Congratulations on your happy life.

I stated my case. I backed it up with examples. I asked for alternative phrases and offered compromise.

You chose to ignore the examples, refuse compromise, and accuse me of a narcissistic agenda.

In the spirit of not furthering the hostility, I’ll avoid the temptation to speculate on why you chose not to find a solution and instead went for personal attacks.

Again.

Why oh why would I want to drag my boyfriend through this mud.

I wrestled with keeping my past life confined to only that small inner circle, and would have done just that were it not for the definite call God has put on my life. Yes, who would willingly want to put themselves out there to incur the wrath of arrogant, insensitive and ignorant onlookers? I have come to see this “thing” as much larger than any of us and our individual feelings.

I think there is a reason you came here and posted.

I am a female who used to have exclusive SSA. Due to my Christian convictions, I did not act on them very much, although I did to a small degree in one relationship. I was never formally involved with Exodus or any reparative therapy groups, but I read some of their materials, found them to be helpful, and received pastoral counseling. And, to make a long story short, God changed me.

I am now married (pregnant with our second child, not that I think Alan was referring to numbers of children) and OSA. I do not know that I could say absolutely, utterly OSA, but there was definitely a huge shift. Very rarely I have fleeting feelings of SSA, but it is certainly not a dominant struggle. I rarely even think about SSA even theoretically, as it’s not part of my life now. …That’s kind of the thing.

Since no one who meets me now would ever know about my past SSA, and it doesn’t feel like it has much relavance to my current life, why would I want to open myself and my family up to this hostile, invasive criticism and skeptical demands of proof, and then more/better proof. No one has ever asked me to be in an anonymous survey — if they did, I might consider it, if I had time/energy in this hectic stage of raising small children. I share my testimony with close friends when I want to, but it is not public knowledge and I don’t feel called or responsible to provide that.

Not sure why I’m even posting this now, except that I was surfing around, this thread caught my attention, and I guess I felt sufficiently irked by some of the arrogant presumptions in this comment section that I felt like adding my two cents.

(Note: In general from the little I’ve read on this site, I think Warren’s focus on sexual identity therapy rather than reparative therapy is positive. I think congruance between belief and behavior is more important than change in attraction. But change in attraction is possible, and from someone who has been there, it comes off as really arrogant and annoying when people dismiss it out of hand. I personally think Alan’s “tens of thousands” number is probably more than fair. I understand why people want hard data to back these claims up, but I really don’t think it takes that much of a leap to understand why people like me are not clamoring to publish their testimonies for public consumption.)

is pretend that we cannot ever acknowledge that some attitudes, politics, behavior, or activism are not hostile to gay rights, freedom, and dignity.

No one is even remotely asking that.

No one is forbiding (Warren is the arbiter of such actions) you from using anti-gay; feel free….as I said, persist.

It is a manipulative phrase that oversimplifies the issues involved and has an imbedded personal attack (double meaning).

I am repeating myself…but once more:

These are the tactics of narcissistic agenda folks on all sides of every debate.

Enjoy your beautiful autumn weekend.