The propaganda of conservative Christians

Dr Melvin Wong, who appeared in the Sunday Straits Times, was here in Petaling Jaya to give a talk about “The Reality of Homosexuality”, in (where else?) Luther House, early this month.

One of the LPG members, Eric, attended it and this is what he shared. I know most of it is a load of crap, but I think it would still be interesting to know how these Christian psychologist work and spread their propaganda.

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I attended the seminar this morning. Very misleading and full of nonsense.

Malaysian Care invited the speaker, Melvin Wong, a Hongkee who lives in San Francisco, a member of Exodus Global Alliance.

Well, what do you expect? He took 30 mins sharing his family travelling slides and talked about their holiday vacations (like Maria Von Trap's travel journal), showing his credentials as a psychiatrist and kept promoting his own website.

He victimized himself and all Christian voices being pushed aside by the 'politically correct' pro-gay voices in the US. I wonder since when gay people had become mainstream to suppress 'minority' people like him?

He said, 'A Christian may still struggle with evil desires (homosexuality), but they should not continue these practices.' Meaning, even people who attended his reparative therapy and failed, still can get married and have kids (as that's the duty ordered by God), just as long the person do not further engage in homosexual activities.

And he continue to say that even masturbation is sinful, as it dehumanises your life, it destroys the harmony of one's soul and body.

It was more ridiculous when he said that gay men are developed because a child is usually taken care and comforted by his mother when he fails in doing something, fathers do not express love that much or comfort his son like a mother does, that's why most of his male patients were longing for a man's hug and care, not so much of
sex (which he later contradict himself that gay men are only go for sex).

My oh my! Aren't we all taken care by our mother most of the time when we were kids? How come our siblings are not gay?

He further confused the audience with gender disorder and sexual orientation. Gay men are effeminate and lesbians are butch, because parents did not educate them well about gender role and image. So when a boy grows up he admires and is influenced by all the male models’ masculine figure in magazines and websites. As parents, you can prevent your child from becoming gay by stopping him to get all these materials. If a child's sexual orientation not being straighten when he was small, he will become a transsexual.

He said lesbians are not real homosexuals. They probably were dumped by men and find companionship in other woman. They are only emotionally attached to each other to seek for friendship and support. Is he trying to say lesbians do not engage in sex, that they do not engage in sexual relationships? Gay men seek only for sex and there's no true love among them.

He kept on saying 'change is possible' with the help of Christian groups, and not so much of the therapy itself. So is he trying to tell us that his reparative therapy is not effective, but group 'brainwashing' works? Well, who dare to say it doesn't work
while a group of people keep monitoring and focusing on you?

He criticised ex-ex-gay people, saying they failed to follow the 'change' program thoroughly. Therapy sessions have its own limitations (again implying his therapy is no good). These people lack of perseverance and will power to 'change', they did not control their attraction to people of the same sex. Change needs longer time, at least 6 years.

He later criticised pro-gay arguments based on the myth of:

1. Social justice and equality
He said pro-gay activits is hijacking Negro's discriminations. Racist is a different value totally. He said many gay couple fight for equality to adopt children, but a healthy family must have one father and one mother.(Can Muslims protest this? As he implied that polygamy is unhealthy, and married couples who do not want kids are unhealthy.)

2. Nothing wrong to Love
He said many pro-gays uphold love too high. He said in Cantonese, "Love is not 'Tai Sai'(Love is no big deal)". Even for straight couple, love should not be the main reason to get married, the main reason to get married is to reproduce. (I can't believe my ears! Help!!)

3. Bible does not condemn homosexuality.
He said Jesus also did not mention about buying lottery is bad, pornography is bad, one night stand is bad ... etc, does it mean that all these things are not sinful? He later showed many incorrectly translated Bible scriptures to say that homosexuality is condemned by God. (Frankly even I am not a Christian, I have seen some Mandarin translations, but his version was the first ever that clearly stated God condemns homosexuals.) He showed how pro-gay activists quoted from the Bible and proved that God does not condemn gays. He said that pro-gay activists are very smart, but he did not further respond to the argument, just skipping through without any answer or answered briefly that's God's secret. Finally, in order to safe his butt, he explained that he did not want to discuss further as he is not a theologian.

I had been informed that he would use this tactic to talk nonsense at the beginning and go very briefly at the end. Especially this end part is very arguable, he just skipped. He kept saying time is not enough. Well, in my opinion, if you have done many similar seminars, you should have a better control of your timing. This is merely an excuse and tactic.

After the break, in the second part of the session, he talked and held on tightly to Robert Spitzer's change of statement that sexual orientations can be changed. I personally think he treats this Robert Spitzer's change statement as his own 'Bible', as he talked for one hour on that.

He also showed some clinical study of those successfully 'change' from a gay person. During the Q&A session, I threw 2 questions to him on whether the 'change' was convincing, but he just manipulated and diverted the audience's focus onto other issues. He did not answer my questions.

I asked, "Since you said many gay people has successfully changed, how sure are you that these case studies were not bisexuals, who only discovered his/her opposite sexual attractions after the therapy, not change?"

His answer:
"Many of my patients were married, yes, they are bisexuals." And then he further explained what is bisexual to the audience... (I wonder did he understand Mandarin?)

My second question:
As the case study samples were taken based on 200 gay people with average age 43, those who claimed that, "no more or have less feeling towards same sex", could it be due to the declination of sexual desires at that age? Did their opposite sexual attractions apparently increased?

His answer:
Yes, men at that age sexual desires will decrease, I have a 50 year-old patient who had gone through the therapy for 3 years and he still didn't feel any change. I think the older you are, the harder you are to change. That's why I urge parents to detect your child's inclination and prevent him/her homosexuality to grow... bla bla bla

Again, he did not answer my question, but went on talking nonsense.

A friend just told me, "Only straight people who know nothing about gays would support or believe them. For gay people, we know who we really are. Don't worry about them, they do their things, we do ours. They are doomed to fail."