Sexual Orientation Tolerance

IT IS NOW ILLEGAL, but previously wasn't, in the state of New Jersey, to attempt to talk someone out of being gay, and into being straight. Oh, it aint illegal, yet, to do it in the privacy of your own home, voluntarily - But using psychiatry, professionally, to change a person's sexual orientation, known as " conversion therapy" is now banned. This raises the question: what if a person has a passionate desire to convert, to stop being gay and start being straight, and wishes above all else to have professional help? Choose another state, it seems, which is not hard to do in New Jersey, with New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania nearby. New Jersey certainly does seem, i must say, to be a rather "tight assed" state: for there it is also illegal for a customer to pump his or her own gasoline into his or her own car.... Hell, in every other state, as far as I know, that's the only way its available: you'd better pump it yourself, or you'll have a long wait, correct? We old people can recall when nobody pumped their own gas, when there was a smiling service statin attendant at your window. Then, it became an option, with attendants available but not intrusive, then pumping your own gas became a requirement, and service station attendants vanished like dime stores. Incrementalism! Many many christians and conservatives have for ages harbored the bizarre and crazy notion that a person who is homosexual is automatically mentally ill, but can be made whole and healthy, aka heterosexual, through psychiactric methods, just like other mental illnesses. Hence, along with the practice of psychotherapy, conversion therapy has grown over the decades, and is now quite popular, among far right wingers and fundamentalist christians. Most of us, however, clinging to the precarious sanity of believing that all sexual orientation are made equal, and there is never any need for anyone to ever change, if you can imagine such a thing. It would indeed be hell to be gay in america, one of the two most prudish countries in the world, (the other being Russia, where they ban homosexuality outright) where one "comes out of the closet" at one's own risk. But it is getting better in america, in terms of sexual orientation tolerance. If only the same could be said of russia...presumably, conversion therapy is still legal in the other forty nine american states. And maybe it should be. After all, it may be that there is a demand for it, outside social coercion. there is a demand for sex change operations, which take place on a daily basis in america; plenty of people are not satisfied with their gender, so it stands to reason that there are folks who honestly want to change their sexual orientation. Both states of mind are difficult to imagine for most of us, who accept our gender and sexual orientation as entirely outside our control, and that since we're stuck with it, we might as well make the most of it.Most of us, in truth, are quite happy to be what we are, sexually, whether male, female, straight, gay, or bi. Its the normal way to be. So easy, for that majority which is happy to comdemn those who are not. So sefl verving, arrogant, cna cruel. Our hearts tell us that we should help, rather than hinder, anyone who is unfortunate enough to lack this happiness.