Anglican Mainstream

Summary of Symposium from NARTH

[.....]  This symposium reviewed the scientific evidence which led the American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force to conclude that there was "insufficient evidence to support sexual orientation change efforts" (SOCE). The panelists presented arguments that the Task Force Report failed to provide sufficient evidence to support their conclusions. In addition, the presenters discussed the importance of demonstrating respect for both religious orientation as well as sexual orientation of those who seek psychological care.

[.....]  The issues discussed by the Task Force and the stance they take arise from a set of grounding assumptions. Given those assumptions, they can not conclude anything other than what they did. These assumptions are that people are not moral agents, that human behaviors are caused by biological givenness, that abstractions like orientation, attraction, and sexuality have an existence apart from human actions, and that they exert causal influence in human affairs. This world view, and personal, political, and moral agendas that are over laid on it, define a set of issues surrounding SOCE, and predispose certain conclusions, captured in the Task Force report. Within this world view the issues cannot be otherwise. However I assert that the world is not like this. I assert that human beings are indeed moral agents, that human behaviors have meaning and moral purpose that are fundamental to human life, that human behaviors arise out of the acts of agents making sense of the constraints of context within a world or moral purpose and intention, that orientations, attractions, and sexuality are things we do, not things we are, that abstractions are merely descriptions for the actions we perform. I believe that a real solution to the issues raised by the controversy surrounding SOCE will come only from a careful and through analysis of the starting point of our understanding of ourselves. Meanwhile, the Task Force, as reported in this symposium is intellectually unpersuasive.

Read here

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.