File this under “stupid and ill-informed” comment of the day by Slate’s William Saletan:
Spitzer didn’t agree with this interpretation of the study. Now, in failing health, he has apologized for how he presented it. He wants to retract what he wrote. And now it’s the pro-gay groups who are seizing on his words. “Dr. Spitzer’s apology to the victims of ‘pray away the gay’ therapy … marks a watershed moment in the fight against the ‘ex-gay’ myth,” says Truth Wins Out, an organization dedicated to fighting “anti-gay religious extremism.” “It will help to greatly hasten the day when the scourge that is reparative therapy is eradicated forever.”
Hey, I’m as gay-friendly as the next guy. But let’s back off the eradication talk. That kind of zeal was unwarranted and dangerous back when the alleged scourge was homosexuality. It’s still unwarranted and dangerous.
Oh, yes, one of those types. You know, the kind that tries to make himself appear reasonable by drawing a moral equivalence between groups peddling guilt and shame and those, like Truth Wins Out, who see no reason shame therapy should exist. Are these positions really flip sides of the same coin? I, nor any reasonable person, wouldn’t think so.
And check out this brilliant observation:
Homosexuality is fundamentally personal, not political.
Yeah, I guess people didn’t just vote on stripping away marriage equality in North Carolina. Or they won’t be voting on this issue in Minnesota. Or judges weren’t booted from office in Iowa after they supported marriage equality. No, not political at all. What planet is William Saletan living on and how can someone so divorced from reality get to write a column at Slate?
Obviously, the writer does not know the slightest thing about this topic. Reparative therapy does not treat people as individuals. It presumes, without proof, that the only way one can be gay is through molestation or parental neglect. The premise is that homosexuality is unnatural and that it can and should be changed — mostly based on ancient religious biases.
The eradication of such noxious, unhealthy, and bigoted practices posing as legitimate science is dangerous? Really?
No William, you are not as gay friendly as the next guy. You really need to do your homework and reexamine your own obvious biases.
