More From The Illogical File

If you haven't encountered Dale O'Leary before, you can be forgiven - one has to tread into the swamps of religiously driven pseudo-science to find his writings. (He was one of the authors of the horrendous paper on the "ethics" of gender reassignment surgery I dissected back here)

He's surfaced again - a year late, it seems, to respond to the APA's study on reparative therapy - and like other attempts at reason from this sector, he's busy cherry picking facts and in doing so gets it entirely wrong. (The actual APA report is here)

1) Same-sex sexual attractions, behavior, and orientations per se are normal and positive variants of human sexuality—in other words, they do not indicate either mental or developmental disorders.

The use the term "per se" confuses the issue. It is true that same-sex sexual attractions, behavior, and orientations are not in and of themselves (per se) indicative of anything. Given the variety of human behavior and attractions in different cultures, throughout history, and among the variety of mankind, nothing can be said about all persons with same-sex attraction, everyone who engages in same-sex behavior, or claims a particular sexual orientation. However, there is substantial evidence that same-sex attraction is a sequel of disturbed early childhood, in particular a failure to achieve a secure attachment to the mother1 and a failure to identify with the same sex parent and peers2. There is also evidence that persons with SSA are more likely to have been victims of childhood abuse,3 including sexual abuse,4 or other exposure to age inappropriate experiences. A number of well designed large sample studies have found that persons with SSA are more likely to suffer from psychological disorders, substance abuse problems,5 and suicidal ideation.6 Men who have sex with men are at high risk for contracting an STD, including HIV.7 While not every persons with SSA falls into these categories, a significant percentage do. There is on the other hand no replicated evidence that SSA is genetically or congenitally predetermined and therefore a natural and unchangeable variant.8 Therefore, it can be argued that there is evidence that SSA in some cases (or some might argue in most cases) is associated with a psychological or developmental disorder.

O'Leary makes several assertions here which, had he bothered to actually read the report in its entirety, he would find it addresses.

Assertion: Homosexuality is a result of childhood and/or family dysfunction.

From the APA Report:

Theories that certain patterns of family relationships cause same-sex sexual orientation have been discredited (Bell et al., 1981; Freund & Blanchard, 1983; R. R. Green, 1987; D. K. Peters & Cantrell, 1991).

Assertion: Homosexuality is associated with childhood sexual abuse

From the APA Report:

Some individuals who present with requests for SOCE may have clinical concerns that go beyond their sexual orientation conflicts. These may include mental health disorders, personality disorders, or trauma- related conditions that influence the presentation of sexual orientation conflicts and distress (cf. Brown, 2006; Drescher, 1998a; Glassgold, 2008; Haldeman, 2001; Iwasaki & Ristock, 2007; Lasser & Gottlieb, 2004; Mohr & Fassinger, 2003; S. L. Morrow, 2000; Pachankis et al., 2008; Schneider et al., 2002; Sherry, 2007; Szymanski & Kashubeck-West, 2008). Such conditions may require intervention separate from or in conjunction with the intervention directed at the sexual orientation distress. For instance, some clients who seek SOCE may have histories of trauma (Ponticelli, 1999), and in some individuals sexual abuse can cause sexual orientation identity confusion and other sexuality-related concerns (Gartner, 1999). Other individuals seeking SOCE may make homosexuality the explanation for all they feel is wrong with their lives (Beckstead & Morrow, 2004; Erzen, 2006; Ponticelli, 1999; Shidlo & Schroeder, 2002). This displacement of self-hatred onto homosexuality can be an attempt to resolve a sense of badness and shame (cf. Brandchaft, 2007; Drescher, 1998a), and clients may thus need effective interventions to deal with this self-hatred and shame (Brandchaft, 2007; Linehan, Dimeff, & Koerner, 2007; Zaslav, 1998).

