In 2001, Watkins was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison for the death by therapy the year before of Candace Newmaker --born Candace Tiara Elmore, 10. The girl had been removed from her family by the State of North Carolina and adopted by connected trust fund baby Jeane Newmaker. When Candace, ungratefully remained attached to her real family and didn't "bond" appropriately with the replacement, she was subjected to the best "alternative therapies" money can buy. When Candace refused to cooperate and continued to insist she already had a real mother (below right)-- and it wasn't Newmaker-- she was taken to Watkins' Evergreen, Colorado residential clinic for the ultimate bonding experience: "rebirthing." After two weeks of weird therapy and abuse at a cost of $7,000, in full view of her Forever Mommie, who participated in some of the "therapy" herself, Candace was wrapped in pillows and a flannel blanket "representing" Jeane Newmaker's' womb, while Watkins (who weights 215 pounds according to Colorado prison records) and three assistants sat on the little girl exerting 700 pounds of pressure, to force her through the birth canal to come out the other end or thereabouts, and attach to the needy Newmaker.
Here's what happened next (emphasis mine):Forty minutes into the session, Jeane (left) asked Candace "Baby, do you want to be born?" Candace faintly responded "no"; this would ultimately be her last word. To this, Ponder replied, "Quitter, quitter, quitter, quitter! Quit, quit, quit, quit. She's a quitter!".Jeane Newmaker, who said later she felt rejected by Candace's inability to be reborn, was asked by Watkins to leave the room, in order that Candace would not "pick up on (Jeane's) sorrow". Soon thereafter, Watkins requested the same of McDaniel and Brita St. Clair, leaving only herself and Ponder in the room with Candace. After talking for five minutes, the two unwrapped Candace and found that she was motionless, blue on the fingertips and lips, and not breathing. Upon seeing this, Watkins declared, "Oh there she is, she's sleeping in her vomit." Whereupon the mother, who had been watching on a monitor in another room, rushed into the room, remarked on Candace's color, and began while Watkins called When paramedics arrived ten minutes later, McDaniel told them that Candace had been left alone for five minutes during a rebirthing session and was not breathing. The paramedics surmised that Candace had been unconsciousness" and possibly not breathing for some time. Paramedics were able to restore the girl's pulse and she was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Denver; she was declared brain-dead the next day, the consequence of asphyxia
LAINIE ASKS THE REASONABLE QUESTIONHere are three excerpts from Lainie's powerful analysis and deconstruction of the event So What if the Kid Just Doesn't Like You? which says it much better than I ever could:
See, the truth is that a lot of people just don’t like each other. This is true of humans at all stages of development, and in all sorts of family configurations. Families that have never even heard the word “adoption” can have conflicts that make the Hatfields and McCoys look like The Brady Bunch. So it doesn’t seem to be a huge stretch to imagine that, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, there are going to be adoptive placements where the parties involved don’t much like each other. I’d further argue that when the adoptive parents are insisting that a child ignore reality and become “instant family” to them, this dislike is going to be intensified.
and
These kids are expected to respond appropriately to the “needs” of their adoptive parents, which typically includes the expectation that the child will behave as if family intimacy and love exists, regardless of their attachment to and feelings for their first family. When the child can’t, or won’t, participate in this charade, and expresses his/her rage, frustration, and anger, the child is blamed and ends up with a psychiatric diagnosis.
and
Unfortunately for the kids, though, the “adults” hold all the cards, even if these adults don’t want to think and behave like adults: After all, it is the adults who get to select advocates and therapists and consultants and doctors who will meet their own needs, not the needs of the child. And as Candace learned, if you don’t respond in the way that these adults want you to, you are going to be tossed by your adoptive parents and their advocates into a downward spiral of unmet parental need:
First they will say that you are sick.
Then they will medicate you with strong drugs.
Then they will terrorize you in the form of “therapy” on a regular basis.
Then they will take you across the country and make you live with people who cut your hair, threaten to shave your scalp and tattoo it, yell at you, and call you names.
Then they will wrap you in a sheet and push on you.
And then they won’t let you have any air.
And then they will mock you when you begin to die.
And then after you are dead they will call you a twerp.
WHAT'S GOOD FOR AMERICAN ADOPTEES IS GOOD FOR RUSSIAN
At least two Russian adoptees murdered by their US Forever Families-- David Polreis and Viktor Matthey--underwent "attachment therapy" which led directly or indirectly to their deaths.
Writing of the Polreis case, the anti-attachment therapy activist, group Advocates for Children in Therapy (ACT), "says:" (emphasis mine)
The parents had been taking AT therapists, Byron Norton and Lloyd Boggs, the latter trained at the Attachment Center of Evergreen (ACE). Mourners at little David’s funeral were asked to make contributions in his name — to ACE. From that point on, the AT community rallied to her defense. (adopter Renee Polreis)
Polreis’s lawyers called Foster Cline to the stand at the sentence-reduction hearing in 2000. Cline, a former Evergreen psychiatrist who lectures and publishes out of Idaho, has been one of Colorado’s most controversial medical figures, and a founder of the AT movement. In his opinion, Cline said on the stand, David Polreis had suffered from RAD. But that wasn’t why he’d paid his own way to testify. Cline had come to Colorado to plead for leniency for Polreis.
