OK, I’m paraphrasing here, but the APA concluded yesterday that there is no evidence therapies meant to change someone’s sexual orientation are effective or healthy. In fact, their findings showed lasting changes were unlikely, and asked mental health practitioners to stop suggesting this kind of therapy.

The article seems to tap dance around the real reason why these types of therapies exist: Religious conservatives feel homosexuality is a travesty, and a closer relationship with Jesus will somehow make gay men straight. The ‘therapies’ they’ve devised aren’t based on any real scientific understanding, but rather on the spurious reasoning that sexual orientation is a choice rather than an orientation. The APA suggests that people remain ‘creative’ when dealing with this issue, but they seem to ignore the elephant in the room: so long as religious bigots continue to crusade against homosexuality, these types of bullshit therapies won’t go away.

Is this surprising to anyone with half a brain? If you’re heterosexual, how likely is it that a therapy session would convince you to start finding the same sex attractive? In a universe with no God, where human evolution is the product of mutation and change, why is it so surprising that some humans might be born feeling attraction to the same sex? We predictably see this type of behavior in nature (gay penguins anyone?). Hey Christians, stop trying to convert gays and let them get back to giving straight people makeovers or something. That’s what they all do, right?