Is Homosexuality A Mental Illness?
Lately, I've been hearing and reading news about celebrities Manny Pacquiao and Miriam Quiambao making comments on homosexuality and/or same-sex marriage. As expected, they received tremendous public criticism and media attacks, especially from the gay activist movement and communities.
Is homosexuality a mental illness in need of treatment? To answer that question, we bring ourselves to the arena of ongoing "politics of truth." Today, beliefs and attitudes about homosexuality have medical, legal, and religious underpinnings. These three major fields have been competing for a long time now with each other for jurisdiction over sexuality.
Medical (pathology): Prior to 1973, psychiatrists had been diagnosing and treating homosexuality as an abnormal behavior under section 302 on Sexual Deviations of the DSM II physician manual of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). But in 1973, with pressures (some say, with threats and intimidation) and funds from gay political and social activist groups, homosexuality was removed as a mental illness from DSM during an APA Conference. Done without scientific evidence or discoveries, the removal dismissed hundreds of psychiatric, psychological, and psychoanalytic papers/findings about homosexuality from doctors, psychologists, and educators in the past over seventy years.
Legal (crime): In various countries, legal sanctions and even stiffer criminal penalties, are imposed on sexual acts that are so-called "nonprocreative" (including homosexuality). During the early times of American colonies and in modern societies, death or imprisonment has been punishment for the crime of "sodomy." Typically, "sodomy" is an umbrella term understood by the courts to encompass all male and female "unnatural" acts of sexuality. These may include same-sex "gross indecency," oral sex, anal sex, bestiality, among others. According to Wikipedia, consensual homosexual acts between adults (mostly male-male sex) are illegal in about 70 countries of the world.
Religious (sin): If we go by the Bible or God's Word, "sodomy" is a synonym for homosexuality (Deut, 23:17). The Apostle Paul, writing by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, declares: "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders not thieves ... will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6: 9-10). Also, in Romans 1:25-27, "They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator ... Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error." Sin and psychopathology are linkable in the Scripture's call for the "renewing of the mind" in Romans 12:2.
Friend, what do you think? I believe now you can possess the answer to our question.
Is homosexuality a mental illness in need of treatment? To answer that question, we bring ourselves to the arena of ongoing "politics of truth." Today, beliefs and attitudes about homosexuality have medical, legal, and religious underpinnings. These three major fields have been competing for a long time now with each other for jurisdiction over sexuality.
Medical (pathology): Prior to 1973, psychiatrists had been diagnosing and treating homosexuality as an abnormal behavior under section 302 on Sexual Deviations of the DSM II physician manual of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). But in 1973, with pressures (some say, with threats and intimidation) and funds from gay political and social activist groups, homosexuality was removed as a mental illness from DSM during an APA Conference. Done without scientific evidence or discoveries, the removal dismissed hundreds of psychiatric, psychological, and psychoanalytic papers/findings about homosexuality from doctors, psychologists, and educators in the past over seventy years.
Legal (crime): In various countries, legal sanctions and even stiffer criminal penalties, are imposed on sexual acts that are so-called "nonprocreative" (including homosexuality). During the early times of American colonies and in modern societies, death or imprisonment has been punishment for the crime of "sodomy." Typically, "sodomy" is an umbrella term understood by the courts to encompass all male and female "unnatural" acts of sexuality. These may include same-sex "gross indecency," oral sex, anal sex, bestiality, among others. According to Wikipedia, consensual homosexual acts between adults (mostly male-male sex) are illegal in about 70 countries of the world.
Religious (sin): If we go by the Bible or God's Word, "sodomy" is a synonym for homosexuality (Deut, 23:17). The Apostle Paul, writing by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, declares: "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders not thieves ... will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6: 9-10). Also, in Romans 1:25-27, "They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator ... Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error." Sin and psychopathology are linkable in the Scripture's call for the "renewing of the mind" in Romans 12:2.
Friend, what do you think? I believe now you can possess the answer to our question.
Comments