thats the funniest comment I read here in ages. Thanks for making me laugh, I might just try that on Monday morning :-)

Heh heh. Thanks…. let’s not all do it on the same Monday, though. Certain sectors of the economy might be unduly impacted. :-)

Comment of the week. LOL!

I love Butters!

@ Tony,

Hear, hear, parents of gay children, male/female have reared those children to the best of their ability. Doing the ‘usual’/'normal’ everyday things with both. Nobody, parents or the children themselves should EVER feel guilty about how they are, what they feel, how they feel about themselves.

I’d have a difficulty with my child if he/she was selling drugs, murdering people, raping, stealing etc. Homosexuality is just the same as hetrosexuality, just …. different! When a parent sees their son/daughter standing in front of them, they see their son/daughter, just like the day they were born. They love them as much if not more than yesterday. They are still the same person as they were yesterday.

On that note, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology just published a study that shows “homophobes” are more likely to be gay than the average person, but are repressed. It considers the fact that such people bash gays as a way of compensating for their own sexuality. You just might be right!

I am all for free speech , and Gay pride irritates me , but what do they hope to achieve by this reorientation course… Live and let live I say .

Exactly Susie

@Suzie why does Gay Pride irritate you?

How about we run reorientation courses for religious fundamentalist nutcases to convert them back to a more rational way of thinking?

Graham
It is just me , I am all for live and let live , but I dont even think about it til I see a Gay Pride Parade advertised … I do not want to cause offense and I do understand the politics and equalitie or lack of etc . been through it all BUT it just does. Maybe it is because I am easygoing and accepting …

Its great that you don’t think about it really, if everyone in the world were like that it would a much happier place.

I’m not giving out to you or telling you how you should feel, just please try to understand that Pride events are necessary for fighting discrimination and hate, something the LGBTQ still faces on a daily basis in this country.

Graham
I will try to be less irritated by ignorance. I am very aware of the great work Gay Pride have done to help Gay men and women and even hetrosexuals accept our own and each others sexual orientations . I hear what you are saying . :)

Typing on the phone leads to mistakes! I don’t choose to be straight. It’s who I am. It’s the same for gay people. Accidentally said I ‘do choose’ might have caused confusion.

Arguing about religion is like arguing over who has the best imaginary friend. It’s total bullshit. So as long as those groups waste only their own time with their hatred and spite I have no problem. Sexual preference has nothing to do with a made up deity. You might as well ask Scoky to bless you. If your god is real he/she should stand trial for crimes against humanity. Today good people will be hurt, rapists walk free and thousands of infants will die because they are hungry and thirsty. Your god is SOOOO merciful. Why don’t you just go bleet at the lightning with the rest of your pathetic flock. Get your amazing deity to sort out the innocent during and leave the complicated topics like telling perfectly happy people to change what makes them happy

to be fair, I doubt a “we can cure hetrosexuality” ad would go down well

They aren’t advertising an opinion. They are advertising a damaging lie – that gay people need to be and can be “cured”. There is zero scientific basis for such a claim. The American Psychiatric Association and all other national organizations dealing with mental health (including in Ireland) are adamant homosexuality is not an illness or mental disorder. So this advert claiming there is a cure is not only damaging to gay people but also just plain misleading.

Please don’t equate lies like this with informed opinion. They’re miles apart.

Not really, its encouraging discrimination against a group thats have had to face the brunt of that crap for centuries.

Although, all that said, with the growth of popular in neurosience, and technology/therapy to do with the brain. I really wouldn’t be surprised if they do find a technique to “convert” people, not that there’ll be much use for it. I don’t know any gay people that voices their desire to be straight, or vice versa.

Absolutely right @Mark Phillips…One problem I note however is that we set a precedent by allowing religious groups to directly advertise verses of a roughly 2,000 year old work of fiction on our train station billboards. This is the same perversion of the term “open minded” or “fair minded” as you refer to it @tuba hg. An unfounded misleading claim is just that and cannot be dressed up by sayin ‘well everyone is entitled to their own opinion’

@Benjamin

I guess there is a thin line there somewhere. Those posters saying “Jesus saves” or whatever in train stations might not be provable but they are a religious belief that people can share. The advert in this case is not sharing any religious belief though, but rather is making an unfounded medical claim in effect. It’s hard to know where to draw the line but medical lies definitely overstep it eh :)

Yes although we all know that a poster saying “Jesus saves etc.” is coming from a direct attempt to gather people in a consolidated group which divisively imposes it’s archaic moral dictates, controls a disproportionate wealth of resources and directly perverts the course of justice and equality in this world. Granted that’s not all the Christian faith or RCC does but generally the record is very dismal. More importantly the claims made to support this worldview are directly contrary to reality and all physical evidence thus far discovered. But I suppose why cry about a few posters in train station for adults eyes…when dogma is carefully planted in the forming minds of children in the vast majority of our primary schools?

