Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For July 27, 2022

 July 23

To R. Scott Clark and his article that reports how Rosaria Butterfield has changed her mind on Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE). Before she was against it, but now, after reading about one study on a specific SOCE attempt, she has changed her mind. This appeared in Heidelblog.

I would think that Rosaria would know better than to change her mind on this subject based on one study that has possible flaws. The APA has consistently challenged SOCE and they did that first by noting the name change, a change that no longer regards its treatments as therapeutic. Not mentioned in the above article is that the study cited above has one of the flaws cited by the APA: those in the sample group that are predominantly religiously conservative.

Regardless of what future research on SOCE provides. one of the issues that must addressed when we share God's Word with those from the LGBT community is the stigma that accompanies belonging to that community--a stigma that we religiously conservative Christians have played a large role in producing. Stigmatization is a significant factor that negatively affects the  mental health of those in that community. So, in other words, we need to share the Gospel with those from the LGBT community as equals despite our different approaches to sexual orientation. And we can only do that when we  promote full equality for the LGBT community in society prior to sharing the Gospel with them.

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July 26

TO Dr Roger Scrutton and his article on  how free speech is being threatened at universities because of the efforts taken to protect past or present marginalized groups. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

Of old and new heresies and orthodoxies, their categorizations can falsely imply that they are comparable. BTW, as a side note, what was called 'infantile leftism' was far more Marxist than Leninism. But I digress.

Certainly there is a new orthodoxy and it is accompanied by its own heresies. I don't think that the above article really does justice to what the new orthodoxy is trying to  correct. Real people suffered from various levels of marginalization that included violence and even death for  the distinctions that society was making in the past. Of course the distinctions that led to those marginalizations were part of previous orthodoxies. So too were the calls made to eliminate those distinctions  considered to be past heresies.  So we see that just as not all orthodoxies are comparable, neither are all heresies.

The new orthodoxy is being driven by social justice. That social justice is trying to undo some long-standing, serious social injustices. And what often happens when long-standing social injustices are being addressed is that there is a phobic-like reaction so that whatever is associated with the injustices being corrected, both the thinking and actions that actually contributed to the social injustices as well as that which can only be accidentally associated with the injustices are lumped together. I believe that Scruton either wants people to distinguish between the two or argue for the continued marginalization of some specific groups.

And so if we are going to make the distinctions that Scruton seems to be suggesting, we need to make sure that our distinctions don't lead us back to the social injustices we are trying to undo. I say that because it is unclear to me as to whether Scruton is saying that.