@TheKingOfRhye #87548
Sounds good to me. The main thing I’ve thought they should at least do is prevent children from being forced through it. And as far as financial benefits and advertising, frankly this is churches that want to do it. The conversion therapists can tell the churches, and the churches can pay for it for anyone who wants to try. But it damn sure shouldn’t be forced, and by their own arguments, children shouldn’t be doing it at all.
What I mean by their own arguments: it is claimed by a large number of religious homophobes that children and teens having sexual thoughts about the same gender are people who have not yet really fully formed their identity, so there is no way they could identify as homosexual. That this is a time in life when someone’s emotions and thoughts run a bit wild, and they can have all kinds of strange feelings that they don’t even understand. As such, if a 13 year old boy is wanting to be close to his male classmate, wanting to hug and cuddle, or even more, by their argument he doesn’t really even understand what he wants, and any insistence on getting him to accept he might be homosexual is only damaging … well, any insistence on getting him to accept that he’s having evil nasty thoughts is only damaging.
He could genuinely at this point just be feeling overwhelmed with emotions he doesn’t understand, that could one day work themselves out as he practices is how self control, and find he’s not really attracted to guys, so much as this kid was just a really good and close friend. Attempting conversion therapy, well … could backfire and convince him he really is just an “unrepentant homosexual”.
Or, you know, he could just be having strange feelings that good friends and decent parents can help him to work out. And really, is it so bad if a couple young boys give each other a hand job?