We talked their spokesperson on Tuesday night on the show and I have never heard so many contradictions in my life . You can hear the interview again on Sunday night

Sweet screaming Jesus, thank God I’m an atheist. I think Mark Philips said it best above, this lot of lunatics are not just another bunch wanting to advertise their view of the world, oh no. What they want to advertise is a false claim, one that can be hurtful, harmful, and very damaging to many people. It would be no less than a claim that they could turn your tapwater into wine… for a small fee. Rubbish. The only difference is that few want the former while many would want the latter but both are a lie. I’m not into censorship but if someone is going to attempt something like this, a complete load of tosh, a blatant lie, then yes I agree with decision to tell them where to go. Freedom of speech does not allow lunatic groups to make lunatic claims.

Their opinion is not on gay rights!! They think it’s an illness!!! When they’re finished with us will they start on skin lightening creams ? Make everyone worship their god? These kind of morons will stop at nothing to make everyone like them, such is their level of arrogance!

False advertising is not the same as free speech. There must be consequences for profiteering from conning people. Ive no issue against religious zealots saying homosexuality is an.abomination but peddling cures for it is a different matter entirely.

False advertising? Let those who are affected by it sue, if they have a case. I would, were I that bothered by it

Kieran,
You are completely right.

Its either a free speech society or it isn’t.

As usual though, a lot of commenters on the Journal who are all on for openess, tolerance and free speech, suddenly retreat from it and become very moral and lecturing when the view being expressed is very different to theirs.

I know this well as I regularly post my right wing views and am chastised and red thumbed by the ‘open-minded middle-grounders’.
You know who you are ….

Ok red thumbs, come and get me !!!!!

You do realize that these religious con therapy increase the rates of suicide among gay people. Are the lies and homophobic crap by these brain washers worth people’s lives. Free speech is them allowed to use their religious crap to gay is wrong. Freedom of speech is not advocating a made up treatment to rid people of gay feelings. Picture this scenario if instead of targeting gay people this was against black or Asian people you opinion would quickly change.

@ K MacCourt & DublinNaas,

To me, it is false advertising, they are accusing a large portion of society of being bad, wrong, sick, but there’s a way of making them better!! It’s just a totally stupid thing to do. To me this Davidson individual is just inciting hatred. We don’t need to go backwards in the learning and understanding of homosexuality. Many, many innocent people have suffered for many years because of people like Davidson.

In Ireland alone, it was against the law to be ‘gay’, until in 1987, after years of fighting, arguing, discussing, Senator David Norris made it law. Nobody has the right to judge anyone. People are born in different ways. Nobody chooses to be gay, the child realises at a very young age, and no matter what the parent, priest, islamic religion or rabbi try to brainwash into an individual, it ain’t going to work.

@K MacCourt & DublinNaas

http://ilga.org/ilga/en/article/675

Kieran I will take what you said as a wind up and give you the benefit of the doubt but if you really believe that then I dont know what else I can say.

Nah, Cyril, it’s not a wind-up. Neither is it a carefully considered point. I’m just reacting to the atmosphere,
You and I are diametrically opposed in every way; however, I think if my son gets into the army and dies for your right to speak freely againsty my beliefs, he would not give his life in vain. Athiests, gays, bogmen, anti-this and anti-that are all entitled to free speech. Boris the buffoon is the thin end of the wedge against free speech in Britain. We may disagree with the subject but we have to allow the views to be aired.
Sheila – read your own propaganda link. I’m not going to

@Kieran MacCourt

Your ignorance and arrogance are showing. If you believe in what you say on this thread, that’s your belief. I don’t feel what I say, from experience, is going to change your opinion. So I bid you good day and I hope you have a perfect life.

