[PLUG-TALK] Can homosexuality be cured?

[Someone]

The American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric
Association say that change is not possible—if you’re homosexual, don’t
attempt to develop your heterosexual potential. It’s just not going to
work.

The National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality
engages in what we call "reparative" therapy in order to help people
overcome a homosexual orientation. When we say "repair," a lot of "gays"
get angry—"What do you mean, ‘repair’? Are you trying to repair us like
a car?" But we see is that male homosexual behavior itself is a
reparative drive, an attempt to repair or compensate for something
missing in one’s emotional background.

In almost all cases of male homosexuals we see a poor relationship with
the father. Particularly we see a hurt or disappointment—the technical
term is a narcissistic injury—concerning the father figure. This means
at a critical period when the boy is trying to solidify his masculine
identity—he begins to realize that he is a male, anatomically different
from his mother and so begins to disidentify from her—he reaches out to
the father figure (it could even be an older brother or an uncle).

If the father is distant or detached or critical or emotionally
unavailable, it causes the boy to feel a hurt or rejection, and the boy
surrenders his masculine striving: He knows he’s a male, he just never
feels a part of the world of men.

Homosexual behavior is not about sex. It’s about what we call the three
A’s—attention, affection, and approval. A boy has a natural desire to be
accepted by men. If he does not feel this affection by the time he
reaches early adolescence, this emotional need for approval becomes
eroticized, and he begins to experience sexual attraction.

There is also a very high correlation between sexual abuse as a child
and homosexuality as an adult man or woman. Especially with lesbians,
who often have painful memories of being sexually molested by an older
male. In my own practice, a third of the men I have treated remember
being sexually molested by an older male.

We [NARTH] found 880 people who have attempted to change, and overall we
saw a significant improvement: Thirty-five percent claim to be
exclusively or almost exclusively heterosexual at the end, and many more
—over fifty percent—had made significant improvement.

Basically, what it comes down to is a third showed no change, a third
showed significant improvement, and a third was cured. When you compare
that with the results of most other psychological therapies—attempts to
change whatever the behavior is—you get about the same percentages: a
third unchanged, a third improved, a third cured.

In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association decided to "normalize"
homosexuality by declaring it was not a disorder [as held previously]
but a normal psychological condition. The architect of that decision was
Dr. Robert Spitzer. But since that time Dr. Spitzer has reevaluated his
position and now believes that people can change. He is conducting an
important study to document individuals who have come out of
homosexuality, and it’s my understanding he has over one hundred such
individuals at this point.

If someone you love tells you he or she is "gay" and seeks your
acceptance, that person will not respect you any more if he or she sees
you compromising your fundamental religious or philosophical
convictions. What you would be doing in "accepting" their lifestyle is
going along with their delusion. It’s a delusion, this idea that gender
is not important or that people of the same sex can get married. It’s
not grounded in biology or tradition or faith or anatomical reality.
These people want to manipulate the people around them to confirm their
fantasy. But you must hold to your truth.

I’ve heard the argument about biblical condemnations of homosexuality,
"Well, the authors of the Bible didn’t know about ‘gay’ people, they
didn’t know what science knows today about homosexuality, that some
people are just naturally ‘gay.’" The fact is, the Bible is still
correct. There is no new information that would cause us to change our
perception of homosexuality in accordance with traditional
Judeo-Christian teaching.
— Joseph Nicolosi