Please note the language of the APA report. Unlike O'Leary, the APA is very careful to describe these conditions as coincidental with, not causally related to, the client's sexual identity. The APA is very cautious about drawing causal relationships between conditions for good reasons - when one looks at the broad spectrum of people who were (for example) victims of child abuse, it's not clear that even a significant fraction of those people turned out to be homosexual.

Assertion: Homosexuals are at a higher risk for other psychological conditions.

The APA Report addresses this concern in the quote I provide above.

Assertion: Men who have sex with men (MSM) are at higher risk for STIs

From a purely psychological perspective, this hardly seems relevant. Although it certainly is indicative of O'Leary's biases, since it is a common assertion made by the religious set to justify their "opposition" to homosexuality.

Assertion: While not every persons with SSA falls into these categories, a significant percentage do. There is on the other hand no replicated evidence that SSA is genetically or congenitally predetermined and therefore a natural and unchangeable variant.8 Therefore, it can be argued that there is evidence that SSA in some cases (or some might argue in most cases) is associated with a psychological or developmental disorder.

Ah ... the classic circularity which confuses correlation with causation. The APA is very careful not to make any assessment of causal factors related to homosexuality because what evidence exists is far from conclusive. Unfortunately for O'Leary, his fantasy that because there has been no "gay gene" found that the causes must lie in other correlations doesn't exactly hold up. (I discussed this in more detail here, here and here.

O'Leary doesn't let reason get in his way though, as he proceeds to try and disprove other basic tenets of the APA's report.

2) Homosexuality and bisexuality are stigmatized, and this stigma can have a variety of negative consequences (e.g., minority stress) throughout the life span.

Sexual acts between two persons of the same sex, along with adultery, fornication, and sexual paraphilias, are condemned by a number of religions as always contrary to God’s law. Since these religions are based on unchangeable revelation, these doctrines cannot be altered. Therefore, engaging in same-sex relations will always be considered by some as unacceptable. Love and compassion for those who struggle with temptation does not require acceptance of these behaviors. Freedom of religion protects the right of persons, who believe that homosexual acts are always wrong, to state their belief publicly and teach this conviction to their children without fear of discrimination. Such convictions are not bigoted, discriminatory, homophobic, or hate speech.

It is true that the realization that a significant portion of the community believes that a person’s behavior is not acceptable may make that person feel bad. Persons engaging in homosexual behavior may wish to silence those who disapprove. They may wish to have their behavior universally accepted; but so long as people have freedom of religion this situation will not change.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry over this self-serving bunch of tripe. Instead of addressing the very real issue of stigmatization, O'Leary provides us with a self-serving justification of why he thinks it's his right to demand that GLBT people be limited in their lives.

I would argue that his interpretation of "Freedom of Religion" is deeply flawed - at least with respect to the Canadian Charter of Rights. I've discussed the principles of how different rights intersect with each other elsewhere on my blog.

... and yes, when those anti-gay statements amount to propaganda, they are no better than what the Nazis spread about Jewish people in the 1930s. Make no mistake about it.

3) Same-sex sexual attractions and behavior occur in the context of a variety of sexual orientations and sexual orientation identities, and for some, sexual orientation identity (i.e., individual or group membership and affiliation, self-labeling) is fluid or has an indefinite outcome.

Gay activists would have us believe that SSA is a normal, and unchangeable variant, but numerous studies have found that SSA is fluid.9 If as the evidence shows it is possible for SSA and behavior to change spontaneously, then why can’t a person seek psychological therapy or spiritual counseling to affect a change in SSA or behavior?10

The APA report doesn't actually say this. What it does say is that the evidence supporting reparative therapy is deeply flawed (big shock there), and that reparative therapy doesn't produce the results claimed.

What the APA does advocate is a therapeutic environment that will help the client achieve a degree of self awareness and self acceptance that they did not have before - in a manner that respects the spiritual, social and sexual context that the client lives in.

