Homosexuality a disease?

Created: Thursday, July 12, 2007 Print Controversy surrounds the American Psychological Association's plans to conduct the first review of its 10-year-old policy on counselling gays and lesbians, the Associated Press reports.

Conservative groups are upset that they have no voice on the six-member review task force that will hold its first meeting next week. Conservatives want the APA to support reparative therapy (also called conversion therapy), in which therapists try to change a person's sexual orientation.

Gay-rights activists hope the APA's review results in a denunciation of that kind of therapy, which they consider useless and harmful. The current APA policy rules out any counselling that treats homosexuality as a mental illness, but it does not explicitly condemn reparative therapy, the AP reported.

Scientific research, not religious ideology, will guide the panel's policy review, said Clinton Anderson, director of the APA's Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Concerns Office. The task force will submit a preliminary report to the APA's directors in December and the final report may be ready by March 2008. – (HealthDayNews)

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Gay, lesbian and bisexual issues

July 2007

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