoping with all your heart that you can change a homosexual into a heterosexual is not the same thing as succeeding in fact.

   I can provide you with two sorry, three actually, Grant added another and missed this in the editing links that sum up as well as I can find that mass of data on this subject (the notion of changing a homosexual orientation is no new effort):

   http://people.delphi.com/mark_lee/blair.html
   http://www.smart.net/~xydexx/homocure.htm
   http://math.ucsd.edu/~weinrich/NCLSWNRC.HTML (Nicolosi provides the 'science' behind programs such as those run by Exodus) - but, as this discussion by Weinrich covers, Nicolosi has apparently and at long last admitted that change in sexual orientation does not occur. Nicolosi now claims the ability to assist gay men to be celibate or the ability to refocus bisexual men on exclusive heterosexuality. Weinrich's uncovering of Nicolosi's AAA-rated heterosexism and homophobia helps in understanding where some of the desire to change the sexuality of gay men comes from

   Information about "change" is readily available.
   
   Since you ask, the means I use of determining sexual orientation is derived from academic readings and uses both the cognitive (how someone thinks and acts) and the non-cognitive (what appears to be driving them without direct outside reference). Using this method, I would need to know rather a little more about you than the fact that you have had several celibate heterosexual relationships before I could make a judgment of your own posed question. Frankly, a history such as yours (including becoming very actively involved in Christianity) is very common for gay men bought up in conservatively Christian households. Whether you are or not is irrelevant to me.

5. I agree there is hope, why else would I bother? As for my own spiritual state; it's fine, thankyou for asking.

   Whether God loves everyone, or whether he wants us to know him through Jesus or through sticking strictly to a particular interpretation of the Bible I have no way of knowing in this life. As I cannot know the answer I try not to allow my own concern for it to determine how I treat people. note that Grant does not say he is is not concerned about 'the meaning of life', merely that he doesn't think he will really know while alive (how could we put it?... 'Death is something that can only be experienced and there's no coming back to tell others what it was like'!)
   
   I start with the idea that if I allow people to find meaning in their own life and stay true to my own values I will not be too far wrong. I am not someone who quotes scripture but I notice you are and I think my own view of life comes fairly close to that expressed in James 3 - especially the part about being meek in your wisdom.Grant rather liked this one for Scott; not only does it ask those who 'know' to be meek in their treatment of others (ie don't preach) and that out of the same mouth can come both 'blessing and cursing'. Oh dear...agnostics quoting scripture, where will it all end?!
   
   As part of this meekness of wisdom I hope you will find the time to check out the following link http://abacus.oxy.edu/qrd/religion (there are a number of sites but I have found this the most reliable).reliable as in 'on-line', Grant does a huge mea culpa for introducing a possible confusion
   
   In this regard your passing and dismissive comments at the end of the section are concerning. No, I do not hold you personally to blame for societal attitudes but I would hold you responsible if you were presented with evidence and chose to ignore or trivialise it. Any suicide over sexual orientation is cause for concern. To ignore the pain of young citizens because of a vicious campaign directed by particular Christian forces seeking to dominate the US education system is, I suggest, against the spirit of love you claim to espouse.

   I can only direct you to a web site that contains an elegant piece of academic work that should hopefully settle for you the true nature of the suicide problem among gay youths (and also answers the question of how many gay men and women there are, by the way). Please do read it if you take nothing else away from this email. http://qrd.tcp.com/qrd/www/youth/tremblay/main.html

   If you are willing please also take the time to visit http://www.youth.org/

6. Just when I began to think otherwise you again deliberately made that particularly vicious comparison between homosexuality to paedophilia. This plays on one of the most outrageous and damaging falsehoods of gay people.

   I have not, anywhere, claimed that a need for affection excuses every sexual action. But then, I have not claimed that homosexuality is simply a sexual action either. What I did ask, and you failed to answer, was how society benefits by putting obstacles in the way of gay men and women finding love with one another.

   I agree that affection can be found from your family and friends. But such affection can never compare to the deepest love felt between a couple that have decided to share the joys and the pains of their lives together.

   If you honestly believe that a hug from your father or the kind word of a friend could ever match the love of a emotional and sexual partner then I can only assume you have never experienced such a relationship. Some people will never feel such love either through circumstances or choice and I believe that to be among the greatest of human tragedies.

7. I was glad to see you did feel that there was a link between pornography and abuse of women in particular.

   However I think you have quite deliberately sidestepped the implications of this type of linkage by playing with words.

   People do not bash or discriminate against gay men or women because they think homosexuals like that kind of treatment. On the contrary.

   People bash and discriminate because they think gay men and women deserve it.

   Anyone who contributes to this attitude, for whatever reason, is contributing towards this violence and discrimination.

   It was because your views do indeed denigrate homosexuals that I asked how much personal responsibility you felt. You avoided answering this.

I will leave you with a final link, I found this one of the most touching in all the research, opinion and heresay I have waded through over the past year. http://www.qrd.org/qrd/religion/a.child.is.listening

Regards, Grant