4) Gay men, lesbians, and bisexual individuals form stable, committed relationships and families that are equivalent to heterosexual relationships and families in essential respects.

Same sex relationships differ in many essential aspects from a marriage between a man and a woman. Two persons of the same sex cannot consummate a marriage - the one and only act that joins a man and a woman as one flesh. They cannot conceive a child that is the fruit of their union and their joint biological offspring. Every child acquired by a same-sex couple has been separated from one or both biological parents. Such a separation is perceived by the child as a loss. Every child raised by a same-sex couple lacks a parent of one or the other sex. Two persons of the same sex lack the psychological and emotional complementarity that is part of a husband and wife union. Finally, it is interesting to note that exclusivity is not considered essential for male couples.11

The usual "but homosexuals can't procreate" argument. I've heard this a thousand times as an argument against gay couples. It's a crock. This argument is based on a myriad of assumptions about heterosexual relationships and how they differ from homosexual relationships ... and aren't based on a single scrap of evidence that I've ever seen.

As for exclusivity, as much as the religious set likes to get their panties in a twist every time they talk about gay promiscuity, they do so while turning a blind eye to the frequency of what they should rightly call adultery among heterosexuals. Extra-marital affairs (on both sides of the marital bed) are surprisingly common, and to criticize homosexual couples for being open about them is hypocritical at best, and a double standard at worst.

As for offspring, how many children are raised in single parent households? By step parents? ... by adoptive or foster parents?

5) Some individuals choose to live their lives in accordance with personal or religious values (e.g., telic congruence).

Some individuals not only choose to live their lives according to God’s revealed law, but also believe that since truths of revelation and the truths discovered by science come from the same source, when both are properly understood they will agree. The term "values" degrades this belief into mere personal opinion; one person "values" one thing, another "values" something else. Those who believe in the congruence of revelation and science, reject this kind of relativism. They hold that it is possible through revelation and science to approach truth and that certain opinions are simply wrong. However, they respect the right of those who oppose them to be wrong and to defend their beliefs. While gay activists demand universal acceptance and affirmation for themselves, they use every method within their grasp to silence and marginalize those who disagree with them.

More self-serving malarkey from O'Leary. He clearly hasn't bothered to read the entire report from the APA - or if he has, he failed to comprehend a sizable chunk of it. If he had bothered to read the APA's report thoroughly he would have realized that this forms a significant part of how the clinical environment should be managed.

So Much For Reparative Therapy

For the last ten years or more, the "Pray away the Gay" crowd in the religious right has been trying to prop up NARTH to provide the appearance of legitimacy for their position that "homosexuality can be changed/cured/prayed away".

As reported on CNN, the American Psychological Association chose to review the real research on such programs (not the spewage from Paul Cameron, or the various lobby groups, but actual peer reviewed research that has been published in reasonable journals), and released their report titled Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation.

The upshot of their findings:

The appropriate application of affirmative therapeutic interventions with adults is built on three key findings in the research: (a) an enduring change to an individual’s sexual orientation as a result of SOCE is unlikely, and some participants were harmed by the interventions; (b) sexual orientation identity, not sexual orientation, appears to change via psychotherapy, support groups, or life events; and (c) clients benefit from approaches that emphasize acceptance, support, and recognition of important values and concerns.

In short, reparative therapy is snake oil. Something which most critically thinking people would have long ago figured out.

Ironically, NARTH founder Joseph Nicolosi's work is heavily cited in this study:

Nicolosi, J. (1991). Reparative therapy of male homosexuality. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
Nicolosi, J. (1993). Healing homosexuality. Northvale, NJ:Jason Aronson.
Nicolosi, J. (2003). Finally, recognition of a long-neglected population. Archives of General psychiatry, 32, 445-447.
Nicolosi, J., Byrd, A. D., & Potts, R. W. (2000). Retrospective self-reports of changes in homosexual orientation: A consumer survey of conversion therapy clients. Psychological Reports, 86, 1071-1088.
Nicolosi, J., & Nicolosi, L. A. (2002). A parent’s guide to preventing homosexuality. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Although, Nicolosi's work is cited primarily in the background chapters describing the discussion itself, and in particular advocacy from groups like NARTH.

