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I have to admit the money aspect had never crossed my mind, but you're right – speakers are usually professionals of one kind or another and they do supplement their income by giving conferences, just like gifted priests are sought after to give retreats to their fellow clergymen.

Are you talking about John Cardinal Newman? Newman himself was buried with his life-long companion as you well know, and what a surprise the Vatican received a few months ago when they tried to go against his last wishes and deter him as part of the process of beatification.

Newman was a saintly man and everybody knows it; he couldn't care less about being beatified. He didn't even want the cardinal's hat. His pet project was the Oxford Movement which in my mind led to the Oecumenical Council of Vatican II.

As for your question, I hopefully believe that Cardinal Newman would have stressed, as Jeremy Bentham had already done, that Christians were meant to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, not those of Paul of Tarsus whose sexual theology was influenced either by Plato's 'Laws' or by the vehemence of Philo of Alexandria who proposed that 'sodomites' be killed on sight by the 'mob' rather than waste the precious time of the judiciary system. All that because of a misinterpretation of a phrase or two from Leviticus whose origins remain a mystery.

Jesus himself said nothing about homosexuality. The story of the centurion and his sick servant is ambiguous, but biblical scholars now believe the servant was the Roman centurian's homosexual lover as was the custom in ancient Rome.

How the RCC, the 'mainstreamers' as you so diplomatically put it, will ever recuperate from this catastrophic blunder is anyone's guess, but if the faithful in the pews ever got wind of it (which is not likely because they are so damned apathetic), they would most likely spend their money on lottery tickets rather than give it to the Church in order to maintain church buildings which are literally falling apart because they were so badly neglected by a pre-Vatican II mentality that professed that we must concentrate on the spiritual and not pay any attention to the material which is destined to oblivion.

'Nough said.

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Thinking of my Roman Catholic friends, I wonder what Cardinal John Henry would have thought of such a bid to 'exorcise' legitimate homosexual feelings?

Mainstreamers have a lot to be accountable for, in my opinion.

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Thanks for the reality check about reason winning an argument.
It may sound like a feeble way to wipe the egg off my face, but maybe I was thinking about approaching an objective reality with our intuition, our feelings and emotions, but not really to win an argument, just to have some kind of perception of it.

Of course, I believe it was Kant who said that a thing in itself is unknowable, but I won't bore either one of us with philosophic pedantry at 1:14 a.m., Bathurst time.

Now, am I to understand that there exists an organized group of religious exgays (exgaywatch.com) who infiltrate gay web sites and try to recruit or to convert or whatever you want to call it?

I know that in the RCC there exists a group called 'Courage' who atempt to persuade catholic gays to accept themselves as they are but to abstain from sexual relationships, but the last time I checked nobody goes to their meetings, and those who have gone usually roll their eyes to express how ridiculous their experience had been.

So maybe I will visit exgay.com

Salut!

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(PS exgay.com – is actually interesting: an honest account from an ex-gay survivor warning people not to go in for reparative therapy, and an appeal to gay people to accept themselves. do stop and visit the site, it's not what you think)

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I posted my analysis of the report of Nicolosi's spoutings in Marsham Street on the relevant thread at the exgay.com website and it has had an effect on the discussion there. Prior to my posting about a dozen or more people had commented on the exgay.com report of the London conference and you can see that their comments were all rather restrained and gentlemanly. It seemed to me that there was a restraining and controlling influence at work amongst the posters. Anyway, following the posting of my analysis, there has been a slight rise in temperature – slight, mind you. If has occurred to me that it serves adherents of the Nicolosi camp to infiltrate protest groups and seek to muffle dissent. In fact a regular on the ex-gay.com website has suggested this himself in the past 24 hours, using the word "neutralize". Anger is good and anger is powerful and anger must be used when the destructive and maligning behaviour of people like Nicolosi is at large. There are people about who, for a range of reasons, are seeking to neutralize our rightful anger against Nicolosi.

