Legal and Ethical Concerns about Sexual Orientation Change Efforts

Dados Bibliográficos

ID20337627
AutoresTia Powell, Edward Stein (0000-0002-2323-6185, Ave Maria School of Law)
Ano2014
Volume44
Fascículos4
PáginasS32-9
Data de publicação2014-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Hastings Center Report (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0093-0334 • E-ISSN: 1552-146X
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/hast.368
PMID25231784
OpenAlexW2110482469
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências citadas12

The United States has recently made significant and positive civil rights gains for LGB people, including expanded recognition of marriages between people of the same sex. Among the central tropes that have emerged in the struggle for the rights of LGB people are that they are “born that way,” that sexual orientations cannot change, and that one's sexual orientation is not affected by choice. Writer Andrew Sullivan put it this way: “[H]omosexuality is an essentially involuntary condition that can neither be denied nor permanently repressed.... [S]o long as homosexual adults as citizens insist on the involuntary nature of their condition, it becomes politically impossible to deny or ignore the fact of homosexuality.... [The strategy for obtaining LGB rights is to] seek full public equality for those who, through no fault of their own, happen to be homosexual .” This idea of linking LGB rights to empirical claims about sexual orientations has become so central that casting doubt on these claims is, in many circles, tantamount to opposing LGB rights. Nonetheless, claims about innateness, immutability, and lack of choice about sexual orientation should not be the primary basis for LGB rights

Gay rights · Homosexuality · Immutability · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Sexual orientation · Sociology · Law · Legal and Constitutional Studies · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Psychology · Reproductive Health and Technologies · Social Psychology