Where Nicolosi's research is actually cited or discussed for its merits, it comes in for some fairly harsh criticism:

A meta-analytic review of 14 research articles (Byrd & Nicolosi, 2002) is not discussed in this report. The review suffers from significant methodological shortcomings and deviations from recommended meta-analytic practice (see, e.g., Durlak, Meerson, & Ewell-Foster, 2003; Lipsey & Wilson, 2001) that preclude reliable conclusions to be drawn from it.

For instance, to assess whether sexual orientation had changed, Nicolosi et al. (2000) performed a chi-square test of association on individuals’ prior and current self-rated sexual orientation. Several features of the analysis are problematic. Specifically, the nature of the data and research question are inappropriate to a chi-square test of association, and it does not appear that the tests were properly performed. Chi-square tests of association assume that data are
independent, yet these data are not independent because the row and column scores represent an individual’s rating of his or her past and present self.

Recent studies have investigated whether people who have participated in efforts to change their sexual orientation report decreased same-sex sexual attractions (Nicolosi et al., 2000; Schaeffer et al., 2000; Spitzer, 2003) or how people evaluate their overall experiences of SOCE (Beckstead & Morrow 2004; Pattison & Pattison, 1980; Ponticelli, 1999; Schroeder & Shidlo, 2001; Shidlo & Schroeder, 2002; Wolkomir, 2001). These studies all use designs that do not permit cause-and-effect attributions to be made. We conclude that although these studies may be useful in describing people who pursue SOCE and their experiences of SOCE, none of the recent studies can address the efficacy of SOCE or its promise as an intervention.

Childhood interventions to prevent homosexuality have been presented in non-peer-reviewed literature (see Nicolosi & Nicolosi, 2002; Rekers, 1982). ... Thus, we concluded that there is no existing research to support the hypothesis that psychotherapy in children alters adult sexual orientation.

Not exactly a promising assessment ... and arguably invalidates many of the shibboleths held by the advocates of "change therapy".

H/T: Commenter "SB" for bringing this to my attention

PFOX - The Burning Stupid Edition

Via the religious wingnut crowd over at Lifesite, we learn of the latest gem of "wisdom" to fall out of PFOX. According to PFOX, this risk of suicide is higher in younger gay-identified people - therefore, having support groups for GLBT people in high schools is a bad idea:

Therefore, in order to reduce suicide risks, schools should not encourage teens to self-identify as “gay” during adolescence before they have matured. Sexual attractions are fluid and do not take on permanence until early adulthood.

I think I take more than a little bit of an exception to the claims in there. First of all, we shouldn't confuse attraction with the patterns of expression. We know well that teens experiment with their identity quite heavily. I'm cautious about saying that sexual attractions are "fluid" per se, when there is a great deal of narrative evidence that suggests that in fact such attributes are not fluid, but rather very broad for many people.

Similarly, I take exception to the idea that schools should not be affirming of their GLBT students. Consider the generally hostile messages that GLBT youth (or adults!) face on a daily basis, and then ask yourself what kind of despair someone who can't find a supportive voice to talk with is going to experience. It takes many youth years to overcome their internalization of these negative messages, only to face making dramatic and life altering decisions later in life when the potential disruption is even greater.

Lifesite spins it a bit harder, and quotes Griggs as saying the following:

Griggs also notes that schools with Gay Straight Alliance clubs are notorious for suppressing ex-gay organizations or individuals supporting tolerance for the ex-gay community. "GSA clubs and their teacher sponsors make schools unsafe for anyone who has rejected the 'gay' label in their lives or who believes in ex-gay equal rights. Our efforts to reach all students are typically met with hostility and violence. Time after time, we have faced hostile gay students and teachers ripping up our ex-gay materials or demanding that we be banned from distributing our materials on campuses."