“I’m doing it because there’s been a great wrong, and I don’t feel this woman’s life should be ruined because of this incident,” Cline told the court. “I believe in justice, but in an abnormal situation like I believe this is, the justice system can go wrong. In an abnormal situation, a mother can go wrong.”
According to ACT News, the group believes that the Matthey trial revealed a number of features and associations with Attachment Therapy and AT parenting methods:1. ADOPTION AGENCY INVOLVEMENT. The Matthey’s adopted Viktor using the services of the Adoption Alliance of Aurora (Colorado) — an organization that “highly” recommends Attachment Therapy literature. A spokesman also told AT NEWS that the Adoption Alliance holds “occasional classes” on Attachment Disorder and Attachment Therapy.
2. DIAGNOSIS. Psychologist Anait Azarian, testifying for the parents, claimed Viktor had Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), which led him to need to be “in control.” Needing to be in control is not a feature of RAD. The parents, however, reported this behavior and others consistent with the unrecognized diagnosis called “Attachment Disorder.”
3. BLAME THE CHILD. The parents claimed Viktor self-inflicted the injuries that covered his body. Expert testimony claimed that some injuries, such as those on the boy’s back and buttocks were of the type and severity that could not be self-inflicted.
4. RESTRAINING DURING TANTRUMS. Viktor’s parents claim they held him down (sometimes in bath water) for “five minutes of being still and calm.”
5. AVERSIVES. Viktor was sprayed with cold water for bedwetting. His father admitted to duct-taping Viktor’s mouth closed. Viktor was fed foods, such as oatmeal, suggesting AT “soup kitchen” regime. “[Viktor’s brother] described a mixture of beans and barley that was used to punish Viktor: he was forced to eat the mixture before a buzzer went off — if he failed to finish, he would not be allowed to have a drink.” A pediatrician who saw Viktor in the hospital ER claimed: “He was remarkably wasted. There was muscle wasting. You could see all his bones.”
6. SCREAM ROOM. Viktor was allegedly shut in the basement pump room. AT survivors report long stays isolated in basement “scream rooms.”
7. RE-PARENTING. Mrs. Matthey fed her three adoptive children (ages 4, 4, and 7) with a baby bottle for “bonding time.” She claimed to spoon feed Viktor like a baby.
8. PARENT REACTION. The parents believed Viktor’s behavior problems were typical of foreign adoptees, according to their research. This was apparently their explanation for failing to seek medical or psychiatric attention for Viktor.
9. CHURCH SUPPORT. The parents apparently had the support of their church congregation despite Viktor’s deteriorating state. The parents claim they consulted informally with their friends about Viktor; those friends are two physicians who run an “evangelistic medical ministry.”
10. STATE SUPPORT. The State of New Jersey DYFS has created a climate favorable to Attachment Therapy/Parenting. DYFS has itself published a paper favorable to Attachment Therapy and has recommended a number of AT websites to the public.
From news reports, it appears that Jessica Albina Hagmann was also a victim of death by therapy, though it's unclear if Jessica was subjected to "professional" therapy or was simply home-theraputized by her adopter without supervision.
Manassas Journal-Messenger, January 21, 2004: According to court records: Jessica threw tantrums that sometimes lasted up to three hours, which 'consisted of flailing arms, legs and head.' Jessica, who would have turned 3 last week, beat her head against her crib, and frequently ran pigeon-toed with her hands behind her back.
Court records indicate Hagmann made a practice of wrapping her arms and legs around the toddler to 'calm her' during such fits...
On Aug. 8, Jessica went limp and never regained consciousness. She was taken to Potomac Hospital, then transported to Inova Fairfax, where, according to an autopsy report, doctors found evidence of brain damage caused by a lack of blood and oxygen.
The official cause of death was: 'smothering and mechanical asphyxia due to compression against an adult...
Anything she did [to control Jessica] ... was copiously researched, thoroughly researched and backed by authority,' said Hagmann's lawyer, Demetry Pikrallidas. Police seized from Hagmann's home two books: 'Help for the Helpless Child,' and 'Life Books: Creating a Treasure for the Adopted Child.'
(NOTE: I believe the correct title of this book is Help for the Hopeless Child by Ron Federici.)and
Manassas Journal-Messenger, March 11, 2004: Hagmann's defense attorney said Jessica died during a tantrum, and Hagmann was trying to control her, using a method she read about in a book entitled 'Holding Time.'
She was trying to stop this child from hurting herself, trying to subdue a tantrum,' defense attorney Demetry Pikrallidas said. 'She blames herself. It was too long, too much and it suffocated the pathways of this child.'...
Court records indicate Jessica had tantrums that sometimes lasted as long as three hours, and consisted of 'flailing arms, legs and head.' Jessica beat her head against her crib and often ran pigeon-toed. Court records indicate Hagmann wrapped her arms and legs around Jessica to calm her.