If any of you decided to contribute to the exgay.com discussions, be careful all the same. They are moderated and there is an implication on the Nicolosi thread there today that my posting has been left there only after some consideration. It seems that the moderator believes there is currently a need for a slightly more spirited approach to the problem of this man and his operation.

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And Nicolosi is backwards even by conversion therapy standards. Conversion therapists admitted long ago that the best they could realistically hope for is to condition gays to not have "homosexual urges".

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One of our neighbors is British and flies a Union Jack whereas I fly a Canadian flag, except on New Brunswick Day when I fly the N.B. flag, and on August 15th, when I fly the Acadian flag (Aug. 15 = Acadian Day like March 17 = St. Patrick Day). My ancestor, a royal gunsmith from Lyon, arrived in the New World, at Port-Royal, in 1642. His name was Abraham, go figure, he was only 19 blah, blah, blah, ad nauseum. My family name is Dugas ('Doogah', with the accent either way; I prefer the accent on the last syllable).

Let me know if you have the least difficulty getting in touch with David Adkin. I have his e-mail address somewhere and I'll go through a stack of papers and cards (my filling system) and I WILL find it. I can even introduce you to him in cyberspace.

David is quite a character, in his 40's. He has been known as Mr. Leather Toronto for years, and he is always involved in one fund-raiser or another.

By the way, the ad hoc committee I spoke of also enrolled psychologists, therapists, etc., but something tells me you are clever enough to figure that out.

Yea, I know what you mean about the international scene. I wonder if there is simply a lack of money and/or volunteers to do the footwork. We gotta have hope, miles and miles and miles of hope.
Even the UN has problems implementing their declarations. Apathy everwhere. Décourageant.

Rather than sign off on a negative note, I love your mastery of logic. I used to barf when studying logic, and I once threw my textbook against the wall and walked out of the room (I hated the teacher, a Trappist monk with the mentality of a turnip). I can see why the 'faithful' would flock all over you. I thought it was because you must have been a handsome devil!

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Just now looking through all the new stories that have thrown the Nicolosi report off the front page of Pink News it seems as if globally we have made no progress at all! Barundi makes homosexuality illegal, modern Australia decides against Civil Unions, and so forth. All very depressing. That international Gay Rights movements need to kick back to action. We have far from won our cause yet.

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Their own sex lives resemble dried-up withered old prunes (think of Nocolosi's hair) so to try to ease the empty, bitter, unfulfiled, frustrated lives they live as christians they like to hang out at gay sites. Secretly they long for communion (of the sexual rather than the religious kind). Until they can achieve that we'd best leave them to their crucifix's and whatever bizarre games they play with them.

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JohnK, when I think about how people like Jill are peddling this "we are only doing it because we are full of Christian love and care" message, and I think of how strong their security arrangements were, and then of what was clearly said inside that hall on Friday and Saturday, I feel certain we have to take action. I think I will rework that post above and write to various authorities and MPs.

FlapJack, funny you should mention The Daily Mail and the BNP, because they came into MY head too while considering what went on in that hall last week. NARTH is to us what the BNP is to blacks and Asians. This is another thing to include in letters to MPs.

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Finally Free: How Love and Acceptance Saved Us From the Ex-Gay Ministries

http://www.hrc.org/issues/religion/7107.htm

This compilation of personal statements exposes the harm caused by "ex-gay" ministries. The publication includes a resource list of organizations throughout the US that support people who are LGBT.

I love the final quote:

"I entered the 'ex-gay' ministries because I believed I was going to hell. I left when I realized that hell was life in the 'ex-gay' ministries!"

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Eddy897:
Is that you EDDY? Whoever you are, you've got me in tears of ecstacy. We Frenchies are so sensitive to equality, liberty and fraternity, what can I say??? Ah loves ya.

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. . . and he was allowed to spurt this incitment to hate in London.

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