The problem I have with the 'ex-gay' ministry thing where GLBT youth are concerned is the fact that ex-gay programs are predicated on conditional approval. Their approval is granted only so long as the person continues to act straight, and if someone changes course, they are shunned by the rest of that community. Considering how emotionally vulnerable GLBT youth often are, this is arguably predatory at the very least.

... and just to wrap this all up with a nice little bow, Truth Wins Out has the researcher who was an author of the paper that PFOX cites take them out to the woodshed for a beating:

Dr. Remafedi’s study was the one cited by PFOX to back their unfounded conclusions. Today, Dr. Reamafedi released the following comments to Truth Wins Out:

“My work has been cited by PFOX in response to a Washington Post article on gay-straight alliances (GSA),” wrote Dr. Remafedi. “PFOX misuses one of my studies on suicide attempts in gay youth to argue that people should not identify their sexual orientation at young ages. Our findings do not support the contention that young people choose their identity or the timing of events in identity formation. Nor is there any evidence that the availability of GSAs influences those developmental processes.”

The Price "Christianity" Exacts From People

The outright abusiveness of some who profess that their actions are done in the name of "all that is holy" annoys me to no end some days.

We often hear of the horrors of so-called "reparative therapy". It's awful enough what they will attempt to tell someone who is gay or lesbian to do to themselves.

Then there is what they will do to their families. Read that link - it is heartbreaking how the writer's relatives pressured the father in all sorts of ways, ultimately separating father from his offspring - solely because of their moral objections to his partner.

I admire the writer's clarity and strength of character at such a young age, and I am appalled by the behaviour of her aunt and uncle in particular. If those are "family values", then it's time to hold these brutes up to account for what they are doing to individuals and families.

Promoting a Comment Thread

I don't normally bump things out of comment threads, but Roger's last comment back here deserves a more thorough commentary than I think is appropriate in a comment.

What follows is my own thinking on Roger's comment:

I think the reality that behavioural science will arrive at has been quite elegantly expressed in The Sexual Spectrum: Exploring Human Diversity. (although heavily anecdotal, the author puts forward a rather well reasoned model)

Reality is this - human behavioural attributes exist along a continuum for any "attribute pair" you wish to describe Heck, I'm left handed - mostly, but there's some things I do right handed (and when it comes to throwing a ball, I'm basically hopeless), so even there, it's not an absolute - I have some degree of ambidexterity.

Where sexual identity is involved, it's likely a bimodal distribution, with a huge weight towards heterosexual behaviour at one end of the spectrum, and a smaller, but significant bump on the homosexual end of the scale. In between you find a small percentage of people who express some significant degree of bisexual behaviour. (Please note, I'm working heavily from inference here, and there's probably several lifetimes worth of hard research to confirm my suspicions)

My strong suspicion is that most people are "tethered" to some point along the spectrum, and although they may be able to express themselves differently to some degree or another, someone who is "firmly" heterosexual, or firmly homosexual just won't get very far trying "the other field" so to speak.

What confuses the issue are those who fall in the middle. The bisexuals whose "tether" is long enough to allow them to drift towards either a primarily homosexual or primarily heterosexual presentation, and then at some later time to apparently "change" their identity. (What has actually changed is the outward expression of their sexual identity, not the core attribute they are "tethered" to).

Personally, I suspect that most of the "success" stories out of the "reparative therapy" game are precisely such people. Similarly, I suspect that the "failures" are in fact firmly within the "homosexual" side of the spectrum, and are going to find it as difficult to "change" as it would be to convince a solidly heterosexual person to become a practicing homosexual.

Attempting to "change" someone's sexual identity by therapy is unlikely to be successful unless they fall into the category of "bisexual", and there you are not changing their identity so much as their social expression of it. Attempting to force the issue by coercion of any sort is apt to be extremely damaging to the individual in the long term.