Medical examiner Dr. Frances Field noted bruises all over Jessica's body in her autopsy report. Field found five 'purplish' bruises near Jessica's right eye, seven on her forehead, two on her scalp, a bruise on each of her cheeks, and further bruises on her upper body, leg, back and abdomen....
In order to cause this death, she had to be placed upon the body [so Jessica] couldn't get any air for a period of time after she went limp,' Richardson said.
Connell Watkin's "therapy assistant Julie Ponder (left) remains in prison. Candace's "theraputic foster parents" and co-sitters, Brita St. Clair and Jack McDaniel, (left) who later married, received 10 years probation and 1000 hours of community service each after pleading guilty to criminally negligent child abuse. 
Jeane Newmaker (below)was found guilty of abuse and neglect and received a 4-year suspended sentence with probation. At the end of that period her record was expunged.
Candace Newmaker is still dead.
RECOMMENDED READING:
Attachment Therapy on Trial: The Torture and Death of Candace Newmaker, by Jean Mercer, Dienke Hondius, Larry Sarner, and Linda Rosa, Greenwood Press, 2003.
For an excellent article on Candace and her family see Candace Was Her Name Denver Rocky Mountain News, October 29, 2000
Death by Therapy, The Weekly Standard, May 28, 2001
Check out Watkins and Ponder through the Colorado Prisoner Locator
ADDENDA: FOSTER CLINE: WHO'S REALLY UNATTACHED? WHO REALLY NEEDS THERAPY?Finally, a collection of the blood curdling wit and wisdom of AT guru Foster Cline Among them:
— Can This Child Be Saved? (1999), p. 86: The adoptive mother often becomes the target of rage that would be more appropriately directed at the birth mother.
— Quoted in High Risk (1987), p. 217: Well, pal, let’s get started. I’m up here on top of you and you’re on the bottom and you’re being held with your permission by 6 people so who is boss right now?”
— Conscienceless Acts (1995),* pp. 152-153: When Chris was four years old, he was diagnosed as schizophrenic. When I first saw Chris at age three, he had a vocabulary of less than a dozen nearly incomprehensible words. … Although he flailed and struggled, his therapist, Laurie Smith, was relentless. Holding Chris’s eyes open, she forced eye contact, and stroked his face and gave him unwanted kisses in the midst of his wails. … Being swung in a circle or being held upside down terrified Chris, and he would then reach out for his therapist.… — Conscienceless Acts (1995),* p. 51: Generally, bonding is possible between individuals … when one of them is in a position of helplessness and the other is in a position of helpfulness or authority. … The first time in life that this occurs is with the fetus in the womb … — Can This Child Be Saved? (1999), p. 27: Children with severe attachment disorder must be in very difficult situations before they can easily accept attention, relief, and rescue from the adult caretaking individual. The most valuable times are when the child is scared, anxious, or sick. These are golden opportunities … [quoting Bob Lay, “therapeutic parent” in] Conscienceless Acts (1995),* p. 201: During the holding, the child will complain that the holder is hurting him. … ”Pains you may feel are old memories. Being close brings up past pain. Let it out. Free yourself from it.”
Posts
Перевести на русский
35 comments:
And some people wonder why I HATE psychiatry & psychology...
Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Marley. “Attachment Therapy” is an abomination.
I was first made aware of this horrible travesty of therapy in the early 90s in something written by Dr. Randolph Severson, a good and ethical adoption therapist, after viewing a Foster Cline video demonstrating "holding" at a professional meeting. He was righfully horrified and upset; others thought it was just fine.
At the time, Randy was concerned about emotional damage to the child, and about the immorality of trying to force any kind of touching on a child who did not want it. He was proved very sadly right when this perversion went even further and children were physically injured and killed.
As Lainie said so well, sometimes family members, adopted or natural, just do not like each other, and that is their right. Forcing a child to “attach” is just wrong. It is like trying to force someone on whom you have a crush to love you, by holding them prisoner and torturing them. Calling Stephen King…….only he could write the REAL attachment therapy story!
This whole idea comes out of the worst of adoptive parent "entitlement" and the idea that the child is there to fill adult emotional needs, not the other way around. That is an idea that has to go. NOBODY is "entitled" to a child, and no child should be forced to "attach" to anyone she does not want to be attached to. That is a violation of human rights and dignity.
Watkins should rot in jail for life for what she did, not be out where she can do more damage. Look at her creepy, smiling mug shot....there is a woman with no remorse. Others have said it but it bears saying again....what was done to Candace should be done to her!
"Help for the Hopeless Child" is Dr. Ronald Federici's book. I own it & read it.
"Help for the Hopeless Child" is directed towards the WORST RAD cases in adopted children. Dr. Federici's therapy was shown on a segment of "Dateline" several years ago - a Romanian adoptee.
When you adopt internationally, you need to prepare youself for the worst case scenario of attachment. It doesn't help that we're all fed the "happily ever after" myth by the adoption industry.
Marley & Lainie are right & I've seen it happen. Just because you bring an "older" child into your home, doesn't mean you are going to like that child. No amount of "holding time" and attachment therapy will give you the "love" you're *entitled* to feel towards your newly adopted child.
