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Title: Obama calls for end to 'gay conversion therapies'
Source:
BBC
URL Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32227353
Published: Apr 9, 2015
Author: N/A
Post Date: 2015-04-09 05:17:32 by Willie Green
Keywords: None
Views: 4432
Comments: 34
US President Barack Obama has condemned psychiatric therapies designed to "repair" gay, lesbian and transgender youth. Mr Obama's statement was in response to an online petition calling for a ban on conversion therapies. It gained over 120,000 signatures in three months. The petition was inspired by Leelah Alcorn, a 17-year-old transgender youth who committed suicide in December. Some conservative groups and religious doctors support conversion therapy. "We share your concern about its potentially devastating effects on the lives of transgender as well as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and queer youth," White House adviser Valerie Jarrett wrote in response to the petition. "As part of our dedication to protecting America's youth, this administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors." Counselling and prayer is used in conversion therapy to help some Christians deal with gay urges. "We believe that change is still possible. People go to therapy because they can change, because it really does work," David Pickup, a family therapist in California and Texas, told the New York Times. "We help people grow into their authentic selves." But mental health groups and gay rights activists say it can increase the risk of depression or suicide. The US states of California and New Jersey have banned the practices. But other conservative states such as Oklahoma are considering legislation to protect the therapies from legal challenges. While the White House is not explicitly calling for congressional legislation to ban the therapies nationwide, Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, welcomed Mr Obama's statement. "Having President Obama and the weight of the White House behind efforts to ban conversion therapy is so critical in the fight for transgender and LGBT young people," Ms Keisling said. In the letter posted on Tumblr, Ms Alcorn said she killed herself after years of struggling with her strict Christian parents' refusal to acknowledge her true identity as a female. She ended her note with a plea: "The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren't treated the way I was... My death needs to mean something. Fix society. Please."
Poster Comment: I don't know how or why, but I do believe that some people are simply born "that way" and it is NOT their fault. That's simply the way that God created them. And I don't think that there's any kind of "therapy" that can change the way they are. And it is both wrong and cruel and sinful to subject them to such psychological abuse to try to make them change.
"The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren't treated the way I was," Leelah Alcorn wrote before her death 
Vigils were held after Ms Alcorn committed suicide in December
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 8.
#1. To: Willie Green (#0)
(Edited)
Ah but is the therapy mandatory to attend? Very, very doubtful. Obola's just trying to make an issue out a non-issue. If you can't win the argument with facts try to baffle with bullschitt. (Besides if the therapy works some of his voting constituents would have fewer "victims" to choose from on Fri/Sat nights).
The kid doesn't have any choice if he/she is a minor in the custody of ignorant & abusive parents.
In less than a year, the parents would have been powerless. And this kid could have alleged abuse or just run away. Or petitioned a court for emancipation and lived in foster care for a year.
Or Child Protective Services could've intervened and the kid would still be alive today. There ain't no need to torment and abuse the kid just because he/she was created queer.
That's a stretch to assume that this is remotely true. There was only one factor determining this persons death... himself. He was the only person that could of saved him. He decided for the permanent vacation. Your love for big government, intervening and saving the helpless sheep has been duly noted. How did we survive before DSS was invented?
#28. To: GrandIsland, Willie Green (#8)
Most children were better off before CPS (Child protective Services) was born. Now you hear all kinds of horror stories about children who were taken from their real parents (for ideological reasons) and put into foster homes where they were abused/killed by their supposedly new and improved parents. And for some idiotic reason CPS think homos make good parents.
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#4. To: CZ82 (#1)
(Edited)
Ah but is the therapy mandatory to attend? Very, very doubtful.
#5. To: Willie Green (#4)
#6. To: TooConservative (#5)
And living a happy, productive (even though somewhat strange & bizarre) life.
#8. To: Willie Green (#6)
(Edited)
Or Child Protective Services could've intervened and the kid would still be alive today.
Replies to Comment # 8. How did we survive before DSS was invented?
End Trace Mode for Comment # 8.
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