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The post the other day about the Anglicans putting 'ex-gay' ads on the buses made me react when I saw this news item this morning.
Turns out that the, um, individual that wrote a key article supporting ex-gay therapy is now admitting he was wrong. Not in so many words, but it's a step back in the correct direction.
Funny how these so-called 'objective experts' find them selves tied up in knots trying to justify their own bigotry.
Comments
Ex-gay ads banned from London busses
Transport for London has banned the 'Ex-gay' ads from being displayed on London buses.
Regards,
Dave.
And then there is this about GBLT folk.
I know lots of people who choose to return hate and craziness for hate and craziness. It's easy to do, and I did it at one time. Then my life changed in the most amazing way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekoVGgn5sT0&feature=b-vrec
We have to keep fighting from within.
Gwendolyn
Heart warming video
I agree, Gwen, but I would put it as resisting rather than fighting. As you well know, we of faith hold to a higher standard and rely on a higher power. Love turns away hate, and we pray for our enemies.
And that is where the battle will be turned, when we respond to hatred with love and acceptance.
Janet
Mistress of the Guild of Evil [Strawberry] Blonde Proofreaders
To be or not to be... ask Schrodinger's cat.
Fighting in a figurative sense.
First, let me be clear, Gays and Lesbians have a record of pretty much throwing MTF T folk under the bus.
Still, our best defense is to smile, be loving and kind, never defensive or easily brought to ire, not too assertive. People around us do not like to see confrontations, so it is a very bad idea for a T person to get upset in the face of someone acting ugly toward us. And, most of the time a smile and helpful attitude can really turn people around.
You notice that T folk are not mentioned in the BYU video. I spent two days on campus at BYU Provo, last month, and while I did see what I believe were Gays and Lesbians, I did not see a single T girl. Um, well I was there, and to me I am very easily rumbled, but if anyone did, they were very nice.
It is pretty well understood in the adult population of the church that we must learn to treat all with love and respect, and from what I am told, this is a significant change from even 10 years ago.
In a blog I read, one person said that in their church ward, one person a month was killing themselves, and the members there were becoming very alarmed and knew that something much change.
This is a vastly different experience than what I had with the evangelicals in 2004.
The LDS schools...
Tend to be even more conservative than the church organization itself, so to see that BYU (Provo) is adopting change on the homo and bisexual fronts is encouraging. Although the video used the acronym GLBT, I didn't see a single "out" transperson on that video...
I'm suspecting that even if I tried to ask to go back after I get far enough along on my transition, they wouldn't accept me back. Which type of approved housing would they put me in? Back with the boys? With the girls? We already know I can't handle living with boys, and it's very unlikely that things would work out well putting me with a group of girls. I'd absolutely love it, myself. Socially I've always done better among girls. However, the girls would probably have difficulty accepting me as one of them. They maybe could give me special dispensation for having a private apartment, but would they want to go to any trouble at all over me?
I think we have a long long way to go yet before the LDS school system is ready to handle the "T". As visitors, no problem, but as a student? No, not there yet. Though perhaps I should try to return, just to pose the challenge to the administration, so change can begin to be considered. I doubt they've even thought about it.
Abigail Drew.
Now...
...if only ignorance could be banned as well? Anything that has to do with advertising leaves me wondering whether a decision was made due to conviction, or just the expediency of the revenue from the advertiser. And it's painfully ironic...perhaps intentionally so...that Gwen used the metaphor of being thrown under the bus. When we get to the place of not needing a run of letters to 'define' who we are, I might get excited.
The hardest thing I ever heard in my lifetime was when I was in my office writing. My wife was watching some advertisement where a drag queen happened to be a marginal part of the presentation. My wife yelled out to whomever 'what do you call it when a guy dresses up like a woman to entertain?' I went to answer but before I could speak, my then twenty-one year old son shouted from his room, 'Sick!' It took all I could do not to weep out loud.
That's what we have to overcome. It's great that someone persuaded someone else about how it wasn't a good idea to advertise on the side of public transportation. But until I can persuade my family that I'm not sick?
Love, Andrea Lena
Ex-gay? No way!
My best friend is gay.
May Your Light Forever Shine
Biological impulse...
...does NOT equate to justification. Not in matters of law and not in matters of faith. It does no good to argue justification that is not within the power of the people you debate with to award. You can't change a mind based upon circumstances that do not bear on that minds reason for understanding the way it does. Irrespective of your disagreement there is such a thing as ex-gay. Such a thing cannot be foisted upon someone but at the same time it is criminal (abusive) to arbitrarily deny it to them.
You know...
I'm really beginning to not like you. At all. And wonder why you're even here.
If attraction really were nothing more than a biological impulse then it'd be even more wrong to suggest there's any way to change it.
I have feelings of lust, yes, which are purely biological impulse driven. But I ALSO have intense feelings of very real, very SPIRITUAL attraction at times, and those are sooooo much deeper, and profound, and...
And there is definitely no such thing as actually changing either what your body lusts after nor what your spirit feels attracted to. You can hide from these things, or you can accept and embrace.
If you happen to be lucky enough to have lustful feelings for AND spiritual attraction towards, both genders, then you can always more easily choose to ignore those feelings that would have the bigots hunting you down... But it still doesn't change who you are.
Abigail Drew.