Let's tell UK government no on banning conversion therapy

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
-Martin Niemöller, 1946

 

Those who wish to see it banned win this debate by default, as you have now broken Godwin’s Law.

 

Surely we all recognize that the people who believe in conversion therapy (which is completely and entirely voluntary!) are our allies, and we have almost no allies left... to let them disappear would put the eye of sauron directly on to "moderate and mild" mainline christians, who will still be seen as extreme by their very existence

how can we be so flippant and short-sighted

 

I recognize no such thing. You raised this issue as a completely different kind of problem than what it really is. There is no planned infringement of free exercise, nor is anyone talking about criminalizing voluntary arrangements. What they are proposing is requiring disclosure of the potential physical and psychological harm that can result, and informed consent to voluntarily proceed. Keeping people safe by limiting others' ability to cause them harm is what government is obligated to do. There's nothing draconian - and certainly nothing reminiscent of Nazism - about that.

 

So they’re not actually banning it?

 

See Post #12 above. The quote is from one of the links in your original post. Didn’t you know?

 

"Mike Godwin himself has also criticized the overapplication of Godwin's law, claiming it does not articulate a fallacy; but rather intended to reduce the frequency of inappropriate and hyperbolic comparisons." (Wikipedia)

 

Right on point. That’s why I quoted it.

 

Oh please! I am fed up with this puerile rant of accusing people that they are behaving like the Nazis, when clearly they are not. It comes nowhere near close to the scale of how bad things were in 1930s Germany. In fact, it is quite insulting to the memory of those who suffered under the Nazis to even equate the two.

Conversion therapy is often done by unqualified people on people who are not true volunteers but are coerced. It causes far more harm than good. Plus being homosexual is neither wrong nor sinful. Therefore, there is no need for Christian support of this harmful practice.

 

Coincidentally, Germany just issued a lockdown order for all unvaccinated. Shades of 1930s authoritarianism?

But I digress.

 

They will likely soon solve that problem by simply requiring everyone to be vaccinated, which they have the authority to do and which would be the ideal end result anyway.

 

Where do they have the authority to inject everyone with an experimental chemical that hasn't gone through the 7-9 years of trials, to cure a disease that is 99 per cent survivable?

 

I guess you do not feel outnumbered in the uk then... a majority-atheist country, filled with people who don't give 2 whits for western christian civilization....

Outnumbered in your own country, which is now more a stranger to you than home, in some places...... But yes continue slashing away those who would be on your side

 

They have the authority because they're the government, and government's #1 responsibility is to protect its citizens.

The vaccines are not experimental. They are approved by the FDA and the CDC in the United States, and they have been proven to be highly effective in multiple, independent, peer-reviewed studies in multiple countries. And given the speed with which they were developed, they're practically miracle drugs. It is sheer lunacy to cast aspersions on them.

The survivability rate you cited is inaccurate. The survivability rate varies among different demographic/ethnic groups, age groups, and by the specific variant of the virus itself:



Nearly two years into this pandemic, I shouldn't have to explain this, to you or to anyone else. Quit watching Fox News. It's literally bad for your health.

 

@anglican74 and I are proud members of the loony bin! (And I don't even watch Fox News.... go figure.)

He and I should buy some Ivermectin just to irritate the opposition.

 

Technically “the opposition” is the party out of power.

It doesn’t bother us; I just ask that for your own sake you consider carefully the wisdom of thinking that taking an immunosuppressant will somehow strengthen an immune response to a novel pathogen…

 

Exactly. Since it is now becoming evident (via research) that the Covid vaccines become immunosuppressants in less than a year after taking them, one should carefully consider the wisdom of taking them. The Pfizer shot has not just zero, but negative efficacy by the seventh month.

 

Apples and oranges. Not all vaccines have perpetual efficacy. That’s not “negative efficacy”, nor is that what an ‘immunosuppressant’ does. If you nevertheless think the Pfizer shot belongs in the latter category (it doesn’t, just to be clear), then you should be positively terrified of Ivermectin, by your own logic. In any case, how a drug like Ivermectin that suppresses immune responses by design is supposed to somehow boost an immune response in the case of COVID-19 is beyond my powers of imagination. It seems intuitively implausible, and the studies done on the subject so far have borne that out; it’s neither an effective preventive nor a cure. The best preventive is the vaccine.
https://www.healio.com/news/primary...minishes-against-infection-not-severe-disease

Like I said before, a lot of these misunderstandings could be easily avoided if you guys would just avoid the politicized BS in the right-wing media and get your medical information from reputable sources. Indeed I beg you to do so, for the sake of your own health and well being.

 

I guess you missed seeing the large study from Sweden which showed that after 7 months the Pfizer-vaccinated (sooner than that with Astra-Zeneca) were becoming sick at a significantly higher rate than the unvaccinated. That is "negative efficacy." The vaccine appears to cause a weakening of the overall immune system, making people more susceptible in the long run. (The most significant difference between the Pfizer and the Moderna shots is the strength of the dose, so the Moderna-vaccinated are taking longer to reach the same point, but I have little doubt that they will.)

Of course, you will respond that the solution is to continue getting boosters every 6 months. My response to that is, we have no data to show whether the receipt of a half-dozen, a dozen, or more mRNA shots taken in succession will be safe, or whether the negative efficacy will worsen even more. Taking mRNA boosters over and over seems akin IMO to taking a low dose of arsenic many times in succession; one dose is safe, two is still okay, and so on, until the accumulated dosage catches up with the victim.

There is no 'political' component whatsoever in my decision to guard my own health and not risk my well-being for the alleged community benefit (which IMO may eventually prove to be illusory).

 

I am familiar with the recent Sweden study, but have not seen any corroboration of your interpretation of it. In other words, it doesn’t mean what you think it means. People who formerly received the vaccine are not more likely to contract COVID than the unvaccinated. That’s simply not what the study says.

However, people who have contracted the actual virus do, according to other studies, have a far stronger (and more durable) immune response than those who only received the vaccine. Getting the vaccine is still more preferable in that instance because you’re statistically far more likely to die from the disease than from the vaccine. It’s just simple math at that point. I’ll take those odds.

There is also natural immunity. Some people simply aren’t going to get the disease, no matter how much or how many times they’re exposed to the virus. This genetically lucky group could comprise as much as 20% of the population. Unfortunately there’s no way to know in advance who these people are, and they suffer no harm by receiving the vaccines anyway.

Each line of argument leads back to the same conclusions: the only reliable preventive at present is the current lineup of vaccines, and the course of action least likely to result in death is inoculation (at least for those who have not already contracted it, developed the full blown disease, and survived). Still, I would want the shot anyway, even if I’d had it, simply because the virus evolves and I want to be protected against the most prevalent variant, whenever possible. This absolutely should not be controversial, at all.