A draft idea on how to end "anti-gay" "therapy" targeted at children

[CreekDog]

1) based on the harm it causes patients, ban it as a procedure or treatment and prevent licensed practitioners from using it.

2) based on the harm it causes children/minors, classify non-medical applications of this as child abuse.

It is abuse to try to change this aspect of a person, and it's malpractice if it's cloaked as a medical or psychological treatment.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Who is going to be the arbiter of when "non-medical applications" are occuring?

I certainly agree with the spirit and intent of your draft idea, and it seems to be something that can and should be adopted by licensing boards and professional organizations as suggested by your point #1.

However, "non-medical" applications is pretty vague and could include all sorts of situations including all sorts of family, faith, and community settings.

Have you considered what kinds of constitutional challenges could be made against attempts to interfere with people's lives? Is there not a huge opportunity for abuse of the new guidelines, including trying to win custody battles by making false claims? And does law enforcement get involved?

Think it through. It sounds good at face value, but number 2 looks like a hard one to administer as you've written it.

[CreekDog]

2. The same people that normally decide what is and isn't child abuse

If parents or any other adult are trying to get a kid to not be gay, that's child abuse.

You make it sound so complicated. It's not.

[NYC_SKP]

6. I forgot that you don't actually have as much experience in the field as many.

It's fairly easy to affirmatively identify physical abuse, though mistakes are still made.

It's trickier to identify emotional abuse and "anti-gay" therapy falls under that type of abuse.

What you're proposing could put families that practice various religions at unprecedented risk of interventions by overstepping government agencies.

Would it be abuse if a parent or guardian read to their teenager passages from a holy book that discourage same sex attractions?

If it's a matter of degrees, where would you draw the line?

Clearly, I want for nobody with children to preach anything but tolerance and free choice, but with a dose of reality and caution regarding the ugliness of bigots.

I think your idea has a first amendment problem, and I'd like to know how you'd address it without suggesting that everybody become an atheist.

Devil's in the details.

[CreekDog]

8. I'm not disagreeing with experts on child abuse

are you?

[NYC_SKP]

9. Experts are a different matter from professionals with experience.

Sometimes experts are a bigger problem than the ills that they profess to be skilled in identifying:

[CreekDog]

10. you're playing word games trying to pit experts against professionals

i don't know why you do this.

[NYC_SKP]

12. Try not to use "you" phrases. They tend to be subjective and judgmental.

Experts fuck up all the time, trying to fix shit they know nothing about.

Jails are full of people wrongly convicted because of expert opinions that were completely bogus.

And cemeteries are full of bodies of innocent victims of a death penalty.

And walking the streets all over the world are victims of shitty professional therapy.

So, I'm saying that if there is going to be a new set of legal terms and standards for this type of abuse, they damned well be written carefully and the authors would be wise to tread lightly on constitutional protections.

[CreekDog]

13. You are trying to set up a false dilemma between experts and professionals

on the subject of child abuse.

and because only YOU did that, I have addressed my criticism of that bankrupt tactic to the person who is doing it.

any other way would be a disservice to accuracy.

[NYC_SKP]

14. No, there are asshole hack experts and there are asshole hack professionals.

And among each group are also experienced and competent people.

I could have been more articulate and prevented any appearance of a false dilemma that wasn't there.

Now, please try to address the potential problems I propose, such as the conflict between what a family's faith might say about same sex relationships and what the state might say under your new imaginary crimes.

How is that problem supposed to be addressed in a constitutionally sound fashion?

[CreekDog]

15. i asked you two simple questions in post #11:

11. but if a parent explicitly attempts to change their child's sexual orientation

first question: is that wrong?

second question: can a few, some, or all of those instances be considered child abuse or not?

[NYC_SKP]

17. Not enough information. Now answer my questions in reply #1, #6, and #13.

You'd need to outline "explicitly attempts", is that a conversation, or a beating, or both, or something in between?

Surely some instances can be considered abuse, I've already said that.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Now your turn, answer my questions in reply #1, #6, and #13.

I hope you're not going to be one of those people who, instead of addressing the first question, like my #1, responds with their own questions and with accusations and such as a distraction.

You wouldn't do that to your own OP, now would you?

So, please discuss the details I have asked about.

[CreekDog]

3. Nobody has a constitional right to child abuse

You don't get religious exemptions to stone or hurt kids or people.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. Leelah's Law....this is from last month, but it gives the overview...

A White House petition to ban so-called LGBT conversion therapy received more than 100,000 signatures this week, meaning President Barack Obama's administration must formally respond to the request.

Written in the wake of trans teen Leelah Alcorn's highly publicized suicide late last year, the petition proposes a federal statute dubbed "Leelah's Law" that would require all states to end efforts by therapists to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity, alternately known as "conversion," "reparative," or "ex-gay" therapy.

The practice of attempting to change someone's sexual orientation or gender identity — often employing mental and physical tactics to create aversion to LGBT identities, including bribing, lying, disciplining, shaming, and attributing LGBT identity to repressed sexual abuse — has been denounced as ineffective and harmful by every major medical and mental health organization in the country. The American Psychological Association and other health organizations have disavowed the practice, and many LGBT rights groups consider such efforts to be torture.
http://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2015/01/30/petition-leelahs-law-banning-conversion-therapy-heads-white-house

[NYC_SKP]

7. This is what we need. Many advancements in human rights begin with professional organizations.

I signed the petition, hadn't heard the results until your reply.

Nothing wrong with additional signatures: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/enact-leelahs-law-ban-all-lgbtq-conversion-therapy/QPbYj38G

[CreekDog]

11. but if a parent explicitly attempts to change their child's sexual orientation

first question: is that wrong?

second question: can a few, some, or all of those instances be considered child abuse or not?

[NYC_SKP]

16. Not enough information.

You'd need to outline "explicitly attempts", is that a conversation, or a beating, or both, or something in between?

Surely some instances can be considered abuse, I've already said that.

[hunter]

5. Absolutely, without question it is child abuse.

Both the parents and the "therapists" are criminal