You do clearly demonstrate the attitudes and temperment of a people who have been conditioned to accept oppression.

Here in the United States, the teachers regularly march and protest if they believe their needs are not being addressed. And if purity-loving kids wanted to march, they would certainly be allowed (and encouraged) to do so.

I pity you that you live in so repressive of a society that you think that people should not be allowed to freely assemble and to unite for a common cause.

If you don’t mind my asking, where do you live?

Really? Thousands?

Then why is it, whenver someone tries to do a study, tries to gather data, tries to test the premise that these people are cured — why is it that they only manage to scrounge up a couple hundred? Where are these thousands of people? Did they all move to Mars or something? Is a condition of their recovery that they wipe any records that they were ever in treatment? Produce the thousands, produce some proof of thousands — because even people trying to prove that conversion works can’t find thousands, and they know where to look!

The “best” study on this (and that’s being kind) was by Jones and Yarhouse, who were blantantly biased toward reporting success. Their success was less than 20% — meaning a more than 80% FAILURE rate. And every single one of their success stories said that they still had desires (after years of therapy) That’s not success. If a doctor tries for years to cure your cancer and he only manages to make it smaller, that’s not success, that’s not a cure.
It’s an interesting intellectual slight-of-hand that you call this a “spiritual sickness” thus avoiding the fact that the medical establishment is in full agreement that there is no illness. The truth is, gay people, when tested along straight people, do not exhibit any of the signs of mental pathology. We are not sick.

“Gay activists organize this pride parades to get attention.”

ABSOLUTELY. That’s the POINT! At least you understand that much. They organize these protests (that’s what they are, fundamentally) to bring to light the unfair and inhumane treatment the receive. The fact that it’s lost on you doesn’t mean they aren’t successful, it seems to me it just indicates how prejudiced you are.

Phobia refers to irrational fear and I know full well what that feels like, I’m afraid of dogs and the fact that I know this is completely irrational doesn’t help much in avoiding panic attacks. If you want to extend this to antipathy, fine. But you can’t rule out the irrational factor in the definition of a phobia. And the fact is that most people who are against homosexuality are not so in an unreasoning manner. They (we) have articulated reasons, deeply grounded in one’s culture. I can assure you I don’t have panic attacks about gay people. :)

Nor do I think they should be beaten. I believing in treating homosexuality, just like people who suffer from other spiritual diseases (say, heterosexual promiscuity) should seek treatment. And there are homosexuals, thousands of them every year, who decide to get treatment and manage to overcome this. One just doesn’t hear much about it, because journalists are being “open minded”.

As of parading one’s intimate preferences, indeed I think it’s wrong. And kindly do not misinterpret my words, I think you know very well I was not referring to small gestures in public towards one’s lover, I was referring to these “pride” parades. Why should a group of people be allowed to disrupt the city’s life because they want to proclaim they’re proud about themselves? From what I know Orthodox Christian faithful youth in my country do not organize “Remain a virgin until marriage” parades (and they could easily claim they are a persecuted minority). That’s a personal issue.

Let me give an example from my country. Teachers are constantly being vilified as taking money from pupils for private tutoring and not declaring this source of income and also they’re often thought of as being incompetent or abusive (which some of them indeed are, but many others suffer because of this generalization). Other people say teachers shouldn’t complain about how little they’re paid because not only do they gain money from tutoring, but they also work a lot less than the rest of us since they only teach classes 18 hours a week or so (thus completely ignoring that teachers are supposed to work a lot to prepare their classes and grade papers).

How do teachers respond? They complain about how they’re being persecuted – among themselves and on the web. Should they organize a teacher pride parade? Those who speak up are certainly very proud of being educators. And they are right about the state not being too concerned with education. But they do no such thing. They protested a lot quite recently when they were withdrawn financial bonuses that helped some of them have a salary which was close to decent. They also protest against changing the final exams content or procedure every year – and other similar experiments that confuse pupils, parents and educators alike. But they do NOT organize marches simply about how people perceive them. And that in spite the fact that how people perceive them might influence children’s attitude towards school.

Gay activists organize this pride parades to get attention. While it is sad the Russian police abuses their power, authorities usually want to avoid conflicts between manifestants and other groups. In my country the Gayfest means hundreds of policemen assigned to protect manifestants (mostly gay activists and transvestites, not common homosexuals who do not take part in these events and often disapprove them). Policemen paid by a population who generally isn’t interested in a minority’s wishes for acceptance by a people they constantly criticize as being bigot and brainwashed. That sounds like victimizing to me and all it does is undermine legitimate claims by legitimate victims, because if a homosexual is agressed many people will think he or she was asking for it since homosexuals don’t have the sense to mind their own business and stop trying to influence the general population.

Of course, the opposite effect is inventing hate-crime legislation and such. And that’s when people’s fears come to life. Yes, we normal people are afraid of “diversity” being forced on our children. We are yet to see the advantages of this diversity. Instead we – and I particularly mean Easterners now – clearly see it’s against our beliefs and education and could disrupt our families. We read that in America children are starting being taught, against their parents’ wishes, that it’s ok for them to be homosexuals. We don’t want that for our children. Call it homophobia, if you will. We think of it as part of raising our children properly.

I think I made my point, hope you’ll see it, if not now, perhaps one day. And please do not think for one moment that I intended to hurt or offend you (if I did that, I beg your forgiveness), I only tried to make you understand how complicated this issue is and why so many people have problems in dealing with it. Walk with God.

and not “homophobic”.

VR,

You seem to misunderstand the meaning of that word.

ho⋅mo⋅pho⋅bi⋅a  /ˌhoʊməˈfoʊbiə/
–noun

unreasoning fear of or antipathy toward homosexuals and homosexuality.

Based on the antipathy evident in your comments, it is quite clear that your attitudes towards gay people are very consistent with the standard meaning of the word “homophobic”.

If you don’t wish to be thought of as homophobic, I invite you to let go of your antipathy and educate yourself as to why a persecuted people in a repressive regime might “break the law” and engage in civil disobedience.

So, a straight couple walking down the street holding hands should be beat up? They’re parading their intimate preferences.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. The next time I see a man and a woman in swimsuits on the beach exchanging a kiss, I’ll be sure to beat them up for forcing their lifestyle on me.

FAIL.

PS Eurovision is certainly not prestigious – the acts are mostly appalling, all the Slavic countries vote for each other and it is regarded as a joke by the vast majority of Brits, I can assure you.