A clinic in Spain is offering homosexuals treatment to “cure” their same-sex attraction.  The Spanish government is now investigating the clinic.  If they are found guilty of offering treatments to cure homosexuals, they could be fined.  Why?  Apparently because it goes against the country’s pro-homosexual agenda.  As Spanish gay rights leader, Antonio Guirado commented, “You cannot treat something that is not an illness.”

So much can be said here.  

First, I do not know the details of the treatment being offered, or the promises being made.  The treatment could be a sham, and they may be promising too much.  From what I know, treating same-sex attraction is not easy, and success is difficult to come by.  So if promises are being made that anyone experiencing same-sex attraction can be “cured,” I think the clinic should be faulted for false advertising.

Secondly, notice the assumption that same-sex attraction is not an illness.  I would grant that same-sex attraction is not a mental or biological “illness” in the normal sense of the word, but I think it should be obvious that something is amiss about same-sex attraction and homosex.  If one’s sexual organs are designed to function with one gender, and yet their sexual desires are directed toward a different gender, and they are psychologically incapable of using their sex organs for their intended purpose, it is reasonable to conclude that something is awry.  When one’s desires do not match the hardware afforded them by nature the problem is not with the hardware, but with the desires.  

Thirdly, it was only 30 years ago that gays in Spain were shipped off to institutions.  While I do not approve of such treatment, I find it interesting how fast a society can reverse itself.  Spain has gone from persecuting gays to persecuting those who threaten the radical pro-gay agenda.  It is a slippery slope.  It begins with tolerance of homosexual behavior, then the legalization of homosex, then the general acceptance of gay persons, then the normalization of homosex, then the legalization of same-sex marriage (which Spain did in 2005).  Once homosexuality has been normalized and legalized in a society, those who oppose it on either moral or legal grounds will be the object of persecution.  And that’s exactly what is going on in Spain, and exactly what will happen here in the U.S.A.  Indeed, it has already begun.  The persecutors have become the persecuted.

Fourthly, what happened to freedom?  Shouldn’t those who are experiencing same-sex attraction have the freedom to seek to change their sexual orientation if they desire to do so?  After all, this clinic is not coercing people to go through the treatment process.  Gay individuals are voluntarily signing up for the treatment because they want to change.  Even if one believes that change is impossible because sexual orientation is immutably fixed (which the data does not support, btw), why not allow people the opportunity to at least try to change?  It is the height of irony for a government, in the name of tolerance and freedom, to deny people the freedom to seek change.  Why would they do so?  I have a hunch.  If one seeks to change their homosexual orientation, it sends the message to others that something is wrong with that particular orientation.  Since the Spanish society has determined that there is nothing wrong with a homosexual orientation, they want to prevent those so oriented from seeking to change.  I would be interested to see how the government would respond to a clinic that treated heterosexuals who wished to change their sexual orientation from heterosexual to homosexual.  Hmm.