Speaking at an anti-gay industry conference, Jerry Falwell endorsed child abuse or forcing kids into so called "reparative therapy" programs to "change" their sexual orientation. This type of therapy has been rejected by the American Academy of Pediatrics as harmful. Along with the American Counseling Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, and the National Association of Social Workers, they released a document in 1999 condemning the practice saying in part, "The most important fact about 'reparative therapy,' also sometimes known as 'conversion' therapy, is that it is based on an understanding of homosexuality that has been rejected by all the major health and mental health professions...homosexuality is not a mental disorder and thus there is no need for a 'cure.'...health and mental health professional organizations do not support efforts to change young people's sexual orientation through 'reparative therapy' and have raised serious concerns about its potential to do harm." [emphasis mine]

Considering the potential to do great harm to children and the absence of any actual need for it, any reasonable person might conclude that forcing a child into such a program constituted abuse. I certainly take that position. Falwell's statement amounts to nothing less than an endorsement of child abuse.

Falwell went on to claim that allowing a child to identify as homosexual amounted to allowing them to play on the interstate. Apparently he believes that being homosexual is somehow intrinsically dangerous, which is, of course, arrant nonsense. I grant that promiscuity is dangerous, but this is unrelated to sexual orientation. (Considering the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions happening in this country, one could hardly argue that homosexuals are the only people engaged in promiscuous sex.)

Since I'm a big fan of people being judged by their own standards, let's have a look at Falwell, shall we? And I mean that literally. Let's actually LOOK at him. As you can see in this image (originally from christianpost.com), and this image (originally from the Washington Post), Falwell is obese. If we're going to judge people by their lifestyles (and I use the term very loosely, since sexual orientation and "lifestyle" are not the same thing), then surely we must note the health consequences of obesity: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, gall bladder disease, arthritis and cancer to name a few. Falwell himself was recently hospitalized and was found to have 70% blockage in an artery. The economic costs of obesity are staggering, reaching $75 billion in 2003. This dwarfs the economic impact of HIV/AIDS (something the right-wing takes great pleasure in discussing) which took until 1995 to accumulate to $75 billion.

Surely if merely being gay is akin to playing on the freeway, being a morbidly obese hate preacher has to rank right up there with drying your hair in the shower.

And since we're judging him by his own standards, I understand the bible has something to say about gluttony:

and put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony.
Proverbs 23

Other examples of what happens to the gluttonous can be found in Exodus 16, Numbers 11 and Deuteronomy 21. It's a pity Falwell can't follow his own religion and deal with the plank in his own eye before he condemns others. By your own standards, Falwell. By your own standards.

---Nick

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