Hallelujah I can be "cured"

[Bossybritches22]

I'm so and cross I can hardly type, but here's the gist.

Can this happen in London 2012??

notfluffy No I don't accept their stance at all as I don't accept the Catholics stance (having brought up a Catholic) but what I am saying is they don't have this attitude that gays are diseased and curable, this lot are far more offensive and damaging IMHO.

Oh and I don't believe Jesus is on their side at all, just their perception of his teachings the bible must be the most badly interpreted book of all time!

Islam is pretty awful when it comes to homosexuality too, it's about time religion stopped being an excuse for prejudice. It's disgusting.

Yes it is. All I'm saying is that they're the thin edge of the bigot wedge. If you really want to see an end to groups like this then you're wasting you're time with a few strongly worded letters. You need to lobby the government to stop ALL bigotry, but that needs to include The Sally Army and the catholic church and all if them who use their religious status to be exempted.

And just because they don't openly say you need to be cured they're far from giving you the same rights as everyone else, and believe me, if they had their way they'd be wanting to cure you too. They're just too desperate to keep bums on pews to be that radical.

Posie more atrocities committed in the name of religion than any other excuse.

notfluffy I totally agree and am doing just that, but we don't need to allow US bigots coming in we have enough of our own! I think it's because they are more vocal and overt it's particularly galling.

While I don't agree with the teachings of some of the other churches in the UK I respect their right to their own views as long as they don't preach overt homophobia and they respect my right to disagree and try and promote acceptance in all communitites.

One battle at a time, this one is my priority at the moment!

Well I'm afraid that they are as entitled to the rest of them to retain their homophobia. You need to change the whole system or nothing will change.

You respect people's right to disrespect you? Really?

Have you posted in 'Chat' or AIBU? If I were you I'd do both, making sure your title is a bit more clear - I am sure you will get a lot of support. I don't visit specific boards, I just use 'Threads I'm On' and 'Active' and have pretty much all of the topics, but I know a lot of people deselect topics that don't, generally, interest them - so you might not get a lot of traffic on this thread.

Good luck with getting it stopped/them banned :)

notfluffly I'm in total agreement. I have not experienced, ever, anything positive from organised religion with regards homosexuality. That is not to offend some close, religious friends I have who can somehow square their beliefs and being friends with me, but organised religion generally holds one belief, and varies only in how strongly it preaches it.

However, I think I recall, in the past, Muslim preachers from abroad being banned from touring this country on the grounds of hate speech. If they can be banned, then surely this Christian group should be too?

I would fight religion all the way, but there's little chance of me "winning". Fighting the more overt homophobia, where existing laws might be able to be used, seems to have more chance of success, and I guess that is what Bossy is advocating.

And to the earlier poster who asked whether people actually go to be cured, yes they do. Two of my friends in uni, who met as teens in their evangelical church, were forced to attend church counselling to cure them, and cast out the demons (as teens, it was their parents who volunteered them). My DP also fell in with a similar church when she was about 18 and recently left home. Thankfully all of them managed to extricate themselves, but those experiences were damaging.

Young people in the UK are still killing themselves because of the shame and guilt they feel about being homosexual, not to mention the bullying that they may go through first because the other kids are homophobic. Then there's the adults who live their lives as straight because of the same shame and guilt they feel, or fear of losing their loved ones.

This isn't because of the hard core evangelicals, most people laugh that kind of overt christianity off, it's partly (and I'd say a big part) because of the legally sanctioned homophobia in mainstream religion. If the law upholds the church's rights to discriminate, being homosexual must be wrong surely? Our kids are being drip fed homophobia and I think that's more harmful than this lot of fundies.

"I would fight religion all the way, but there's little chance of me "winning"."

I'm really glad Rosa Parkes didn't feel like that.

Incase anyone reading this is Christian or just to give you others some hope - a friend of mine just 'came out' as a lesbian. She now lives with her female partner and is training to be a Methodist minister. She had been accepted with open arms and has had many placement offers.

I'm Christian myself - yes the overwhelming Christian belief seems to be somewhat homophobic, but there are some churches who realise that it really is ok. My Nanna's church recently had a bit in their notices congratulating two women on their civil partnership.

Thing is notfluffy we can't fight them all, all of the time, it's an ongoing process, and I don't accept they disrespect me, but I accept that there are some battles (for now) I can't outright change. Agree to disagree if you like.

If we can fight against the more high profile ones like this is sends out a clear message that it is unnacceptable, and gets more media attention which helps in the drip drip attack against institionalised homophobia.

If one young person sees the outrage a report like this has stirred up and sees how it is NOT the accepted view of healthy minded balanced individuals, and realises he or she CAN question the views of their church then that's brilliant.

I don't disagreee there is an ongoing fight with our own churches views, (don't get me started on the ALpha course for one) but making a fuss about visiting bigots and the more overt homophobia surely is a start to raising the profile of the long term campaign?

Chipping thanks, I was wondering about AIBU? I'll think of a new title, and ask MNHQ to move it.

Ok have posted this in AIBU with a different title.

Thanks for the support in here.