Can homosexuality be ’cured’?

A Christian liberal pundit finds it nauseating that pro-government intellectuals on public media discuss gay conversion therapy as a potentially desirable ‘treatment’ for homosexuality. A conservative lawyer accuses liberals of trying to normalize homosexuality and criminalize masculinity.

In January in a talk show in M1 public television, conservative intellectuals and priests discussed gay ‘conversion therapies’. Participants in the debate quoted ex-gay testimonies and suggested that homosexuality may be ‘cured’. They added that gays interested in such conversion should be given a chance to voluntarily undergo ‘treatment’.

In Heti Világgazdaság, György Balavány finds it nauseating that conservative intellectuals seriously discuss gay conversion therapy on public television. The Christian liberal pundit acknowledges that he himself believed in such theories in the past, but now dismisses them as unscientific and potentially dangerous. Balavány suggests that there is firm factual evidence that sexual orientation is not voluntary and cannot be changed. Balavány finds conversion efforts totally futile. He adds that homosexuality is not contagious and is not a public threat by any means. He also notes that from a Christian perspective, it is absurd to call what he calls a natural given as a ‘sin’. In conclusion, Balavány thinks that the suggestion that homosexuality is an illness that should be ‘treated’ is a dangerous idea that may strengthen homophobic prejudice and discrimination against gays.

In Magyar Demokrata, Miklós Szánthó thinks that liberal ideologies threaten “our way of life”. The conservative lawyer who serves as chairman of the pro-government Center for Fundamental Rights contends that efforts to normalize homosexuality “under the guise of science” as well as “the feminization of masculinity” are part of what he calls a liberal ideological war on “the order of nature” in which “God put everything in its place”. Szánthó accuses liberals who “openly criminalize masculinity” of trying to rewrite the “natural virtues” by claiming that everything is socially constructed and is a matter of socialization, including sexual orientation and gender roles in general.

Tags: Gays