Pray Away. (the gay)

[Justanatheist]

Watched this the other night, well worth watching but it is not pleasant how these people were treated and how scripture still encourages abuse by the religious on their fellow practitioners.

Featured prominently are former “ex-gay” figures like John Paulk and Julie Rodgers, who explain how they came to embrace reparative ― or “gay conversion” ― therapy, only to denounce the practice and acknowledge their true LGBTQ selves later.



Still, the film dispels the notion that the movement has diminished in scope even as the LGBTQ community has experienced major social and political strides. As one interviewee suggests, as long as “the underlying belief that there is something intrinsically disordered and change-worthy” about being LGBTQ exists, so will some form of conversion therapy.
Netflix's 'Pray Away' Is A Humanizing Look At 'Gay Conversion' Therapy Survivors

Do you forgive the religious bigots who show so much contrition?

I think that some people are homophobes and use scripture to excuse their repulsive behaviour in many instances.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

Do you forgive the religious bigots who show so much contrition?

No I don't.

 

[Meow Mix]

Do you forgive the religious bigots who show so much contrition?

Difficult question. I had a deeply religious stint after Mom died to the point that I was all YEC and stuff. I had already tried not to be gay in high school, but I tried all over again during that time. It was just self-deception and torture. I feel a deep, deep sympathy for people that are lying to themselves like this.

 

[Justanatheist]

Difficult question. I had a deeply religious stint after Mom died to the point that I was all YEC and stuff. I had already tried not to be gay in high school, but I tried all over again during that time. It was just self-deception and torture. I feel a deep, deep sympathy for people that are lying to themselves like this.

I honestly cannot imagine what it must be like, to torture yourself must be hell, but to torture others is inexcusable in my book.

 

[danieldemol]

Someone made a funny song about praying the gay away;

 

[Martin]

Fortunately it looks like England and Wales will be introducing a ban on "conversion therapy".

What is conversion therapy and when will it be banned?

Maybe it's the Evangelical Christians who really need the "therapy", given their neurotic and bigoted views on sexuality.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Watched this the other night, well worth watching but it is not pleasant how these people were treated and how scripture still encourages abuse by the religious on their fellow practitioners.

Featured prominently are former “ex-gay” figures like John Paulk and Julie Rodgers, who explain how they came to embrace reparative ― or “gay conversion” ― therapy, only to denounce the practice and acknowledge their true LGBTQ selves later.



Still, the film dispels the notion that the movement has diminished in scope even as the LGBTQ community has experienced major social and political strides. As one interviewee suggests, as long as “the underlying belief that there is something intrinsically disordered and change-worthy” about being LGBTQ exists, so will some form of conversion therapy.
Netflix's 'Pray Away' Is A Humanizing Look At 'Gay Conversion' Therapy Survivors

Do you forgive the religious bigots who show so much contrition?

I think that some people are homophobes and use scripture to excuse their repulsive behaviour in many instances.

I would like to forgive but that's hard to do. Forgiveness is for our sake. If we're not bothered by it, no need to forgive. It you are, maybe forgiveness is good medicine. It doesn't give them a pass. It just let's you know you don't have to be emotionally controlled by their actions.

I don't know. My morals say yes, my feelings say no.

That. I don't watch LGBTQ religious/trauma movies. Pray the gay away, conversion therapy, etc doesn't sit right in me.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I honestly cannot imagine what it must be like, to torture yourself must be hell, but to torture others is inexcusable in my book.

Yeah, we agree. But that has nothing to with religion in particular.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Do you forgive the religious bigots who show so much contrition?

I'm not sure what other people mean when they say forgive. What I mean is to overlook a wrong and continue as if it hadn't happened. Maybe somebody forgot to pick you up and left you stranded. It's not hard to behave thereafter as if that hadn't happened.

What should we call it when we decide not to hold a grudge or seek revenge, but just don't want anything to do with another thereafter? I don't call that forgiveness myself, but its closer than wanting to strike back.

I consider the treatment of homosexuals (and atheists), justified by biblical scripture, to be the abomination - not what that scripture calls abomination. I am not willing to think or behave as if that never happened or doesn't still happen today. In fact, Christian atheophobia is a principle reason that I am antitheist, that is, consider the church a net negative presence and its continued loss of cultural hegemony a good thing. I look forward to the day when someone in the West asks, "What's Jesus opinion on gays?" and the answer is, "I don't know," just as they would now if you asked them what the Druid Goddess Brigid' take on gay marriage is.

One more point - contrition. By that, I assume that you mean remorse, not mere regret, or when one wishes things had turned out otherwise for whatever reason. Remorse is when he feels that he was the cause, and feels shame and sorrow for that. It includes regret, but goes beyond. It's often difficult to tell the difference, but some people are simply not able to feel remorse because they never blame themselves.

I very much disapprove of how Christianity treats this issue. One can only feel compassion for those LGBTQ people who end up in the grips of the church, and disdain for the ideology and institution that is responsible.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm not sure what other people mean when they say forgive. What I mean is to overlook a wrong and continue as if it hadn't happened. Maybe somebody forgot to pick you up and left you stranded. It's not hard to behave thereafter as if that hadn't happened.

