First, gay poeple are NOT pedifiles and we are not after your children nor are we here to “recruit” others to become homeosexual. If the Ugandan pastor would have done his research he would have found out that straight people make up nearly the full majority of the pedifiles that you find out on the streets molesting young children, not homosexuals. Second, homosexuality is NOT a choice… As if any of us would choose to be gay bashed, ridiculed, harrassased, beaten and even killed simply for loving someone that is the same sex. Third, as of 2110 there were 6,840,507,000 people in the world and of that nearly 7 billion, statistics say that homosexuals make up 15 percent of that number (at least the ones that admit to being homosexual, that is)… that means there are approximately 1,026,076,050 gay people in the world. 1.03 BILLION… that means that homosexuals out number, nearly every race on this planet. In fact, that is NOT an abomination that IS a race! Imagine if every one of those people turned on the world that has turned on them.

Since as far back as I can remember, all I have ever heard is that homosexuality is immoral and against God. Lets clarify that as well. First God did not write the bible, man did. God did not bellow down from above and dicate the bible to man. So first we need to be clear, the bible, even though it is one of the oldest books in the world, it is still a book and like any good book written by man, it is open to interpretation, unfortunately those that wrote it are not around to say exactly what they meant when they wrote the things we now question. But since a good portion of the world relys on that book as a tolken of inspiration, guidence and morality, then let me take from Genesis the most important parts from the very beginning… God created the world, and it was good. God created man in His own image and it was good. To first say that homosexuals are an abomination is an insult to God, he created 1.03 BILLION of us and according to the bible… it was good. Second God, unlike man, doesn’t discriminate. He isn’t a bigot, a racist or even a God that takes sides. He is a God that loves all and cares for all evenly, no matter what color you are, who you believe is the real God or even if you don’t believe in him, he still loves you the same. He will not take sides, he will not endorse your decision to blow up the trade center towers, he wont agree with you to shoot a homosexual, especially not in His name.

Every educated person in the world knows about what took place in Nazi Germany. Nearly 8,861,800 people were exterminated because one man didn’t like Jews (or anyone that didn’t fit into his idea of the perfect race for that matter, that included homosexuals as well). Do we know how many homosexuals were annihilated along with the jews? Does anyone care? Sadly, the answer for nearly half of the population of the world’s non-homosexuals is no. The number could be as staggering as the number of Jews killed by the Germans: 5,933,900. Does anyone care? According to the Ugandan pastor, he believes that all homosexuals should be killed, that means (applying the statistics) he endorses killing 1.03 billion homosexuals… How many more Hitlers does the world need before we all finally say enough is enough. When will the world open it’s eyes and see what God has laid out right in front of them? Life is a beautiful thing not to be squandered and wasted disagreeing, fighting and killing people. God is all about love not hate and nothing in the Bible or the Caran says otheriwse.

I hope that this will help people change their perspective on homosexuals or at the bare minimum, allow homosexuals to keep their private lives, just that… private. And to the Ugandan pastor, you have many problems in your own country much larger than homosexuality. As a pastor of a church your focus is supposed to be on love, peace and kindness to others. Somewhere along your journey, you have lost your way to richeousness.

I hear you and must admit that I used Christianity in an attempt to be forthright because it is my base. However, even my non-Christian friends have a moral code that does not favor lying…and there are many non-Christians who do not feel that homosexuality (or homosexual behavior or attraction) is the intended purpose for a person.

At the very least, there are many who question the fully cognizant ability of an adolescent to take on an identity based on a sexual orientation recognition. In all of the confusion and floundering associated with adolescence, it must be conceivable that some will go through a homosexually attracted phase, even finding it pleasurable and gratifying to a high degree, but be in fact responding to unresolved emotional issues and to pleasure and/or orgasm.

Advocates of ‘homosexuality as a norm’ continually point out how much it actually has in common with heterosexuality. Wouldn’t those things in common also make it more likely that a person could be confused for a time? “Wow, I can’t begin to describe how it felt to be in the arms of someone who knew me, loved me, and accepted me for all that I am.” A powerful and gratifying experience. But, does the fact that it first happened with a same sex individual mean that it couldn’t happen with an opposite sex person? ‘ When we accept the label, the identity, the condition known as orientation, we mentally rule out that possibility.