Sometimes, the child you've adopted JUST HATES YOU. And you may not love that child at all. (Like Maryanne said)
I truly believe that's what happened in a majority of the Dead Russian Adoptee cases. If you read between the lines, the mothers were getting frustrated because it wasn't all sunshine & roses with their "perfect" children. Hence the therapies and ultimate murders of the kids. {My favorite example: Liam Thompson}
Over the years, I've seen more dissolutions of I.A. adoptions than the children being murdered (obviously). It's far better to dissolve the adoption than to contine living in strife & hatred with a person. In some cases, other famlies are found for the children - a "better fit" as they say. [I can cite two good examples, but I'll leave it at that]
IMO, that's a better scenario for some kids than killing them with therapy.
E.Case
Ugh
Attachment Therapy.
Makes me Ill
RAD
Reactive Attachment Disorder
Makes me Ill
Binding of a child, holding down of a child, sitting on a child..is there any one who thinks that is in any way NORMAL ?
Its not normal at all. And thank god I didn't have whack job adoptive parents that threw this shit on me.
I mean seriously is it any wonder that adoptees have any sort of *attachment disorder* after being ripped away from their OWN MOTHER
Sitting on them isnt going to make then attach to you anymore or love you anymore.it might make them hate you or it might kill them..
But as usual its ALL ABOUT the adoptive parent and what they BELIEVE and WANT. Try talking to the child. Try Loving the child. Try showing the child that you are not EVER going to abandon them. Try letting them gain your trust.Maybe just maybe you might get somewhere
This is the most disgusting thing I have read in a long time and it's about time someone put it all together. I wish our society would stop taking this as isolated incidents and realize what the "pretty adoptee picture" often hides. Thanks Marley
"Calling Stephen King…….only he could write the REAL attachment therapy story"!
He did. It's a movie too called "Misery"....
"Sometimes, the child you've adopted JUST HATES YOU. And you may not love that child at all".
My AM said to my face when I was 28 she hated me. IIII.... Haaate...yyyyyou...in a low, drawn out grumbling tone of voice. It was good she finally said it because her behavior towards me and other things she had said to me over those 28 years SCREAMED that out to me every day. She didn't like me as an infant, because I cried to much and she actually had the gual to tell me when I was 20 I acted like I was "autistic" when I was a 2 month old baby! She came to this conclusion because I pulled away from her alot when she tried to "hold me". I'm sure it disappointed her greatly when she found out as I was growing up, that I wasn't autistic, but she would find other condesending labels to paste on me, because she is a miserable person who was incapable of mothering correctly. I guess she never gave me back because she thought she couldn't get another one if she did. The thing is with so many AM's is that since they buy us, they DEMAND we like them, I mean, hey they have a right to get their money's worth right? I am sure some of them think too, well if you were my REAL child, you would like me, so the pressure is on even thicker. We adoptees however are used like puppets on a string and are expected to feel what AP's want us to feel, like a marrionate is expected to move it's arms when the string attached to it is pulled. Another reason I think we are expected to like our AP's just as people, like if we were not adopted by them and met them in another circumstance and they would be our greastest buds is this whole be grateful mindset again. Well forcing someone to like someone else they wouldn't like if they met them in some other circumstance and knew they were not their type of people, or had a bad feeling about them, is immoral at best. Just like Attachment Therapy..
Quack "attachment therapy" is to Bastards what Quack "ex-gay therapies" are to Queers- methods whereby eradication of an individual's own identity, feelings, and view of the world are the goal.
Escalating punishments are inflicted until the individual breaks and becomes malleable, at which point the desired 'new
personae' is injected by those who stand to benefit by the eradication and substitution process.
Such must be viewed in more than merely an interpersonal context- they must be understood to be in a political context.
The breaking and rebuilding of individuals, adopted or otherwise, into the molds others would have them poured into does not happen in a vacuum.
Interpersonal and societal pressures towards conforming, in cases both Queer and Adopted must be evaluated with an eye towards who benefits by such 'end products'?
"Holding Time" and its like are (inherently) anti-Bastard, it is about silencing authentic Bastard experience and voice.
Having read it myself, I am not the least bit surprised that the methods advocated have yielded results such as Jessica 's death.
The anti-Bastard quack therapy industry is particularly vile in that it utilizes both the fears and hopes of adoptive parents and those with little legal control over their own lives- underage children.
As the kids are the legal wards of their adopters, their adopters can put them through pretty much whatever quackery they can buy. The kids have nowhere to turn, and no ability to get out. If they do attempt to flee, being underage, they are treated as any other runaway, they can be picked up and brought right back for more, or worse.
Lock in inpatient centers, 'camps' and other such residential programs have also been created for Bastards, specializing in 'attachment', 'bonding issues' combining quack therapies and sometimes courses of medications to deal with recalcitrant Bastards.
Legally, the kids have little recourse until age 18. That is the real sickness of the legitimization of such quack therapies.