What should we call it when we decide not to hold a grudge or seek revenge, but just don't want anything to do with another thereafter? I don't call that forgiveness myself, but its closer than wanting to strike back.

I consider the treatment of homosexuals (and atheists) justified by biblical scripture the abomination, not what that scripture calls abomination. I am not willing to think or behave as if that never happened or doesn't still happen today. In fact, Christian atheophobia is a principle reason that I am antitheist, that is, consider the church a net negative presence and its continued loss of cultural hegemony a good thing. I look forward to the day when someone in the West asks, "What's Jesus opinion on gays?" and the answer is, "I don't know," just as they would now if you asked them what the Druid Goddess Brigid' take on gay marriage is.

Well, I am not an antitheist. But I am against any claim to in effect objective morality, but that is not unique to religion.

One more point - contrition. By that, I assume that you mean remorse, not mere regret, or when one wishes things had turned out otherwise for whatever reason. Remorse is when he feels that he was the cause, and feels shame and sorrow for that. It includes regret, but goes beyond. It's often difficult to tell the difference, but some people are simply not able to feel remorse because they never blame themselves.

Well, that is not unique to religion.

 

[stvdv]

Do you forgive the religious bigots who show so much contrition?

If the religious bigots asks me to forgive him, then I forgive him
If he does not ask me then no use to forgive him...I just stay away from him

 

[Jainarayan]

Do you forgive the religious bigots who show so much contrition?

No. They are hypocrites and liars. They are deluding themselves and insulting the intelligence of others. As a gay man who spent 25 years trying to convince myself and the world I was not gay, from the time I was 13 and was first turned on by another man (Burt Reynolds in Dan August when he was young and good looking... woof! ), mocking other gay guys, until I was 38 when I came out to myself and the world, I know the hypocrisy. Where they are concerned and for the pain they have caused others, my compassion card is expired and not up for renewal.

 

[exchemist]

Watched this the other night, well worth watching but it is not pleasant how these people were treated and how scripture still encourages abuse by the religious on their fellow practitioners.


Featured prominently are former “ex-gay” figures like John Paulk and Julie Rodgers, who explain how they came to embrace reparative ― or “gay conversion” ― therapy, only to denounce the practice and acknowledge their true LGBTQ selves later.



Still, the film dispels the notion that the movement has diminished in scope even as the LGBTQ community has experienced major social and political strides. As one interviewee suggests, as long as “the underlying belief that there is something intrinsically disordered and change-worthy” about being LGBTQ exists, so will some form of conversion therapy.
Netflix's 'Pray Away' Is A Humanizing Look At 'Gay Conversion' Therapy Survivors

Do you forgive the religious bigots who show so much contrition?

I think that some people are homophobes and use scripture to excuse their repulsive behaviour in many instances.

Actually I don't think scripture does this. It is the way certain religious groups with a fixed idea choose to interpret a few tiny fragments of scripture. There is really barely anything in the bible against homosexuality - and zero in the teaching of Christ about it. As so often, sadly, it seems to be people seizing on odd lines here and there to justify their prejudices.

 

[Windwalker]

Maybe it's the Evangelical Christians who really need the "therapy", given their neurotic and bigoted views on sexuality.

Compassion therapy, preceded by intense humility training.

 

[Windwalker]

Watched this the other night, well worth watching but it is not pleasant how these people were treated and how scripture still encourages abuse by the religious on their fellow practitioners.

Featured prominently are former “ex-gay” figures like John Paulk and Julie Rodgers, who explain how they came to embrace reparative ― or “gay conversion” ― therapy, only to denounce the practice and acknowledge their true LGBTQ selves later.



Still, the film dispels the notion that the movement has diminished in scope even as the LGBTQ community has experienced major social and political strides. As one interviewee suggests, as long as “the underlying belief that there is something intrinsically disordered and change-worthy” about being LGBTQ exists, so will some form of conversion therapy.
Netflix's 'Pray Away' Is A Humanizing Look At 'Gay Conversion' Therapy Survivors

Do you forgive the religious bigots who show so much contrition?

I think that some people are homophobes and use scripture to excuse their repulsive behaviour in many instances.

I'm going to watch this on Netflix. Thanks for sharing.

Off the top of my head, after watching just the opening scene of it just now, is the thought that these ideas of 'praying the gay away', is a soft-version of the old testament practice of stoning gays to death. It's still the same primitive understandings of the natural world, just a more 'acceptable' response to those different than ourselves than stoning them to death is. It's a rejection of all modern advances in understanding, in favor of human understanding 2500 years out of date.

 

[pearl]

To 'pray away the gay' seems to be a contradiction if one believes that all life is created by God, then God made a mistake!

 

[Mock Turtle]

They should have a go at all the paedophiles - since some seem to think this too is a sexual orientation - not me though.

 

[DNB]

Watched this the other night, well worth watching but it is not pleasant how these people were treated and how scripture still encourages abuse by the religious on their fellow practitioners.