You say you have a son, or are you methophorically (sorry wrong spelling) speaking? I hope, if some day he realises that he is gay that he can speak freely to you, knowing that you will try to understand him and love him for who he is and that you accept him and his life to the full

Shelia,

you are missing the point I (and I believe Kieran) are trying to make.

It is nothing to do with gay or not gay, its about free speech.

Sheila – gay or not gay is not the issue here. Free speech is. Boris bans adverts on busses. What next? Maybe banning street preaching from the Bible? Pulpit preaching condemning, say, gambling, because gamblers can’t take the heat?
As for the link you posted – I don’t do links on Journal.ie, sorry to be so dismissive. Sometimes the fingers type faster than politeness dictates they ought to.
My son’s girlfriend does not think he is gay, so the issue is not relevant. As for how I would feel if he were? Shattered, I suppose. Some people wouldn’t care, but it means a lot in a Christian household. Not for pride’s sake, though, I hope.
Ignorant I may be, however I have pox-all to be arrogant about having been born looking this way and without a possession to boast of, and I’ll go to the next world just as materially poor and twice as ugly. Goodnight and happy trails to you

David – interesting comment re suicide. I would certainly like to know the real motives behind the advertiser. But free speech is still more important than our propensity to be offended

Sheila – gay or not gay is not the issue here. Free speech is. Boris bans adverts on busses. What next? Maybe street preaching from the Bible? Pulpit preaching condemning, say, gambling, because gamblers can’t take the heat?
As for the link you posted – I don’t do links on Journal.ie, sorry to be so dismissive. Sometimes the fingers type faster than politeness dictates they ought to.
My son’s girlfriend does not think he is gay, so the issue is not relevant. As for how I would feel if he were? Shattered, I suppose.
Ignorant I may be, however I have pox-all to be arrogant about having been born looking this way and without a possession to boast of, and I’ll go to the next world just as materially poor and twice as ugly. Goodnight and happy trails to you

So is complete and total free speech more important that anything else even if it’s puts lives at risk? Surely there has to be some kind of boundaries for free speech?

@DubInNaas There may be a concept of “freedom of Speech”, but then there’s also slander, libel and misrepresentation, and in the UK the Office of Fair Trading who ensure that you’re not full of sh1t, so the idea that a group like this can hide behind free speech is as crazy as they clearly are.
There is the European Convention on Human Rights, which also ensures that groups like this can’t do things like this as first of all being gay is not an ilness and doesn’t need curing (thinking it does in the first place may need looking at). Secondly making false, harmful and insulting claims like this group are can be stopped or ensure a hefty fine or imprisonment.

@ Brian Walsh

Hear, hear!

Nope. I’ll just quote Wiki on this one (and it used multiple sources):

“Mainstream health organizations in the United States find that conversion therapy is potentially harmful, and that there has been no scientifically adequate demonstration of its efficacy in the last forty years.”

Conversion therapy is mostly funded hard-line Christian denominations who are quite comfortable taking money off worried parents whose kids think they could be gay. There’s a reason your local GP doesn’t offer this “therapy” :)

Agree with Mark, it’s orchestrated sexual repression of the worst kind, and Ireland knows better than most the horrible after effects of forced repression of sexuality, homo or hetro.

Only if you say two of the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary, stand on one foot facing south and say I wanna be straight in the name of Jesus 10 times.

jesus could the journal just ban this dope pretending to be a girl

Well considering Homosexuality is not a mental illness, I would imagine any therapy attempting to “cure” it is complete brainwashing bullshit. I honestly cannot see why people have a problem with homosexuality in this day and age.

@Abby. You seem to be confusing sexual orientation with sexual preference. And to suggest that sexual orientation is “purely physical” is simply wrong.

Cosmetic surgery can make people feel a bit better about themselves but you can’t teach a homosexual to be straight. That would be like trying to convert a straight person to gay. DAFT!

So you would do everything you could to change what you really are just to toe the line of a ficticious book? And that would make you happy?

Oh and the unhappiness of being gay comes from being brought up with prejudices that mainly stem from brainwashed religious goons.

I suppose abby makes a point in that if a persons faith or religion or whatever means more to them and brings them more happiness than acting on their sexual orientation then why would they not try whatever they could. I personally dont understand it but each to their own