Praying For Gays, (or is that Preying on Gays?)

[jamesq]

Browsing fark, I came across this fabulous study from James Dobson and Focus on the Family. It seems you can pray the gay away.

As usual, The Onion offers a useful counterpoint.

The funny thing about the FotF piece and the Onion piece? They're both equally well peer-reviewed!

The Fark thread had the following comment which I found pretty amazing:

Believe it or not these types of programs work. There's a lady at my church who confesses to lesbian acts when she was younger on the collge volleyball team. She was also on the golfing team so she says being around women like that all the time made her do it and that collge female athletics is overrun with lesbianism. She's started a counseling service for people to convert back to a heterosexual life at the church.

P.S. liberals, she already has four people in the class and it only been going for a month. Being gay is a choice. We don't condemn though, I think that's where many churches make a mistake.

- His Sonshine (2007-09-18 03:10:08 PM)

Now lots of people objected to this comment, but out of hundreds of responses I didn't see anyone call this guy on what struck me as blazingly obvious - This chick has found the perfect cover for picking up lesbians in a fundamentalist church! Think of it, they all identify as Lesbian. They all want to hang out with other Lesbians. They're all good at being discreet.

The only drawback is the self-loathing. I'm guessing that's a turn-on for the woman in question or she'd simply go to a place where well-adjusted lesbians hang out. I'm not sure where that would be though. Gay bars? Lulu Lemon? Community College welding courses?

Comments

Ugh!

[http://users.livejournal.com/-grog-/]

I found this analysis (http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2007/09/17/785) of this study - it seems that "success" in the minds of the ex-gay industry is a fairly loosely defined target.

The whole "ex-gay" thing is predicated on teaching people to despise themselves - not exactly a recipe for healthy emotional lives later on.

At least the work of Yarhouse and Jones won't get much traction outside of dishonest hacks like Bailey, Dobson, LaBarbera and their ilk.

More constructive things like the positive spaces programs (as Vilashna pointed to) exist - and gain much more traction in the long run.

Lesbian Hang out...

[colinofcthulhu.livejournal.com]

Meow Mix?