woulfe,

<<No doubt OLO would welcome a well-argued piece countering mine, but I'm confident it won't be coming from any of this lot.>>
Implying yours is a well-argued piece, which it isn't.

You ignore arguments which show you up for the hypocrite you are.
Everything you say could be equally used to support incestuous people coming out.
There is no difference.
You only ignore it because it would make bad press for your cause.

As for "gays" being invisible, what a joke.
Most normal people have had a gut full of "gayness" being shoved down our throats (excuse the vomitous allusion) throughout the media, not to mention the indoctrination of our children.

<<Rather than react in the discussion threads to each of their defecations>>
And why would you react to defecations anyway?

Golf, incest, dope-smoking. Maybe there's a way a broken oil-drilling platform can be introduced here. Perhaps next there'll be a claim that homosexuality has caused Europe's sovereign debt crisis.

In any event, responding to the vilification doesn't work. It's all been said before, it's all been soundly refuted, yet the filthy claims keep coming back. I'd rather try to avoid repeating myself: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8779#140090

woulfe,
It appears that your argument @
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8779#140090
was thoroughly debunked @
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8779&page=0#140104
by a keener mind than mine.

KMB's reference is worth reposting, lest we forget:
"While many mental health care providers and professional associations have expressed considerable skepticism that sexual orientation could be changed with psychotherapy and also assumed that therapeutic attempts at reorientation would produce harm, recent empirical evidence demonstrates that homosexual orientation can indeed be therapeutically changed in motivated clients, and that reorientation therapies do not produce emotional harm when attempted"
Essential Psychopathology and Its Treatment,
Jerrold S. Maxmen & Nicholas G. Ward, 2009 edn,
W.W. Norton & Company, p. 488

AIR: That is your interpretation of your belief in God or the Bible and one not shared by many Christians. Mine as a Christian is entirely different to your belief. Where ever in the Bible have you conjured up the concept that Jesus and God are opposed to gay people? Quote a verse. Cast aside your religion.

Wait until one of your children, neices or nephews pops around for dinner one evening and announces to you that she/he is gay. Will you turn the other cheek? Will you love your family just the same? Or will you commit sins with your discrimination and judgements based upon your own fears?

It is interesting to note that over the years I have discovered that within families, most of the adults opposed to gays, and fearful of gays and their paths, have been told that either their child is gay [by their own family members], or a neice or nephew.

It happened in my family and to another family I am close with [the mother was 'devastated' more for the fact that she cared what her cronies would think if word spread amongst her colleagues and friends that her son was gay]. Yet, the father dealt with it all fine. In another family I know the daughter announced to her parents she was gay. The mother coped well and supported; the father would not speak with her for the initial few months. Within a year, after siblings told him to grow up and stop being selfish narrowminded and ignorant; she is the closest daughter to her father. A fantastic learning curve for an Aussie chauvanistic male in his 50's.

Some parents are saddened and distraught, on behalf of their loved child, worrying for their gay child's future relationships given the stigma that still exists in Australia; the shocking pain they know, at some point in time will affect their child, as a result of the discrimination and judgemental behaviour of certain fearful insecure fools who generalise about gay people and their individual dispositions

proxy: <"KMB's reference is worth reposting, lest we forget:
"While many mental health care providers and professional associations have expressed considerable skepticism that sexual orientation could be changed with psychotherapy and also assumed that therapeutic attempts at reorientation would produce harm, recent empirical evidence demonstrates that homosexual orientation can indeed be therapeutically changed in motivated clients, and that reorientation therapies do not produce emotional harm when attempted"
Essential Psychopathology and Its Treatment,
Jerrold S. Maxmen & Nicholas G. Ward, 2009 edn,
W.W. Norton & Company, p. 488">

Dear proxy,

The key word in there is "motivated" - the person has to first feel uncomfortable/distressed in whatever sexual orientation they have (that is, they would have a diagnosable disorder) and then, in seeking relief from that, they may seek therapy.

The authors don't mention the success rate. The success rate might be 1 in a million, and "success" might mean - could have sex with a female or could refrain from same sex relationships for up to 5 years. We don't know what the author means by "success".

There is evidence that the "harm" of reorientation therapy can include all sorts of behaviour up to and including suicide. So for the 1 in a million, we might have as many commit suicide.

One question that arises is what it is that causes such distress. The real source of the dismay experienced by some people with a homosexual orientation might well be the abuse and vilification heaped on them from society, rather than the orientation itself.

If you were living in a community made up predominantly of homosexual people, would you accept the pressure to conform to the 'norm'? (imagine yourself in ancient Greece).

So, how much therapy would it take to re-orientate your sexuality from heterosexual to homosexual?

- because that's what you're expecting and pressuring others to do.

woulfe - <"Perhaps next there'll be a claim that homosexuality has caused Europe's sovereign debt crisis.">

Oh, I thought feminists caused that.

Well at least you aren't being blamed for global warming :)

(I like the article woulfe).