Chris Christie Undecided on Pseudo-'Therapy' Practices that Electrocute Gay Children

[MrScorpio]

March 21, 2013 |

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says he’s undecided on legislation that would ban the pseudo-science known as “gay conversion therapy” in his state.

“I'm of two minds just on this stuff in general,” the Republican governor said in a news conference in reference to bills “that restrict parents' ability to make decisions on how to care for their children.” The child-rearing practice in question involves labeling gay children as mentally ill and forcing them to endure “therapies” that, according to the World Health Organization, can cause “severe harm to mental and physical health.”

Gay conversion therapy rests on the discredited assumption that homosexuality is a mental disorder, curable through a slew of archaic tactics that have received overwhelming condemnation from the medical and psychologist communities.

Governor Christie’s uncertainty puts him at odds with the American Academy of Pediatrics [pdf], which concludes, “Therapy directed specifically at changing sexual orientation is contraindicated, since it can provoke guilt and anxiety while having little or no potential for achieving changes in orientation.” In addition, the American Medical Association rejects the practice on grounds that it assumes individuals should change their sexual orientation.

On Monday, the New Jersey Senate Health committee approved a bill to ban the “therapy” for minors after hearing witnesses describe painful childhood experiences with the practice, NewJersey.com reported. One witness, Brielle Sophia Goldani, recalled her parents forcing her to a gay conversion camp where she was hooked up to electrodes and I.V. machines. The administrators showed Goldani pictures depicting gay men while electrocuting her “like a dog.” “They would hook me up to an I.V. to make me sick and show me a series of unacceptable images,” Goldani recounted. “I would try to time it so I had an empty stomach on those days, but it didn’t work.”

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/chris-christie-undecided-pseudo-therapy-practices-electrocute-gay-children

[Rex]

1. How can anyone be undecided on obvious torture?

Kinda scary, seems like a no-brainer in my book.

[NYC Liberal]

4. Anyone who supports it is someone I want to avoid at all costs

In my mind you would have to be a very sick, even sociopathic, person to think this is acceptable.

[Rex]

10. Same here, got me really wondering about CC and his mindset.

How can he be 'on the fence' on this subject? This is obviously torture of a minor.

[AngryAmish]

2. You have to kill someone to electrocute someone

electricity + execution = electrocution


sorry for the threadjack

[RainDog]

3. I know someone who was forced to undergo "Christian" torture

to change her sexual orientation.

It didn't work but, last time I saw her, she had little to nothing to do with her mother who insisted on this - and she despised the religion that had created this torture chamber for teenagers.

Mega churches also put on "hell houses" during Halloween and allow young children to go them, encourage young children to go to them, where they are threatened with hell and all sorts of torture if they don't follow that church's teachings.

Overall, I would classify most fundamentalist religions as hate groups.

[NYC Liberal]

5. I love the attitude of those people trying to "save" others

"I AM going to save you even if I have to torture or kill you! You WILL accept my 'help'!"

[RainDog]

7. In my secular high school

when I was a teenager, a teacher told me and some of my friends that one friend could probably be reasoned with, because her family was a member of a certain church, but she didn't hold out much hope for me and the others. This was because we were disrupting class b/c we were laughing at her histrionics during the daily "moment of silence" that replace prayer. The teacher made a big to-do about this to show her piety.

My father reamed her for those remarks about which kids were obviously doomed because they didn't follow "the right" religion.

[Politicalboi]

6. I think he should get shocked

Every time he puts something into his mouth.

[djean111]

8. Christie is really undecided on whether banning the practice will be better or worse for

a possible presidential run. I don't think he is interested in the actual practice, just the political consequences of being for or against it.

[RainDog]

13. that's what's abhorrent

that politicians decide the merits of someone else's rights based upon political calculations.

[Newest Reality]

9. It is usually under the

guise that this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, but it's for your own good.

Public stoning is far more effective, yet bringing it back would make the underlying purpose of enforcing conformity and meddling with basic drives in order to subsume them in confusion and cognitive dissonance more obvious.

The cat cannot be let out of the bag, so the term "the-rapy" is utilized so that we can continue to maintain the facade of freedoms, choice and lifestyles as suggesting people can be as their own true nature, when the fact is the opposite is the case.

Most institutions exist as a means to induce and enforce normalcy, though nothing actually "normal" can be proven to exist. That is accomplished under various guises: church, state, corporate hierarchies, psychological constrictions, etc. So, you are free until you step out of line and you will be informed, via inverted tyranny or by the powers that be, when you have strayed from the fold.

This is not obvious only because the structures of these institutions and their reflected cultural impetus is internalized into the psychology of the subjects. You cannot see or realize what is ubiquitous objectively and subjectively. However, when you do become more aware of it, it can be both unsettling and liberating. That may be the only place that real, pervasive and transformational change can take place. Otherwise, it is just a bag of recycled techniques with the addition of new and improved methods along the way.

Meanwhile, back to the ride and a word from our masters ... uh ... sponsors.

[backscatter712]

11. Wow, that "treatment" is straight out of A Clockwork Orange! n/t

[sufrommich]

12. I hope this is remembered when Christie runs

as a "moderate" republican.