Comments on: What if NARTH was a scientific organization?

By: Jayhuck

Jayhuck — Wed, 30 May 2018 18:58:34 +0000

Sam,

How do you know that people who run Narth are driven solely by religious belief and not professionalism?
So, you don’t like the message so you shoot the messenger again….yawn….

Its evident in almost everything they’ve posted, and in everything Warren here has posted *about* them over many years – the fact that you still defend them tells me you haven’t truly read or understand what they say. Warren knows this organization far better than you, so you should listen to him!

By: Bernie

Bernie — Wed, 30 May 2018 18:58:33 +0000

Oh Warren, I do hope you send a copy of this to Perkins and Nicholosi.

By: sam

sam — Wed, 30 May 2018 18:58:33 +0000

Oh please,
That Rekers affair, is a gossip set up by a bunch of gay journalists in order to create a sensation. But if it’s true that Rekers was doing those things, still SOCE is not ruled unethical. That’s what interesting.

By: Anthony Venn-Brown

Anthony Venn-Brown — Wed, 30 May 2018 18:58:33 +0000

good article Warren…..thanks for delving deeper and demonstrating how misinformation creates wrong perceptions.

By: sam

sam — Wed, 30 May 2018 18:58:33 +0000

Teresa,
How do you know that people who run Narth are driven solely by religious belief and not professionalism?
So, you don’t like the message so you shoot the messenger again….yawn….

By: David Blakeslee

David Blakeslee — Wed, 30 May 2018 18:53:12 +0000

Teresa,
Well stated comment about the personal nature of this topic.
All topics have a personal nature for someone.
There are more allies available when we unite around common values of truth, authenticity, humility and curiosity…
Allying by identity (Gay, Straight, Christian, Atheist, Liberal, Conservative) builds a powerful fortress…very helpful, a garrison is sufficient. Conquering terrain requires foot soldiers.
Anger at science manipulated for political and social ends is a common bond…and allies are available on all sides, if we can resist the impulse to distort the way we collect data or interpret data.
You can start with the Catholic Church and Galileo; we can make an important visit to Kinsey on Human Sexuality; we can remind ourselves of flawed genetic arguments for homosexuality; and we can confront flawed theories of distant father’s and enmeshing mothers…
It is the same powerful sin (my word)…and it creates many victims. Let’s collect them into foot soldiers and in so doing expand our wound into compassion for others and righteous revolt.

By: StraightGrandmother

StraightGrandmother — Wed, 30 May 2018 18:53:12 +0000

Teresa, I have been thinking about what you wrote and have come back to add a further thought. I have never thought of it the way you stated it. Frequently I do comment about Liberty, I think from now on I am going to pair that with your observation about “Justice.” I hadn’t thought about that before, the way you presented this was really thought provoking.

By: Teresa

Teresa — Wed, 30 May 2018 18:53:12 +0000

In this regard our outrage at NARTH is important, but completely out of context.

David Blakeslee … It is not completely out of context for this Post.
To remain balanced, level-headed, as objective as possible, eliminating our many biases as much as possible … it’s a tough job, no matter where we find ourselves on the social/political/religious spectrum. It is plain that certain homosexuals cherry-pick data, focus on data that supports their particular view, etc. It’s equally plain that the opposite group (whatever we call that) does similar behavior.
The topic of this thread is NARTH is NOT a scientific organization. It has members that do indeed work in the field with accredited degrees. However, if I’ve understood Warren correctly, 75% of its membership is not so accredited, in the sense of what this Organization is about. Its base membership is conservative Christian who clearly feel that homosexuality is a mental illness. To them, homosexuality should never have been removed from the DSM. They feel that we homosexuals are tainting the culture because we are diseased. We should either admit our illness, and seek SOCE therapy, or stay in the closet. I may be wrong on the latter count.
I’m sure there are a number of good persons in NARTH. People who may actually care about us homosexuals … as what, I’m not quite sure. Nevertheless, they consider me, as a homosexual woman, a mentally ill woman. They care little about any of my life’s achievements, which may well outshine their’s in many ways.
Since I don’t agree with this perspective, I simply stay away. I take what they say publicly, though; what they stand for in public rather personally … since, it’s ‘me’ they’re talking about. Their ‘agenda’, if they have one, (and I think they do), personally hurts me … in a variety of ways; not the least of which, wraps into taking away my civil liberties.
We can all be more objective, less self-interested in topics when we’re not personally involved.

By: Patrocles

Patrocles — Wed, 30 May 2018 18:53:12 +0000

Imho, Nicolosi’s strength is in the field of phenomenology/symptomatics. There have been and will be people who read Nicolosi’s descriptions and feel: “That’s me.”
He’s not so strong in etiology. But his explanation will remain in the market as long there’s no alternative explanation which is definitely stronger.. And as far as I see, there isn’t any.

By: Patrocles

Patrocles — Wed, 30 May 2018 18:53:12 +0000

NARTH should in time have reinvented itself as a kind of study group, or experimental group – in a similar way as those groups of adventurous people which, in the fifties and sixties, experimented with ethnic drugs or with LSD and in a way promoted the development of science (e.g. Aldous Huxley).
There seem to be some cases of real SOC. We always can claim that those people were “bisexual”, but it’s not good science implying such a factor “ad hoc” only to save one’s theory (all the more because “bisexuality” is an extremely vague concept and estimations about the frequency of bisexuals reach from 0 to 100 percent of the society).
I don’t think that we can per definitionem claim that real “change” has to last over the whole span of life (we wouldn’t, with other kinds of change!). In particular,because older people tend to go back to their early ways, e.g. try to relive their youth.
Probability tells that the human mind, in the end, gets what he wants. So I suppose that there will, some hundred years after our time, exist an effective “treatment” of homosexuality. Perhaps not psychoanalytical, perhaps (epi)genetical – epigenetics seems to be the newest fashion in science.
But I think that the most promising strategy is to begin with the beginnings, i.e. with sexual activity. So far I’m still turning to Masters and Johnson (I didn’t know about Masters’ claims to have changed gays and don’t expect much from it).