December 19, 2012 -- The Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund (FCDF) announced today that it has accepted the role of lead defense counsel for Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing(JONAH) in a precedent-setting lawsuit. FCDF is a national public interest law firm that represents people whose freedom of conscience has come under attack. JONAH is a faith-based, nonprofit organization that offers assistance to men and women seeking to resolve their sexual conflicts,including unwanted same sex attractions.
JONAH has been unjustly sued by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) who claims that homosexuality is permanently fixed and that people cannot be helped in overcoming their unwanted same-sex attractions.
SPLC 's position is inconsistent with numerous scientific and medical opinions and studies, finding that sexual attraction is influenced by many factors, both environmental and biological. Even certain gay activist groups claim that sexual attractions can be fluid and change throughout people’s lives. SPLC's allegations also ignore the thousands of people who have already benefitted from programs,such as those offered by JONAH and others, many of whom are now living their life long dreams,including traditional marriage and children.
Charles LiMandri, the President and Chief Counsel of the FCDF, stated, “The SPLC lawsuit is ill-conceived and legally untenable for multiple reasons. It seeks to violate the First Amendment freedoms of speech, religion and association not only of JONAH and the other defendants, but also untold numbers of people in need that stand to benefit from their services." (emphasis added)
Saturday, June 08, 2013
Silencing homosexuals who changed
For some time now, Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH International) has been the target of those who wish to silence their successes in offering resolution and healing to sexual conflicts, including unwanted same sex attractions:
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2 comments:
http://www.advocate.com/politics/religion/2013/06/20/breaking-exodus-international-shuts-down-end-ex-gay-movement
Anonymous,
The LGBT page to which you link is, of course, as biased as any site with a "religious" perspective. It's just a different bias. What matters is how well the bias conforms to the rough and tumble world of reality, which resists our efforts to mold it to conform to wishful fantasies. So the test is: which view is closer to being a pure fantasy. It's not always easy to tell without probing beneath the surface. A quote from your site:
"Decades after leading U.S. mental health organizations agreed that being gay is not a disorder, a small segment of American society, driven largely by religion, has persisted in saying homosexuality is something that can and should be “cured.'”
First, when the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) was revised in the same year that baby killing was legalized (1973), it was not because of some new medical breakthrough or scientific discovery. The majority of psychiatrists and psychologists still insisted that "homosexuality" was a mental disorder. So what happened? The national LGBT lobby (which wasn't yet called LGBT then) lobbied for the change. "Homosexuality" was dropped from the manual because of political pressure, not science.
In fact, the whole LGBT movement is freighted with a basic contradiction: (1) it argues that sexual orientation is genetic and natural and therefore uses language like "coming out" to underscore one's "discovery" that one is "gay" and one's need to simply be "honest" with himself about it; and (2) it also insists that the same-sex lifestyle is a personal freedom and choice to which a person has a right. So, depending on convenience, the movement uses either argument, even though the premises contradict each other.
My own conviction is that the life of a consciously same-sex individual begins somewhere along the line as a choice, no matter how subtle. It's like the "choice" of anyone who lets himself or herself "fall in love." If it wasn't a choice, there would be no history of faithful marriage in the world, but there is. So the choice, whether it leads to marriage or adultery or a homosexual liaison, despite all the language about "helplessly falling in love," etc., is indeed a choice.
Now that choice, whatever it may be, typically leads to enmeshing and habituating attachments, which, in turn, can so take over a person's disposition that at some point the "choice" is lost in "habit." This is what happens in marriages, as well as in any other habit, good or bad, whether "homosexual unions" or alchoholism (which also begins as a choice and ends in addiction).
So I will frankly admit that once the habit of marriage or same-sex attachment or alcoholism is established, it is indeed very hard to break. But I would also insist that that difficulty does not stem from inborn nature, but from habituation.
Was Exodus wrong about the possibility of a "cure" for gays? I don't think so. There are thousands of cases of individuals with "same-sex attractions" who have learned to overcome it, or live with it without allowing it to master their lives. Is it easy? Not usually.
The difficulty is attested to by the history of those who have studied criminal sexual abuse, who show that cases of recidivism among pederasts and pedophiles and rapists is upwards of 99%. Does that eliminate their responsibility for their behavior? No. It does mean, however, that they have addictive disorders that are hellishly difficult to surmount.
So what is the answer? Like the alcoholic in an AA program, recognizing that one is hopelessly mired in an enslaving addiction and cannot help himself in his own fallen nature. Casting oneself on the mercy of God and asking for divine grace. "Blood of Jesus, save me!" Contact the group, COURAGE: Victory is possible.
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