In some states, state provided adoption subsidies can be utilized to pay for such forms of 're-education'. The industry has grown up around such opening of pocketbooks, both personal and state.
Improper, that "pulling away" from the woman who adopted you when you were an infant in normal, pre-verbal response to the "wrongness" of the situation.
What pisses me off is that, when I was forced to surrender, I was led to believe that the human infant was like a baby duck, who, upon hatching, "bonds" with the caregiver, even if it is of a different species. Please be patient...I was very young and naive.
My daughter now tells me that her adopter once told her that she did the same thing, arching her back and crying. She asked her, "could it be that I was confused and missing my REAL mother?"
sorry...the previous should read "IS normal, pre-verbal response"
It's early. ;)
Baby Love Child, brilliant comparison of Quack "attachment therapy" to quack gay therapy to change sexual orientation. I knew it reminded me of some other awful cult or pseudoscience"therapy". You are exactly right!
There was an infamous program run by the LDS church called "Evergreen" that was supposed to turn gay men straight that employed electric shock to the genitals. This was at BYU. Another torture to "fix" the unaceptable type of person, Bastard or Queer.
Thanks for your analysis of how these evils are similar and rise out of similar beliefs.
Maryanne,
What is really weird is that "Evergreen, Colorado" was the site of Candace's torture and death. Lots of "attachment therapists" based there. What is it with the word "Evergreen" anyway? Always seemed a perfectly nice tree to me.
I guess that some of these western states have some peculiar laws permitting all sorts of wacko therapies and institutions. Explains why a lot of this nonsense is concentrated out there.
Colorado is also the location of hundreds of wingnut christian "ministeries" and their attendant "family counseling services." James Dobson creted a veritable dar-I-say-Mecca for crazies.
I saw on 60 Minutes or some show once about how a psychologist used shock braclets on the mentally retarded to make they "behave correctly". They also make shock collars now for PUPPIES so they won't pee on the rug. All of this comes down to one thing, people in control are lazy, impatient, biggoted and do not want to work to use their hearts instead of their immature little self indulgent egos.
Sorry, but I do disagree however about gay therapy-there have been gay people who became Christian and their attraction to the same sex went away, enough for them to and have children with and marry the opposite sex. I saw a huge article about that in People Magazine a few years ago. Shocking gay people to make them straight however should be a crime, and yes many Christians are nutjobs, but I do not beleive that being gay is inborn, I beleive it is from spiritual confusion. Not trying to insult anyone however with my opionon.
I said:
Sorry, but I do disagree however about gay therapy
I mean I disagree that just accepting Christ on your own (with out evil Christians doing evil things like shocking gay people) won't change a persons' sexual prefence. Gay people can just start talking to God alone, on their own and changes can occur. I am writing this because I think I might be misunderstood from my last comment and people might think I beleive in holding gay people captive and doing things like what is done in Attachment Therapy, and shocking them etc, which I DO NOT. I still think Christians have some commision plan I never heard about to get people to accept the "good news"..they fail to do what they are supposed too and let people go to Christ on their own and not force them too. I don't remember Jesus ever locking people up in a room or holding a gyun to their heads to accept Him...it doesnt mean anything to Christ anyway if one comes to Him by force-because it isn't real then. People must come by their own free will. But we all know Christianity the way it is practiced has nothing to do with Jesus anyway....
IA said-
Not trying to insult anyone however with my opionon.
Well, since apparently no one else is going to point out the completely obvious; asking people to stop being who they are is INHERENTLY incredibly insulting.
Doubly so when that demand is coupled with the direct benefit of and to institutions such as churches.
Nor is such just some 'personal opinion' when 'gays can change if they'd only choose to' rhetoric is spewed in constantly across the culture, be that via media, politicians, or pulpits. Giving voice to such here is just to add your own voice towards reinforcing the pre-existing chorus of the dominant paradigm.
Being Queer myself (and yes, it ALWAYS seems to come down to the directly affected to answer bigotry such as IA's comments) I find your 'people magazine expertise' pathetic.
If you can't see how vile such a demand is purely on the face of it, let alone in combination with the institutional demands for such in a culture wherein Queers are literally beaten in the streets and killed merely for the act of being unrepentant Queers, then trust me, the problem is purely your own.
I've lost friends due to bigots acting on such pervasive underlying attitudes, and I've faced violence as a result of my refusal to conform.
Reading articles in junk publications like 'People' hardly qualifies you as any expert on the realities of Queer lives.
Rather than running around spewing the same old garbage, you might do well to actually go listen to some who have non-consentually endured these tortures instead of pontificating the usual culturally sanctioned B.S..
Insulted? Me?
Nah, just completely disgusted. Such vileness is common. It has everything to do with the underlying assumption in IA's comments that 'the world would be so much better if only everyone else shared my beliefs'.
Such supremacist B.S. lies at the core of yes, both anti-Queer sentiment, AND the quack therapies Bastards are forced to endure, as 'therapists' and adopters desperately try to remake the individuals to better suit their needs.
Just saying "right on" to everything Baby Love Child has said here...I was going to say it, but you beat me to it. Tired of being accused of picking on poor little IA:-)But you are right, some things need to be said.
