There's rather more on George Rekers in various posts on this blog over the last few years.
His attitude towards inconvenient facts is summarised below, from The Christian World View of Psychology and Counseling:
6. Scientific MethodAnd this is the resulr.
We affirm that the scientific method is useful in carrying out the creation mandate of Genesis 1:28 to subdue and have dominion over creation when the investigators have Biblical presuppositions and when the Bible does not directly give us the answers we seek; that the use of the scientific method is entirely controlled by the presuppositions of the investigators and therefore the results are a pronouncement of faith rather than of scientific fact; and that the faith nature of the results of scientific investigation is evidenced by the investigators' proselytizing intent, that is, their attempt to transform man into their idea of what man should be. We deny that the scientific method can ever be applied in psychology without its being thoroughly determined by the presuppositions of the investigators.
Similar, though far less harsh, methods are used by Dr Zucker in CAMH in Toronto. Her realises that he can;t "pray away the Gay", but he does claim he can "pray away the Trans", with only 15% of gender nonconformant kids ending up being Trans not Gay. "Gender Nonconformant" means exactly that, in most the degree is mild. They're not Trans in the first place.
As for George Rekers? From his website:
He earned his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, his M.B.A. in executive management from Southern Wesleyan University, and his Doctor of Theology (Th.D.) degree from the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of South Africa.
Dr. Rekers has delivered many invited research presentations on child and family variables before committees of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, and has served as an invited expert for White House staff and several presidential cabinet agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services.
He has delivered over two hundred invited lectures in universities and academic societies in dozens of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and in Western and Eastern Europe.
Professor George served as one of the multidisciplinary experts for the legal team that successfully defended the state of Florida’s law prohibiting adoption of children by homosexually-behaving individuals all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Lofton v. Secretary of the Department of Children and Family Services.
Dr. Rekers is a past recipient of the NARTH Sigmund Freud Award for his research contributions on child gender identity disorder.
His work is still being cited as bona fide by Vanguard University's Psychology Department in their Parenting section. It is, after all, a Christian University.
3 comments:
I'm probably preaching to the converted, so to speak, but surely anybody who thinks that organised religion has a useful place in this world has rocks in their head ...
There are those that quote "all the good work done by religious charities" yet they are oblivious to, or conveniently forget that in many cases the unnatural distortion of natural human variation that is preached by these religious institutions actually causes many of the social issues that these same religious institutions then go on to "unselfishly" create charities that "impress" the unthinking in mainstream society.
In many cases religion has caused the distortion of a human mind into using and abusing substances to be able to "cope". They cause others to suicide and the friends and families to suffer grief. They cause the homelessness when individuals don't live up to family expectations (based on religious dogma) and are thrown out of the house. The sex work and substance abuse that follows in those cases too. They cause people to think that they are only supposed to behave in a reasonably narrowly gendered band instead of being totally free to be whoever they are, say and do things, and present their identity as they naturally want to without any concern about crossing boundaries that religious institutions don't tolerate.
The subtle suppression of natural behaviour and natural identity presentation causes an unprecedented amount of harm to society with ramifications stretching to sexual assault, domestic violence, substance abuse, homelessness, unemployment and the list goes on.
If only we'd outlaw religion and turn all their temples into refuges for those that they've hurt. Too easy I say, but no, we still live in an era where many can't see what I see.
The parents must take 100% responsibility for what happened to their son. They are the ones who chose to place their son in the hands of a deranged quack and they are the ones who carried out the most cruel elements of the abuse. They could have made different choices but they didn't. There will always be quacks trying to hock some bad medicine or treatment - eventually they are exposed and the law and public opinion turns against them. But parents will always be the first and primary guardians of their children, and when parents are violent mean-spirited idiots the children will always suffer.
That gender identity issues are psychological disorders is still mainstream psychiatry. Odd that he's willing to affirm that non-Christian science but not the other non-Christian science.
Regards, a Christian.
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