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A Three-Letter Word from LGBTQ
The title of this OP was a clue in my morning crossword puzzle. It made me angry. I can’t even escape the leftist propaganda with my morning coffee, Crunch cereal with almond milk, raisins, and bananas. I have to be reminded that this term (which now has many more letters nowadays) has become part of our everyday lexicon.
My reaction is not just about the term LGBTQ; it’s about everyone trying to normalize those lifestyles which once were considered out of the norm. Don’t get me wrong: I love the diversity of my crossword puzzle — What’s a port in Yemen? Name a Wall Street index? What’s a desert plant used to make tequila? Who was the screenwriter, James, who wrote “The African Queen”? (Tuesday’s puzzles are pretty easy.)
I get enough politically correct nonsense from everywhere else. Please leave my crossword puzzle alone.
Published in Culture
Camille Paglia, a lesbian on the left, has said many times that people are not born gay. Also, there was at least one study last year that indicated that sexuality is fluid.
Edited to add:
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 22, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — A top researcher with the American Psychological Association (APA) and lesbian activist has acknowledged that gays are not “born that way.”
Dr. Lisa Diamond, co-editor-in-chief of the APA Handbook of Sexuality and Psychology and one of the APA’s “most respected members,” says sexual orientation is “fluid” and not unchangeable.
My own view is that in recent years, the studies about the brain showing early evidence of homosexual orientation have been called into question, and I think the evidence is not as overwhelming as we thought it was. I do not like the idea of forcing people into changing their sexual orientation; that is totally unacceptable. But if there is reason to believe that orientation is confused or uncertain, I see no reason for people not to explore the possibility of clarifying their sexuality.
Hugh Laurie might not actually agree with you… :-D
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/08/04/planned-parenthood-wants-to-preschoolers-to-know-gender-and-sex-arent-same.html
Planned Parenthood is going to make sure that your pre-school grandchildren know that sex (oops, not politically correct) gender is entirely a left-right issue. And if you are right, I mean wrong, they will make yours and your grandchildren’s lives a misery. Get in line Komrade.
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Thank you for the link, Susan. And thank you for bringing up Camille Paglia. (She’s fascinating. I loved her book, Glittering Images.)
In case I’m not the only one who didn’t know about Rosaria Butterfield (I just discovered her recently.) I’d like to call attention to her.
Prior to her conversion to Christianity in 1999, Rosaria Butterfield was a tenured college professor who also worked with graduate students majoring in Queer studies. She had been identifying and living as a lesbian for years prior to that year. She’s been a Pastor’s wife for 15 years. And she is, or recently still was, a homeschooling parent.
She isn’t an endorser of reparative therapy. But she also thinks people are absolutely wrong in assuming—as we all now unthinkingly do—that a person’s predominant sexual desire is a part or expression of his (her ? its ?) truest self. She understands how important religious freedom is to preventing the indoctrination of our children.
Videos of her public speaking, and videos of interviews of her, are on you tube.
I think conservative religious people of different faiths and denominations had better start talking to each other about how are kids are being conditioned to view sexuality and gender, about the history of human sexuality, and about how best to protect and extend religious freedom.
Zafar, are you saying that any counseling that tried to dissuade a young Zafar from homosexuality would have resulted in you killing yourself?
If so, it would probably be unwise to share details at Ricochet, but I hope you have found good counseling.
And I really hope you are not saying that conservatives would be indifferent to a confused young person’s contemplation of suicide.
As for me, PFLAG and their ilk are a one-way street. A confused child gets the bum’s rush into full embrace of homosexuality. I think that would seldom be in the best interest of the child.
And, where PFLAG is active and makes some claim on the child, we are aware of some cases in blue states where PFLAG has pressed school authorities to prevent parents from finding the sort of counseling the parents thought was best for their child, and other cases were children fighting depression or other issues were given counseling without their parents’ knowledge.
I agree. I think we’ve been passively watching the havoc, and we need to be more assertive about taking care of kids. Thanks, Ansonia.
It’s frightening how often people think the actions they take are helpful, and don’t realize the destruction they cause. This can be on both sides, and I find it deeply distressing.
I want to mention again this article in First Things: Against Heterosexuality, by Michael W. Hannon.
Everyone who hasn’t should read it.
Can you provide a link, Ansonia? People are more likely to try to find and read it. Thanks.
You beat me to it, SQ…
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/03/against-heterosexuality
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I’m completely computer inept. My son tried to teach me that link thing but I never was able to make it work.
Thank you, Zafar !
MJ, let’s say you had a son who at the age of 13 told you he thought he was gay. You’d had your suspicions, but then he out and said it to you. Would you, as a responsible, loving parent:
Here’s a video with a transcript.
http://www.ligonier.org/learn/conferences/after-darkness-light-2015-national-conference/repentance-renewal/?
Thank you Matt White !
No straight kid should be pressured to think they’re gay.
No gay kid should be pressured to think they’re straight.
I’d like to think we could all agree on those common sense statements, but for uncountable thousands of years, gays have been forced to pretend they’re straight. I live in a sky blue state, super-gay-friendly, and my kids went to public schools. At no point were they ever pushed towards homosexuality, one reason why I find this social conservative obsession strange. I never met an actual gay who talks about it as much as Ricochet likes to talk about it.
