5 thoughts on “The Palm Springs Desert Sun reports on sexual orientation”

  1. To my eye, the focus of the Desert Sun piece was different than the Aussie show. The latter was focusing on change therapies and the news article was looking at the development of sexual orientation.

    The problem reparative therapists have is that they have no real standards or credentialling to be able to call yourself a reparative therapist. Of course, such stuff is no guarantee of quality but the public is right to be confused when people with such divergent approaches (Cohen, Nicolosi) use the same term to describe what they do.

    Of issue with me is that the media and many gay groups also lump in everyone together who believes people have the capacity to explore change. E.g., the Unity Rally people have me as a “proponent of gay conversion therapy.” In a very narrow sense, I do advocate for clients to have support for change efforts (with appropriate informed consent of course) but I do not practice that way and I have been skeptical of much of the developmental theory behind reparative therapy.

    The news article from Palm Springs had a bunch of flaws but it did attempt to get some balance and not overgeneralize small effects.

  2. The article in the Desert Sun is awful. It doesn’t even get people’s names correct in a couple of cases: that should be Evelyn Hooker and not Karen Hooker, Michel Foucault and not Jean Foucault. Also, David Halperin is not a Freudian psychologist, as far as I know.

  3. If there is a genetic component to sexual idenity(one of the links says it is for fruit flies) why doesn’t a biotech company find a why to turn off the ‘gay gene’?
    Oh because the gay activitists would have a fit!
    But we allow people to change all sorts of things about themselves – eye color, hair, and even their sex(although that is not really possible). Why can’t people alter their sexual orientation if thats what they want to do?

  4. No one EVER asks what “CAUSES” heterosexuality. And no one really knows. Same with homosexuality. The facts is, no one really knows what “causes” people to be attracted to one sex or both sexes.

    They only care what “causes” homosexuality because they assume there is something wrong with it. The fact the same question is not raised about the origins of heterosexuality shows a personal or religious bias, not an interest in genuine scientific inquiry.

  5. Now, look at this report in a small city newspaper. It is multifaceted and allows access by two advocacy groups to the editorial page.

    Compare this with the Australian video created about Conversion Therapy.

    This small paper summarizes scientific studies, allows alternative points of view and trusts the reader, as a grown-up, to draw their own conclusions.

    I think this is a much more thorough analysis of the problem that the Australian Video.

    Question: Who do you think gets it more right on the scientific data: Foat or Fryer?

    That question should create a lively discussion.

    David Blakeslee

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