This heterosexual married mother of 4 is equally disgusted at what has been done Gays and Lesbians by religious authorities of all kinds, and I am horrified by the idea that anyone would try change anyone else's sexual orientation or force that change on themselves.
Actions may be changed, but not emotions or attractions or love.
Think about it, straight folks....what would it take to turn you really gay? Is there a "cure" for heterosxuality?
Hard to imagine, isn't it? And if it were possible to change, why would anyone CHOOSE to be gay given how badly our backward society treats them?
The latest scientific opinions are that sexuality is largely inborn and on a continuum from totally straight to totally gay, with a whole Bi area in between. It is an integral part of whom a person is, not a "choice" like which church or school to attend, or which car to buy.
Some gay people are deeply religious,of all sorts, and from them I know that no, finding Jesus does not change whom you find sexually attractive. More liberal churches do not judge people as good or evil based on their sexual preference. Nor do I believe that God or Jesus hate homosexuals or homosexuality. If so, why did He make so many good folk that way, from birth?
Gay folks deserve the same rights as straight folks, and what they do in bed and with whom should be nobody's business but their own.
Spreading dishonest ideas like the bogus one that religious conversion can and should change sexual preference opens the door to quack therapies and tortures. That cannot be tolerated in a just society.
I am as "straight" as they come. But over the years, I've gotten more and more angry over the way people who are gay are treated. Almost all the evidence we see shows that sexuality is determined for us. Its something we are born with.
Improper Adoptee has alot of weird notions that she isn't backward about sharing here. I suppose if we give her long enough, she'll start saying adoption is responsible for adoptees being gay.
This latest bit though about being able to change sexual orientation through counseling or re-programming though is just sick, sick, sick. All these so called therapies to fix unhappy adoptees are just like re-programming gay people both represent malpractice by the counseling or therapist professions. By defending one, you defend all. Shame, shame, shame.
You are totally over reacting BLC. And I'm not a bigot. I don't feel comfortable seeing two men make out on the street,(like most straight people, okay like every straight person I know) and that is my right, that should not have to change.
Over reacting? Hardly, IA.
You act as if there are no consequences that come as a result of normalizing bigotry such as what you brought here.
The root demand, that people cease being who they are to make others 'more comfortable', such that they don't have to see or hear things they don't like, or that make them "uncomfortable" is the ugliness that lies at the heart of the matter.
Adopters don't like things like the child they spent so much time and money to get a hold of not calling them 'mommy' or showing 'due deference' to them as 'parents'. Likewise there are those who refuse to deal with Queers being together as a couple, doing the exact things het couples do in public all the time.
Both the acts of the Bastard and of the Queer do not line up with the expectations and demands of those around them.
The quack 'reeducation' forms society invents to deal with those refusing to conform also have much in common.
If you can't deal with the similarities between the two, the situations both Queer youth and bastards find themselves in and 'remedies' they endure, you may want to examine your motivations for such.
Is it "ok" to demand Bastards conform to societal expectations of them and the fictions that we are demanded to adapt to?
If not then then why would you consider it "ok" to demand Queers conform to societal expectations of them and the fictions that they are demanded to adapt to?
Perhaps your 'difference' is due to your own investment in the notion that you seem to consider demands that Queers change are "ok" so long as it's done by a group of people you align yourself with against a group of people you 'feel uncomfortable' with.
You are however correct in that such beliefs are most certainly your right, and note, I've not asked you to change. I do however find your views heinous and yes, bigoted.
Being on the receiving end of such, (and yes, being told to change by you, I might add) I too am entitled to my opinion of your opinion.
There is a big differance between bastards and queers as you call them BLC. I don't have to like what gay people do (especially all the pedophilia behavior and all those Catholic preists that molested boys were gay and from that National Boy Love Association thingy btw and yeah, yeah, of course I know straight people can be pedophiles too, so save it) if I don't want too and the fact that you don't like people who don't like what gay people do makes YOU a biggot. I really don't give a damn if people don't like me because I am a bastard. I didn't make myself a bastard and it is only something that happenes once in life-I had a baptist make a rude remark about me and my daughter being "illegitmate" to me one time. Oppressing the rights of bastards and gay people is not the way to deal with either of us but on the other hand gay people and bastards can't make other people like us.(With the exception of beastality and pedophilia which should get those who do those digusting acts serious jail time because those are not "rights" they are atrocites that some gay people engage in as well as sick straight people).If someone wants to be gay, then be gay, just don't try to force me to like it and don't touch my chest like some gay woman I know here did to me once when I was talking to her just because a gay woman thinks its okay to be out and she has all these rights now to be gay(ditto for a straight guy who would do that to me or any other woman too, I wanted to slap that womans face who did that to me and I would want to slap a guy's face too if he did that to me and call the police on both). Force goes both ways BLC....Comphrende?
maryanne said:
The latest scientific opinions are that sexuality is largely inborn and on a continuum from totally straight to totally gay, with a whole Bi area in between.