Plenty of gays growing up in red states (like, until recently, nearly all of them) were treated terribly–this is not much in doubt–and the churches did nothing, zip, nada about it.
So don’t try to tell me that the poor straights are being bullied. We’re not.
How many young folks do you talk to? Also gay folks from bourgeois West Hollywood who are successful, might have a slightly different story from a gay person from a lower socioeconomic situation. Like every group class has a big stake in the outcomes. Wealthier women might be able to afford their sexual exploration then women on the lower end of the economic scale. I believe it is the same for any group, the more money you have the better shielded you are from consequences.
My sons are grown, so this is all hypothetical.
However, I can tell you that my older son had a pal. He was a nice goofy kid. My wife and I agreed that this kid was showing signs of confusion when they were 11, and we initiated some activities that allowed us to meet his parents. We saw that his little sister was showing signs of early sexualization at age 9, and we remarked to each other that that family needed serious family counseling. My wife tried to engage the mom, but she rebuffed any attempt to discuss the kids. I likewise was unable to draw out the dad. We also tried to encourage them to visit church with us, or at least to make a trip to visit their own church that they didn’t go to. All to no avail.
When the boys were 14, the buddy told his parents he was gay. It came as a complete surprise to them, but not to us. It was an immediate grave crisis for their entire family.
I will not relate any of their distress, but turmoil ensued. We lost contact with all of them many years ago. At last knowledge of their situation, the boy was a college dropout working as a cashier, the girl was not planning to go to college but was working two part-time menial jobs while on the boyfriend-of-the-month plan, and the parents divorced.
As far as I am concerned, gayness of the young man was probably more related to dysfunctional family dynamics than to genes.
Had I been blindsided by some similar announcement, I would have considered it a crisis, but it would have been handled very differently than what we observed in that family.
I think the conversion therapy people have made a number of mistakes, but they are actually on a better track than the bulk of psychology. The small sample sizes of any approach are so small that the scientific support for any counseling is really thin.
Whole family counseling, starting as young as possible, would be in order. A variety of counselors should be tried, because there is a bewildering array of possibilities.
Gary, how long ago were your kids in school? I suspect it’s been a while. If so, a lot of things have happened: there’s more acceptance of gays, but there’s a lot more propaganda, which tries to make being a gay “special,” which could certainly portray kids who are on the fence to lean that way. I grew up in CA, and when I was in school, I don’t even remember “gay” being discussed. I didn’t have kids, but it would have been 30-40 years ago, so even then they wouldn’t have come across this kind of pressure.
Susan, it wasn’t all that long ago! ;-) My kids graduated from Santa Monica High School (where, AFAIK, Trump aide Stephen Miller also graduated) in 2007 and 2009. Sure, it’s been a few years, but we aren’t talking prehistoric. Certainly, there’s a prim, nannying edge to modern educational culture, no argument there. I see a lot of fear here that somewhere, somehow, a handful of straight kids might think they’re gay before they find out better. I don’t see much concern here that somewhere, somehow a handful of gay kids might be forced to think they’re straight. I think the straightforward reason is, to many commenters on this thread, it wouldn’t seem as serious a problem.
I agree with MJB, always a class act, that when it comes to conversion, the sample sizes of believable studies is still very small. He implicitly concedes, then, that there’s no surefire method out there, or we would already have known about it. I’ll explicitly concede that we don’t know enough about the subject to be dead sure about anything. I have to go by personal observation. I’m sure there are some timid lesbians going to Smith or Vassar College who could go either way, both ways, or neither way, but the gay men I’ve met have rarely been anything than dyed-in-the-wool gay, so I’m extremely skeptical about conversion.
Gosh, I’m sorry Gary, I thought you were lots older . . . uh . . .sorry. ;-)
You are probably correct, and there is no doubt that we don’t know much about gays, biologically and psychologically. I do believe there is an effort to “normalize” gay behavior, although I concede we have no way of knowing how effective it is. One thing I do know from this discussion: we all want kids to lead a normal, happy life, without unnecessary pressure from anyone, inside or outside the family. If we didn’t care so much, we wouldn’t be talking about. Sorry about the age thing . . .
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Obviously, we all hope no kid feels such a need to prove to himself and others that he’s gay or straight that he gets sexually involved with people of either sex in order to assure himself, establish a perceived identity, and fit in and feel accepted.
Ahh hell, Susan, don’t feel bad, I am old! It’s my kids who aren’t! Not offended at all, a very reasonable inference on your part.
Fact is, when I went to school, I carried a tablet to take notes. It was made of raw slate and weighed 30 pounds. I was part of the club for boys. It also weighed 30 pounds, and packed quite a wallop! My next door neighbor in Bedrock, Freddie Flonschtein, anglicized his name to Flintstone and got his own TV show. It’s been a full life ;-)
HHahahahahahah!!!
There is a phrase that describes what Susan is talking about: Lesbian Until Graduation:
I’ve heard that women do this, but now they have a phrase for it?? There are just some things I just can’t get my head wrapped around. Sheesh.