By way of example, I'd like to relay an experience I had with a course I took a few years ago.

It was a leadership training course, and quite a good one (or so I thought). Naturally, one of the exercises was a Myers-Briggs personality type test. I scored an amazingly strong "I" (introverted) score on the test. (Not surprising to me - I like little better than a quiet evening with a glass of wine, my parrot and a good novel to read) Several of my classmates were quite shocked by this revelation that I am a strong introvert - apparently they hadn't guessed at all from how I conduct myself at work.

Near the end of the course, the instructor paid me quite a delightful compliment. He told me that although I was a very strong introvert, I had developed some very good ways to manage myself in my day to day work life.

I do not claim that it's easy for me to do that - there are days where my role at work exacts a frighteningly high price from me, and I go home and make like a hermit for a few days.

On the Introvert/Extrovert scale, I'm a strong Introvert, but I can "play" as if I'm an extrovert. Trust me, I don't "get it" where extroverts are concerned. Put me in a room full of people and I just want to escape - I don't get "energized" by the experience - but there are those who certainly do. (and similarly, they don't "get it" where my proclivity to go home and find a good book is concerned!)

My point is this - although I can "act" the part, sooner or later my "tether" gets over stretched, and like a great big bungee cord yanks me back home sooner or later. The further it gets stretched, the more dramatic my reaction when I find myself "pulled back".

(again, this is anecdotal evidence I present here, but it should give you some sense of where I come from when discussing these issues)

Sadly, this leaves the religious "conversion" advocates like Kempling just as high and dry as they are using the more polar model. It still comes down to attempting to "change" something that is simply not responsive to therapy.

Just as you can't turn me into a person energized by a roomful of social interaction, I do not think that one can make a homosexual turn into a heterosexual (or vice versa). They may "act" straight, but like me when I have to play the running extrovert, sooner or later the price for that expression will be paid. It is only those who land in the "bisexual" part of the continuum who are close enough to drift into either side that will "seem" to change.

How Is This "Repairing" Anybody ???

Since the "religious right wing" in this country (and the United States) likes to keep trotting out the same talking points all the time, I figure any opportunity to point out the complete intellectual dishonesty of these claims is worth the time.

Recently Nigel Hannaford and Tristan Emmanuel both trotted out the case of Chris Kempling as an example of "Christian" free speech being "suppressed". I'm going to take this a little further and make a few more harsh claims about Kempling.

As I have pointed out repeatedly in the past, Kempling's case is not so simple as even that of Stephen Boissoin. Kempling did not "merely" write a letter defending "traditional marriage", but rather he wrote a series of letters deeply critical of what he supposed to be the "gay lifestyle":

Kempling had been employed as a teacher and counsellor at a high school in Quesnel, British Columbia since 1990. In 1997 he began to write a series of letters to the editor of a local newspaper, the Quesnel Cariboo Observer, expressing concern over the presentation of homosexuality in school curricula. Among other things, Kempling's letters objected to the British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF), the union that represents teachers in British Columbia, distributing teaching-aid literature which had been produced by the Gay and Lesbian Educators of BC, and which in his view was erroneous. He also cited various studies that he interprets as showing harm caused by what he described as the "homosexual lifestyle". Kempling, an advocate of reparative therapy, wrote:

"Sexual orientations can be changed and the success rate for those who seek help is high. My hope is students who are confused over their sexual orientation will come to see me." [1]

Now, clearly, Kempling's actions go much, much further than simply "writing a letter". (If anyone has the text of Kempling's letters at hand, let me know, I'd be interested in reading them)

Kempling is an advocate of something often referred to as Reparative Therapy, a questionable, and arguably damaging "therapy" intended to make someone be "not gay".

