Since the ’80s and ’90s, conversion therapy has been condemned by most psychiatrists and psychologists, and the Canadian Psychological Association formally opposed its techniques in a statement released in 2015—due not only to the lack of scientific research supporting its efficacy, but more importantly because of the documented mental health consequences, including anxiety, distress, depression,…
Vancouver has become the first Canadian city to ban the controversial, discredited, and anti-queer practice of conversion therapy. Today (June 6), city council voted unanimously for a prohibition bylaw that will prevent businesses from offering conversion therapy, or the pseudoscientific attempt to change the sexual orientation of a person from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual….
Photo credit: Daniel Tobias/Flickr Creative Commons “The City of Vancouver will soon decide whether or not to ban anti-queer conversion therapy, as recommended by its LGBT advisory committee.” And from October of 2017: “It’s time for Canada to ban anti-gay conversion therapy Only Ontario and Manitoba have taken legal steps to limit the practice” Read…
Lately, I’ve had some push back from some folks who doubt that the Alliance Church is anti-gay. I’ve been looking into the issue of harm and hate for so long that I’ve forgotten that some folks don’t simply know the very basic teachings of the church. To some degree, I understand the confusion. Alliance Church…
One idea for trying to research the harm done to gay and transgender people who grow up in the Alliance Church is to research folks who have left the church. It’s possible, for instance, to publicize a call out to folks who: grew up in the Alliance Church, and made a choice to leave because…
Being gay is just as healthy and normal as being straight.1 But amongst some subcultures in America, it’s commonplace to believe otherwise. But even within mainstream culture, straight folks don’t do a very good job of really thinking about the violence, harm and ridicule that gay folks face. Similarly so for the lack of understanding…
There is widespread agreement in the psychological sciences that homosexuality is normal and healthy. So the question is, how do we develop research to gauge the harms done to folks who are gay, when they’re raised in communities that place moral prohibitions on them and prevent them from behaving in ways that are consistent with…
When Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote that the “Michigan anti-equality campaign is the last gasp of desperate bigotry” I felt reassured. On my view, if a church chooses to see homosexual behaviour as a sin, that church is anti-gay. And, on my view, being anti-gay is bigotry. Similarly, if a church chooses to see trans people…
In recent conversation with an Alliance Church pastor from Alberta, I made the following formulation of the argument toward the Harm Hypothesis …
The American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from its list of mental health disorders…
