[SOURCE]
The source article is about marriage equality and the Courier Mail gives us an article for and against.
Fairly standard stuff really, and no surprises. Â Have a read.
Today I wanted to focus on the “Against” argument.  It’s written by Dr David van Gend he is a Toowoomba GP and a spokesman for the Family Council of Queensland.  There’s no surprises in what he has to say, he bases his view on the normal misuse of the notion that children do best when they have a mother and father (conveniently  ignoring the socio-economic factors to do with income, housing affordability and other matters) and the notion that if you’re gay you can change.
This always comes as a shock to gay people, somewhere deep inside them they know that their sexuality is innate. Â It’s not changeable. Â Again, van Gend ignores the reality and nit-picks the research of Robert Spitzer that has been discredited by so many people on so many grounds.
Spitzer didn’t even call his own research conclusive and says:
Dr. Spitzer concluded that it was possible that a highly motivated individual could change, but that it was probably very rare.
The article then goes on to say:
The Post reported that “[s]ome 43 percent of the sample had been referred to Spitzer by ‘ex-gay ministries,’†while “an additional 23 percent were referred by the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality.†Spitzer has stated that his research “shows some people can change from gay to straight, and we ought to acknowledge that.”
OK, having been in a heterosexual relationship, I acknowledge that it’s possible that some people can change, some people try and realise what a mistake it is. Â So the sample size, that was difficult to get, is mostly supplied by right wing nut jobs trying to prove their point.
Finally the article on Wikipedia says
While Spitzer has said that he has no way of knowing whether the study participants were being honest, he has also indicated that he believed that the interviewees were being candid with him.
How’s that for a scientific approach.
I suspect that van Gerd is using his authority as a GP to give the impression that he has credibility.
My llama socks have more credibility.