There are gay people who have written books that say this is not true and that homosexuality is not inborn and that statement is used as a victim complex. You obvioulsy are not educated maryanne. There are plenty of bastards BLC that are murdered too. It's called abortion. Gay people kill each other too, like straight people do too. All sides of this issue have to be looked at, not just one.
Improper Adoptee..
That which you desire for your ownself, you do not allow for others based on their sexual orientation. That my dear is called hypocracy! I also would venture to say..that you are Homophobic. And no I don't believe that the Catholic priests or any other religious denomination run by men, who sexually abuse children, both male and female, are gay. They are Pedophiles..pure and simple. The greatest majority of pedophiles are straight white men, many married with their own children or hiding behind the 'religious cloth'. But sexual abuse of children knows no boundaries.. not race, creed, financial status or ethnicity. I am not writing this as an opinion, I am clearly judging your stance, based on your own written words. You are definitely a Homophobe! Now what is your biggoted opinion on 'gay' Bastards??! They do exist you know or do you?
If you do not want people judging your bastardness, why do you then believe it is your right to judge another's queerness? For me, I have always been a staunch believer in..'Different strokes for different folks'!
Improper, are you a Scientologist, or just someone who gets all her "facts" from the popular media and a mix of New Age and Fundamentalist Christian blather? I am quite well educated, just not in quack science and bigoted personal opinions as you are.
Do you read any real science or medical information? How do you expect others to take your adoption views seriously when you mix in homophobic and other strange views and insist they are facts?
Illegit kid is right on about pedophiles....normal gay people are just as disgusted by them as heterosexuals. As to your discomfort at seeing gays together in the street, that is YOUR problem, not theirs, and was not the issue anyhow. And yes, there are many gay and lesbian adoptees. How do you deal with them?
As to abortion....I see you have a whole other group of women to condemn over that issue. It just goes on and on. And people here will keep calling you on it.
There is no such thing as Homophobic illegitkid-that is like saying people who don't like mushrooms are bigots and have fungaphobia which is a social problem-that term was coined by gay people trying to get marital rights, which I do not condone because it will just create more Adopters. And yes, men who molest little boys are gay-if they weren't they would be molesting little girls. I resent being lumped into a catagory with gay people, because I am not gay and being gay has nothing to do with me-granted Christians consider both of us "sexual deviants" but being gay and being born a bastard are as differant as Jupiter and Mars. And just because I'm a bastard(ette) doesn't mean I have to think it is fine for two men or two women to have sex, because well, I don't. And THAT is my right. I'm not saying anyone should hurt gay people, I'm not saying gay people should hide that they are gay, and yes, I have met some gay people that are really nice, nicer than straight people I know-but that doesn't mean I have to go against my gut instinct that tells me men are supposed to be with women and women are supposed to be with men, or give up the natural feeling I have that same sex activity is gross, because that is how I feel, THAT is my right, but I will say just because someone doesn't like what some people do doesn't give anyone the right to hurt or kill them. Maybe you just don't see how gay people look to me, a straight person-kind of like a 12 year old that thinks he looks so grown up smoking when he looks to the rest of the world, well like a 12 year old who shouldn't have a ciggarette in his hand.....I will say however that the Christians and the Church have no right to keep people's rights oppressed and boss people around-they think they are God, they don't worship God and they need to let each indivual person deal with God and keep their noses out of it-the scriputures are out there, it is up to each indiviual person to accept them or not, it is not up to the Churches and Church clergy(especially when so many of them are liars, adulterers and theives)to shove them down people's throats and not let them be what they are. Each person is responsible for their own behavior we don't need the Church as some parent, like Adoptees have the damn NCFA, our self proclaimed Authoritive AP's, to control everyone's behavior and life. As far as Christians go and I can tell you this because I was raised one, they look down on gay people in part because of the "sin" repeated over and over-(that never stopped Billy Grahmn though, LOL) anyway, one act of fornication and having a baby out of wedlock IS supposed to be forgiven according to the scriptures but Christians clergy would rather make money off the fact that people aren't perfect and punish rather than forgive, but that is going to be their problem with God-even though they have made it Adoptees on earth as they deny us our lineage. My points are illegit kid, is that unless an animal, a child or another adult is hurt, people should just let other people alone even if they do sexual "sin". Gay people shouldn't be harrassed and our records shouldn't be closed and if stupid Church clergy thinks they have a right to interfere, then they can jolly well remember that God said "Let venengence be mine"(not some nun, priest, minister or cardnial). According to the scriptures sexual sin is to be forgiven not punished by other people-just once though I guess, so how being gay works I don't know-I assume there are many acts of sodomy in a gay mans life but again that is between him and God and has nothing to do with the fact that I am only born a bastard once and my mom only gave birth to me once-so according to Christ the Christians are supposed to forgive me and her but they don't. I will tell you too, that I know plenty of straight men who are not Christian, some who are atheists who get the "heepie jeepies" from gay men as they say, but those feelings are a MAN thing not a God thing, because the straight man's male ego is formed by how succesful he is with the opposite sex, and gay men threaten that. So it isn't just a Christian thing and actually it started as a Jewish thing, because it is in the Old Testement that being gay is wrong, not in the New Testament. Jews that follow their religion through the Torah(The Old Testament) are not supposed to be or accept gay activity.(And don't get mad at me for that, I didn't write it, I'm just telling you what the Bible says). Christians consider being gay wrong because they say it is an act of fornication or something. I don't know, I am not even really a full fledged Christian, I don't know what I am-I have as much confusion about what religion to be as I do who I am because of Adoption-but I do trust my gut instincts and no one has a right to try to take those away from me, anymore than someone had a right to make Candace be born again to another woman.
