Written by Selwyn Duke for THE NEW AMERICAN MAGAZINE

In the beginning, the homosexual agenda was about the right to be an “out” homosexual without government interference.

Now it’s about using the government to prohibit efforts to get out of homosexuality.

And the latest attack on this front is the ominously named “Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act” (TFPA), which would ban same-sex-attraction and “gender identity” reparative therapy. This is psychological counseling whose goal is to help people mitigate or eliminate unwanted same-sex attractions or the phenomenon whereby a person’s perceived sex doesn’t match his actual one.

The TFPA was introduced in Congress today by Representative Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), who authored his state’s 2012 ban on reparative therapy. After the Golden State’s action, D.C. and New Jersey (with Governor Chris Christie’s signature) followed suit in prohibiting the therapy, and a similar ban is in front of openly bisexual governor Kate Brown of Oregon.

Yet while the above bills prohibit only reparative therapy for minors, according to Philly’s Josh Middleton, the TFPA would apply to all ages. Moreover, while the wisdom of such bans should be questioned, there’s no question that states have the constitutional power to enact them. Yet nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government empowered to involve itself in such matters.

As to what this involvement would be, Middleton provides some details, writing, “The ‘Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act,’ explains the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), ‘would amend the Federal Trade Commission Act to clarify that providing conversion [reparative] therapy to any person in exchange for monetary compensation or advertising such services is an unfair or deceptive act or practice. This legislation would give the Federal Trade Commission the duty to enforce this provision in accordance with existing law.’”

Of course, labeling the therapy “deceptive,” critics would say, is deception itself; it’s predicated on the unproven notions that same-sex attraction and “gender identity” are always inborn and unchangeable, and that trying to alter them has negative psychological effects.

Adding to the deception, Lieu states at his website that reparative therapy “is a dangerous but often overlooked form of discrimination against LGBT Americans.” Yet this turns truth on its head. No one is forcing anyone else to participate in therapy. It is Lieu’s bill that discriminates by, as Regina Griggs, executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, put it, taking “away the rights of parents and children to receive help.”

Junk Science?

Lieu calls reparative therapy “crappery” while Griggs position is that his “legislation was not based on science,” writes the Washington Times. So where does the junk science truly lie?

One fashionable idea underpinning Lieu’s argument is that homosexuality, and this could apply to “gender identity” as well, is inborn. Yet despite media obfuscation, no “gay gene” (pertaining to happiness or homosexuality) has been discovered. In fact, a 2001 Columbia University study found that among identical twins (who share identical genetics), the same-sex attraction experienced by one was shared by the other only 10 percent of the time. And while there are theories regarding how intrauterine hormonal anomalies might lead to a lack of masculinization of a boy’s brain — creating a lad who supposedly has a “female brain” — brain scans aren’t used in particular cases to prove the innateness of homosexuality or “gender identity” (note: this usage of “gender” is agenda-driven. The term should be applied only to words). So, put simply, the science is inconclusive.

But history may not be. For example, homosexuality was institutionalized in ancient Spartan military camps, and it wasn’t uncommon for Athenian men to chase after adolescent boys. Does this mean that most all ancient Greeks had a “gay gene”?

Let’s accept for argument’s sake, however, the supposition that homosexuality can be inborn. Given the historical point above, and common sense’s dictates, would anyone say that same-sex attraction could not be a purely psychological phenomenon in even 1 out of 10,000 cases? That would be a truly radical assertion. But if it is possible, then it could be so in 2 out of 10,000 as well, no? Or it could be 10, 20, or 50.

Or 200.

The point is that science can’t say — and Ted Lieu certainly doesn’t know. Yet he would deny psychological help to those in whom same-sex attraction is a purely psychological phenomenon.

But what if it is inborn, at least in certain cases? Isn’t trying to change it then a trespass? Well, this philosophy isn’t applied to most anything else. There are many inborn abnormalities, such as cleft lip, Spina bifida, Down syndrome, club foot, and Tay-Sachs disease. We happily remedy them whenever possible, unimpeded by people saying, as activists do when justifying homosexual behavior, “God doesn’t make mistakes.”

Speaking of which, one also might ask: If “God doesn’t make mistakes” (and, presumably, everything is ordained), why do the same activists advocate so-called “gender-reassignment surgery”? Shouldn’t we conclude that if God wanted you to be a member of the opposite sex, He would have created you that way? And consider further the contradiction: Lieu and his fellow travelers would forbid doctors from trying to change people’s minds — which could be a purely psychological process — but happily allow doctors to change their bodies, which certainly are innately determined.

The reality is that inborn status tells us nothing about correctness. Factors between the ears are no exception, either, and it’s particularly dangerous to assume otherwise in their case. As I wrote in February:

The same social scientists telling us homosexuality is innate also claim that psychopaths are born and not made. Does this make psychopathy a legitimate state of being? And what if it’s found that some people are born with homicidal instincts? Would it be okay for them to commit murder?

… Then there’s this study indicating that racial bias is innate. Will the Left now move to rescind anti-discrimination law?

Some may now say murder and racial discrimination are different because they hurt another person. (Of course, others assert that engaging in deviant sexual behavior with another also hurts the person.) But if what “hurts” others is to be our yardstick for determining rightness, then the inborn argument becomes irrelevant. As I continued:

After all, whether or not an action reflects inborn urges tells us nothing about whether or not it hurts another.

Stating the obvious, the inborn argument could be applied to anything inborn. Logically translated it says: If a feeling is innate, the actions associated with it are okay. This eliminates morality completely and replaces it with biological determinism (BD). This is why accepting the BD argument means accepting everything that can be proven to be inborn — even if it’s pedophilia, bestiality, or murder. It’s just a slightly more sophisticated way of saying “If it feels good, do it.” But biology does not determine morality.

Unfortunately, morality doesn’t generally determine politicians’ actions. The good news is that as with sexual feelings but with far less difficulty, politicians can be changed.