Featured prominently are former “ex-gay” figures like John Paulk and Julie Rodgers, who explain how they came to embrace reparative ― or “gay conversion” ― therapy, only to denounce the practice and acknowledge their true LGBTQ selves later.

Still, the film dispels the notion that the movement has diminished in scope even as the LGBTQ community has experienced major social and political strides. As one interviewee suggests, as long as “the underlying belief that there is something intrinsically disordered and change-worthy” about being LGBTQ exists, so will some form of conversion therapy.
Netflix's 'Pray Away' Is A Humanizing Look At 'Gay Conversion' Therapy Survivors

Do you forgive the religious bigots who show so much contrition?

I think that some people are homophobes and use scripture to excuse their repulsive behaviour in many instances.

Well guys, I would've expected a bit more balance in most of your sentiments, that is, failing to see the slightest oddity in the LGBTQ lifestyle?
Simply biologically speaking, there is an extreme peculiarity in attempting to either engage or create a symbiosis between two matching polarities. One will not fit or allow amalgamation with the other. It does not take an erudite to recognize this elementary and fundamental principle. In that, all life as we know it, either came about or is precipitated by the acknowledgement and abidance of this intrinsic fact.
Why is there no mitigation on behalf of the anti-gay community, who sees such behaviour as a perversion, and defiance to what nature has dictated as being abnormal, unhealthy and against procreation? Certainly some of you pro-homosexual advocates can appreciate this axiomatic fact?

With all the strange sexual fetishes and perversions out there, your stances should be that you can recognize why some may take offense to such a lifestyle, and that they may not be convinced that it's involuntary, but rather that you don't agree with the approach taken to express the disapproval or remedy of it.
I find the act repulsive, and I find that in gay men their characters are almost farcical (flamboyant, effeminate, dramatic), therefore incriminating, to a large degree, the acts that they engage in. That is, it's been often said that they are women in men's bodies. If that's not an indictment to their lifestyle, then I don't know what is, or how much more peculiar that it needs to get to ascertain the harm? I think that one day Ru-Paul and Boy-George are just going to wake up and feel utterly ashamed and embarrassed when they look in the mirror.

Don't kid yourselves that consent implies no consequence - we've all regretted in the past many things that we've consented to, even if it was a decision just between ourselves with no apparent quantifiable loss - the shame spoke for itself (not a cultural bias).

I am a sinner as much as anyone else, and arguably more, I just don't promote or excuse what I know to be wrong or weak about myself, as being inoffensive or harmless.

@exchemist

Leviticus 18:22
22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

Leviticus 20:13
13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Timothy 1:10
10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine,

Romans 1:26-27
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

 

[Meow Mix]

With all the strange sexual fetishes and perversions out there, your stances should be that you can recognize why some may take offense to such a lifestyle, and that they may not be convinced that it's involuntary...

Calling homosexuality a "lifestyle" signals that you're not merely unconvinced it's involuntary, but that you're convinced that it is voluntary.

Who I date isn't a lifestyle. You could fill in men instead of women and my lifestyle would still be my lifestyle.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Well guys, I would've expected a bit more balance in most of your sentiments, that is, failing to see the slightest oddity in the LGBTQ lifestyle?
Simply biologically speaking, there is an extreme peculiarity in attempting to either engage or create a symbiosis between two matching polarities. One will not fit or allow amalgamation with the other. It does not take an erudite to recognize this elementary and fundamental principle. In that, all life as we know it, either came about or is precipitated by the acknowledgement and abidance of this intrinsic fact.
Why is there no mitigation on behalf of the anti-gay community, who sees such behaviour as a perversion, and defiance to what nature has dictated as being abnormal, unhealthy and against procreation? Certainly some of you pro-homosexual advocates can appreciate this axiomatic fact?

With all the strange sexual fetishes and perversions out there, your stances should be that you can recognize why some may take offense to such a lifestyle, and that they may not be convinced that it's involuntary, but rather that you don't agree with the approach taken to express the disapproval or remedy of it.
I find the act repulsive, and I find that in gay men their characters are almost farcical (flamboyant, effeminate, dramatic), therefore incriminating, to a large degree, the acts that they engage in. That is, it's been often said that they are women in men's bodies. If that's not an indictment to their lifestyle, then I don't know what is, or how much more peculiar that it needs to get to ascertain the harm? I think that one day Ru-Paul and Boy-George are just going to wake up and feel utterly ashamed and embarrassed when they look in the mirror.

Don't kid yourselves that consent implies no consequence - we've all regretted in the past many things that we've consented to, even if it was a decision just between ourselves with no apparent quantifiable loss - the shame spoke for itself (not a cultural bias).

I am a sinner as much as anyone else, and arguably more, I just don't promote or excuse what I know to be wrong or weak about myself, as being inoffensive or harmless.

@exchemist

Leviticus 18:22
22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

Leviticus 20:13
13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Timothy 1:10
10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine,

Romans 1:26-27
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Biologically speaking?
You think the only reason sex happens is to create babies, and that all the bits are generally placed where God 'designed' them to be placed?

That flies in the face of a LOT of evidence to the contrary.