Conservatives may not like Diamond’s findings because they indicate heterosexuality is not fixed, but fluidity is one reason why pederasty has long-lasting effects. Sexually abused children may have sleep disturbances, eating problems, and a variety of psychological consequences. The National Center for PTSD notes that abused children often exhibit post-traumatic stress, which includes showing sexual behavior or seductiveness that is inappropriate for their age. Humans are overwhelmingly heterosexual, but sexually abused children may develop other sexual propensities.
Nancy Pearcey, author of Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality, has tracked Diamond’s presentations at academic gatherings since publication of Sexual Fluidity. At a Cornell event sponsored by LGBT and feminist groups, Diamond reported that among those who identify as homosexual, 40 percent of men and 48 percent of women reported sexual attraction to the opposite sex in the previous year.
Furthermore, 12 percent of gay men and 9 percent of lesbians reported having sex with someone of the opposite sex during the past year. This fluidity tracks with what the most-used liberal provider of sex education courses, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, reports: “People’s understanding of their gender identity may change over the course of their lifetimes.”
Diamond is a lesbian feminist who cannot be dismissed as a right-wing agitator, so her research provoked cognitive dissonance among gay publications. The Advocate, America’s oldest and largest LGBT publication, began one article in 2014, “A growing body of research indicates that for some people, sexual attractions change over time.” The Advocate then hastened to say that the research was “not an endorsement” of conversion therapy.
The research in Diamond’s Harvard book was on women, but she told The Advocate she is now “amazed by how much fluidity and variability men report as well.” (The Apostle Paul in Chapter 6 of 1 Corinthians observes that “men who practice homosexuality” are among those who will not “inherit the kingdom of God. … And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”)
“Conversion therapy” is a term that casts a wide net. One organization of those who believe change is possible, the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity, doesn’t like the term, since it suggests that one size may fit all: “Alliance therapists practice from a variety of mainstream approaches and models. What unites us is our adherence to scientifically confirmed practices and supporting the autonomy and the self-determination of our clients.”
The Alliance’s first guiding principle emphasizes choice: “Mental health clients have the right to explore, with the assistance of a supportive therapist, questions or issues in their lives that may be causing them concern or distress, and to participate in the setting of counseling goals that are compatible with their freely chosen personal or religious values.”
California is a “pro-choice” state on abortion, but one-party rulers are trying to eliminate choice in LGBT counseling. If gays or lesbians in California who want to change seek professional help, it appears they will soon have to head to back alleys. Government officials may decree that LGBT sexual orientation cannot change—and yet it moves. —Marvin Olasky
California monocracy
The WI/EQCA/legislator/governor pipeline is effective, and most California voters seem to support it and the Democratic Party. With the exception of two years (1995-1996), Democrats have controlled both legislative houses since 1970. Democrats are also financially dominant: From 2011 to 2016, California Democrats received $200 million in contributions and Republicans $97 million. The Democratic edge for the June 2018 primaries was 4 to 1: From Jan. 1 to May 19, the California Democratic Party spent $7.1 million, Republicans $1.8 million.
State Democratic Party convention delegates resolved last year to “condemn corporations and lobbyists that finance political campaigns, as they perpetuate a culture of corruption and cronyism,” but more than 25 percent of its 2016 state campaign contributions—$7.3 million—came from utility, telecommunications, and healthcare companies. Tribal gambling groups, oil companies (like Chevron), and insurance companies also contributed big money.
State legislators also score freebies. In a March 2018 article, the Los Angeles Times reported that Senate pro Tempore Emeritus Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, accepted tickets to events and expensive dinners from Planned Parenthood. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, racked up free tickets to the Grammy Awards, Dodgers baseball, and USC Trojan games. Sen. Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, enjoyed a $5,000 trip to Bonn, Germany, from renewable energy lobbyist Energy Foundation.
These gifts came months after former California Sen. Ronald Calderon, D-Montebello, pleaded guilty to federal public corruption charges for taking over $150,000 in bribes. Calderon pocketed money from a Long Beach hospital owner to prolong a healthcare fraud scheme. He also took payments from undercover FBI agents posing as independent filmmakers wanting changes to the state’s film tax credit program.