Also too, abortion is murder, and I have every right to state that fact if I so choose, and no one has a right to harrass me on that subject. How would you feel if your mother had you ripped apart? You have no right to speak for the murdered babies either that wanted to live.
Science is over-rated. It can't even find a cure for the common cold. You really are a douche bag maryanne. I agree with IA cause gay people are psychotic and shouldn't be allowed on the street around little kids.
anonymous posted
"Science is over-rated. It can't even find a cure for the common cold. You really are a douche bag maryanne. I agree with IA cause gay people are psychotic and shouldn't be allowed on the street around little kids".
here here! dude!
Par for the course, so much as mention Gay anything and within just a few posts every wingnut talking point just spills right on out:
'Queers as nothing more than peadaphiles, abusers, and indulgers in beastiality.'
'Abortion as murder.'
'Science as the enemy, or scientists as incompetent'
It's practically a Pavlovian response.
They hear the word "gay" and begin salivating, immediately thereafter the most insane nonsequitors begin spewing out a mile a minute.
Lost in all of this, of course is the reality of minors being subjected to quack 'therapies' to try to stop them from being who they are.
Have the anon commenters even heard of Candice or are they just here to spew? Does it even matter?
The fact remains, to even try to discuss the similarities in a rational manner brings forth whatever 'culture war' decisionalistic issue-du-jour certain people can shove down the pipe- any pipe- including Marley's blog.
Rational discourse is impossible in such a nutso talking-point filled environment.
As for those few who understood what I was getting at by making the quack therapies comparrison, thank you.
As for IA and other such, you're very good at filling space, but clearly well off topic.
You know BLC, I'm starting to see why you were attacked on here before-I don't like the people who attacked you (except for Gershom who I adore) for my own personal reasons, but I can understand their point of view now. You sure don't handle critizim of your homosexuality with any grace or maturity do you? None of you do. (Bitter much? GOD! I have never met such angry, vicious people! And most gay people are bigots towards straight people, calling us "breeders" and such. Pfft.) Nope, you don't. I am also against gays adopting because as it is for barren women, if you can't have one of your own don't take somebody elses child, the same applies to gay couples. If you aren't going to be in a relationship that naturally produces a child then you have no right to one. No body owes gays a child to adopt either. People like Rosie O'Donnell make me sick and I truly can't stand that idiot and her moronic wrong tummy remark. So I will fight gay marriage as I fight Adoption and closed records and it angers me that you can't see that your own kind make us commodities too....and that you never speak out about that.
"Baby Love Child, brilliant comparison of Quack "attachment therapy" to quack gay therapy to change sexual orientation. I knew it reminded me of some other awful cult or pseudoscience"therapy". You are exactly right!"
No that isn't right. Babies are INNOCENT in every single way icluding sexually and for an innocent baby to be punished by society and a bunch of money grubbing ruler snapping wenches is just wrong. Gay activiity is a deliberate consious decision-being born out of wedlock is NOT. There is nothing to be changed about a bastard baby or person because we aren't just morally bad or evil people because we are born out of wedlock. What is evil is trying to brainswash an innocent child to beleive they should have the same feelings for their real mother that they do for the Prosthesis Parents which is what AP's are and that they should think of them as though they were onceived by them and lived inside the AM's body for 9 months-that is just outright totally insane and totally out of reality. You can never compare an innocent baby or child to a sexually active adult as in a gay one. There is NO comparison and these are two totally differant subjects soo stop using poor Candance's tradegy for some underhanded gay rights campaign. It isn't fair to her and she had nothing to do with gayism. I'm done talking about this too, because what happened to her concerns Adoption, not homosexuality.
Guess you missed the part where I said:
Lost in all of this, of course is the reality of minors being subjected to quack 'therapies' to try to stop them from being who they are.
Specifically, I'm talking about Queer youth, those under 18 who endure such junk 'therapies' as a result of their parents inflicting such upon them, against their will, without their consent.
Queer kids are legally forced to endure such until they, like underage Bastards, reach the age of consent.
Parents essentially legally own kids until they reach 18 and can inflict this crap upon (their) kids at will. The kids have little if any recourse.
If you're unable to understand the similarities due to false constructions such as "innocent" (and "guilty"- by implication) again, it's because you're steeped in talking points.
For the time being, I'll leave it at that, as that is what I have time for.
Somehow this little essay reminded me of some of the previous comments on this thread:-)
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/local_idiot_to_post_comment_on
Post a Comment