You said:

Homosexuality is not a mental disorder. When using a psychological definition of ‘disorder’, truly, homosexuality is not a mental disorder. The tendency to want to tell a lie is not a disorder either. Because something is not a mental disorder does not automatically mean that it’s right, good or sanctioned by the creator.

Actually I am non-religious myself, so what Christians believe God sanctions or prohibits is not something that is of much concern to me, or relevant to the point I was trying to make in my response to Mr. Kisekka.

Yes, it is a Pandora’s box but it’s one we’ve somehow learned to manage.

I’m in complete agreement with you that thousands of therapists agree on the notion they’ve termed ‘sexual orientation’. Many, however, believe that this was not in response so much to science as to lobbying pressure. We invented the concept of ‘the condition of being attracted to one’s own gender’ and then needed a name for that condition and ‘sexual orientation’ surely fits.

But consider that every child alive has a ‘lying orientation’. No one has to teach a child how to lie; it seems to come automatically. “Did you put those toys in the toilet?” “NO!” (A few classics on Funniest Home Videos come to mind. In one, a young girl is still covered in mom’s lipstick and makeup but when mom asks if she was using mommy’s make-up, a wide-eyed innocent ‘NO’ response.) What makes something a condition other than that we’ve felt the need to categorize it for some purpose?

Homosexuality is not a mental disorder. When using a psychological definition of ‘disorder’, truly, homosexuality is not a mental disorder. The tendency to want to tell a lie is not a disorder either. Because something is not a mental disorder does not automatically mean that it’s right, good or sanctioned by the creator.

I agree that forced reparative therapies have not proven particularly successful; i sumbit though that the jury is still out on the success of voluntary reparative therapy. There’s what we call a ‘sticky wicket’ though. If we go back to point one…about that ‘condition’ or ‘orientation’. The thinking regarding that concept seriously alters the definition of success. If you think of it as ‘a condition’, then success is a change in the condition…you once had strong same sex attractions; you now have strong opposite sex attractions. Some go so far as to say that even if a so called ‘ex-gay’ enters into a happy and sexually satisfying marriage, if they still have occasional homosexual attractions, they are not a success.

I’ll go back to the lying example (not comparing gays to liars…using lying because it’s probably the one universal sin of all humans). Now, if we thought of our attraction to telling untruths as a ‘lying orientation’, then success would be a strong desire for telling the truth and the absence of even considering lying again. I daresay that success rate would by similarly abysmal.

Regrettably, conservative Christians are responsible for adding to this confusion. Many, in their attempt to appear credible to the scientific community, adapted the scientific lingo not being particularly attentive to the concept of ‘a condition’…using the word ‘homosexuality’ instead of ‘homosexual behavior’ or ‘homosexual attractions’. This means that when they mixed in terminology that had Christian overtones, it muddied the message. The words ‘change’ and ‘freedom’ are the prime example. If you think in terms of a condition, both change and freedom mean a change of the condition and freedom from it. If you think in terms of behavior or attraction, change and freedom mean a difference in the way that you respond to the attractions and (hopefully) a definite change in behavior. Change and freedom, in that context, also applies to the frequency and potency of the attractions but does not mandate that they be totally eliminated.

According to the Bible, it is quite natural for humankind to be attracted to pleasure. According to the Bible and to basic human understanding, if you once found something pleasureable, you’re likely to be drawn towards it again. According to psychological understanding, stress, isolation, depression, and other emotional factors can increase a drive towards gratifying pleasure. Combining all those factors, I totally reject the notion that success is the total absence of homosexual attraction. I believe amnesia (forgettting that we once found pleasure or comfort in an area) IS a mental disorder.

One final word about ‘reparative therapy’. The term is similar to our word “Kleenex”…a word commonly substituted for tissue. Kleenex is actually a distinct brand name and there are many tissues out there, some better…some worse which some mistakenly call Kleenex. Or just as some parts of our country tend to call all colas “Coke”. (My head bobbed in awe the first time I heard someone say “I’ll have a Pepsi-coke”.) Anyway, there is a lot going on in the world of ‘ex-gays’ that does not fit the ‘reparative therapy’ model. ‘Reparative Therapy’ is actually the brand name of a very specific therapy model but it is certainly not the only model being employed. I do believe, though, that it’s the one that is most visible to the psychological community and is likely the chief proponent in appealing to that sense of condition as opposed to behavior and attraction.