To give some idea just how damaging "reparative therapy" can be, I refer readers to this case in Manitoba:

A minister and former Christian college instructor has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a young man who sought counselling after he feared he was homosexual.
...
In earlier testimony, the alleged victim, now 29, told court he started meeting Lewis for counselling sessions in early 2000 after his parents caught him viewing gay pornography on the family computer.

Lewis — a family friend and minister — confided he had his own sexual identity issues and the two embarked on weekly counselling sessions designed to “assist me to be straight and to live a straight life,” the man said.

The man said Lewis started a program of “touch therapy,” which included the two kissing and fondling each other and engaging in sexual roleplaying.

This is far, far from being the first serious problem with so-called conversion therapies. From many perspectives, "reparative therapy" runs at odds with a lot of good, solid science. Psychologists have long ago realized that sexual identity as a rule is not responsive to therapy techniques intended to "change" them. You might be able to persuade someone to adopt a different political viewpoint, but in general, it's unlikely that you will change their sexual or gender identity meaningfully through any known therapy technique.

This most recent incident in Manitoba is an example of someone in a position of trust exploiting the patient.

While I do not claim that Kempling would engage in the same tactics, we have to view with skepticism and caution the "therapy" that he is advocating for. The simple fact is that there is little, or no, peer reviewed literature that substantiates the claims that are wrapped around the therapy that Kempling advocates, and plenty of evidence of abuse being wrapped in the cloak of "therapy" instead.

Nigel Hannaford: Hacktacular!

What few reservations I had about Nigel Hannaford having become less of a journalist and more of a puppet for the hardline right wing in Canada have just evaporated.

His Saturday tirade is one of the most illogical pieces of reasoning to come forth from him.

In a classic bit of "conservative" reasoning, he tries to tie David Suzuki's statements about climate change to the case of Chris Kempling as a "freedom of speech" issue. A classic "have you stopped beating your wife yet" kind of argument that twists the unreasonable by tying it to something that almost seems rational.

I think Suzuki's statements are laughable, but Hannaford's recount of the Kempling case is utterly brain damaged, and linking the two topics together is simply bad logic.

There's a difference between Suzuki's comments and Kempling - and it's significant. Suzuki is talking about what consequences he feels should apply to politicians who choose to sit on their thumbs with respect to his pet issues.

Kempling is a whole different matter. Among other things, Kempling was in a position of trust with respect to youth, and he was peddling reparative therapy, which is potentially very, very damaging to the client's well-being:

The American Psychiatric Association in its position statement on Psychiatric Treatment and Sexual Orientation states: The potential risks of "reparative therapy" are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient. Many patients who have undergone "reparative therapy" relate that they were inaccurately told that homosexuals are lonely, unhappy individuals who never achieve acceptance or satisfaction. The possibility that the person might achieve happiness and satisfying interpersonal relationships as a gay man or lesbian is not presented, nor are alternative approaches to dealing with the effects of societal stigmatization discussed.

*** In short, you are unlike to succeed in making people something that they aren't

Hannaford's oversight in failing to understand that Kempling's public positions towards the GLBT community placed him in conflict with the very role that he was contracted to do as a teacher and school counsellor. Kempling may well firmly believe that as a "Christian" he was doing the right thing, but in fact his overall demeanor would have left any GLBT student seeking guidance from him in a truly perilous place indeed.

Instead, Hannaford chooses to connect the two matters as though they are comparable, after all, he claims, Kempling was merely on the "wrong side of an argument". Nothing could be farther from reality. Kempling made it very public, and very clear that he was outright hostile to GLBT people, and worse was willing to profit from trying to "cure" their conditions.

That's a far cry from the kind of silliness that Suzuki may have been advocating, but Suzuki's in no position to cause anyone to be imprisoned. (and I would argue that were such a law to be tabled in the House of Commons that it should not even pass first reading)

Freedom of speech is no luxury, but it is also not unfettered. We all bear a responsibility towards our fellow human beings of civility.