Calderon was the second state Democratic senator to wander into the bureau’s public corruption net. Earlier in 2017, Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, was sentenced to five years in federal prison for bribery and racketeering charges—including an offer to smuggle weapons from the Philippines for undercover FBI agents. Yee’s arrest was part of an investigation into a San Francisco organized crime group run by Yee’s longtime associate, Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow.
One-party rule is a California problem, but Republicans also face unwelcome publicity about gifts received. The Los Angeles Times noted that avid golfer and Assembly Minority Leader Brian Dahle, R-Bieber, allowed a prison guards union to pay his greens fees at an exclusive course in Pebble Beach. The Times also reported that a foundation financed by Chevron, Tesoro, and Shell paid for a $12,291 trip to England and Ireland by former Minority Leader Chad Mayes, R-Yucca Valley. —J.L.
Comments
Narissara
Posted: Thu, 06/14/2018 11:11 amOn the topic of fluidity, PBS recently aired season 2 of “Unforgotten” on Masterpiece that focuses on child sexual abuse. I won’t spoil the story, but essentially, the creators of the story unwittingly make a case for the link between child sexual abuse and homosexuality. The story very effectively evokes sympathy for homosexuals and doesn’t pull any punches about how gruesome, and evil, child sexual abuse is. But the way the story ends, the creators also suppress the ugly truth about the connection.
Bob R
Posted: Thu, 06/14/2018 11:48 amRomans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
Romans 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Romans 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
Romans 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
I realize many will consider this "hate speech". Christians can and SHOULD make a distinction between the sin (which we rightfully hate, due to the damage it causes) and the sinner (in many ways, the victim of the sin, for whom we should have deep concern.)
Often, those throwing the "hate" epithet are the ones unable to separate thier hatred of a belief from the person who holds that belief.
Xion
Posted: Thu, 06/14/2018 06:01 pmProponants of the bill attempt to appeal to science to say that conversion therapy doesn't work, but then completely ignore science by declaring sex/gender to be fluid. The comparison to Galileo is appropriate, since this is the law being used against science in the name of progressive religion. Homosexuality is a behavior. Behaviors can change.
CR
Posted: Thu, 06/14/2018 06:21 pmThis is a very good review of the political and legal landscape we in California face. The bill is now expected to pass the state senate and be signed by the governor, so the last recourse will be the courts. I provided a scholarly account of the problem in my analysis of the legislative and judicial process which led up to the ban on “non-affirming” therapies for minors:
https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/jpl/vol32/iss1/3/
I’m not LDS but the BYU journal editors were much more willing than the American Psychological Association (where the paper was rejected out of hand by two APA journals) to give this information a place in the literature.
Since the passage of the 2012, which was touted as protecting GLBT minors from widespread and heinous abuse by California therapists, not a single therapist has lost his or her license. This suggests that the goal of these laws is more to intimidate therapists and counselors so that they will not entertain a client’s self-determined goal of exploring the fluidity of his or her unwanted same-sex attractions and behaviors. This is fundamentally anti-democratic and quite plausibly unconstitutional, though I never underestimate the ability of judges to see what they want to see and adjudicate accordingly.
Jim, next time you or your colleagues do a story on this mess, I would be happy to be a resource for you.
JerryM
Posted: Thu, 06/14/2018 07:53 pmI agree. Well done, Jim. I am studying the research on same-sex parenting. There as with "conversion therapy" the fraud being perpetrated on the public is clear. Yet the mob style intimidation tactics are successful in preventing most academics from speaking up. For institutions purporting to be about the advancement of truth these actions are unconscionable.
MTJanet
Posted: Fri, 06/15/2018 10:47 amBeing older, I have seen huge parallels between the abortion and same-sex proponents, and the hand of satan is so clearly seen in the suppression of the Truth. Thank you for these articles - we need resources like these to continue to keep on doing good and not grow weary.
RC
Posted: Mon, 06/18/2018 10:07 amMaking it illegal to change back to normal... This is exactly the same process Hitler followed that eventually make illegal to be a Jew and be alive. It is too bad the California congress people are infected with the Chamberlin like, “peace in our time” disease to see the fallacy of letting this anti-American and anti-freedom kind of law be enacted.