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Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Statism is a Mental Disorder
But according to the Alberta government:
Alberta continues to list homosexuality as a “mental disorder” along with bestiality and pedophilia, and doctors used the diagnostic code to bill the province for treating gays and lesbians more than 1,750 times between 1995 and 2004, government records show.
The province has known about the classification for more than a decade and the Conservative government first promised to change it in 1998. On Tuesday, Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky repeated that promise.
“It has no place in Alberta,” Zwozdesky said, adding he has called for a review of the entire 300-page diagnostic code. “It is simply an incorrect and unacceptable classification and I’ve ordered it to be removed immediately.”
Ah, gotta love a politician's understanding of the word "immediately." If they've been planning on doing this for twelve years, what's the hold up? Yet a political system with such lightening quick response times is suppose to run something as complex as health care? If socialized health care had been set up in the eighteenth century, bloodletting would have been discontinued as a covered service sometime in the 1970s.
And this is on an issue that is politically sensitive. Our elected masters have every interest in not offending homosexual pressure groups. Imagine them making an intelligent decision on something that's genuinely controversial? Which is why it almost never happens. See abortion.
My own reading of the political calculus is that the Alberta Tories have dragged their feet less through bureaucratic inertia, than a fine balancing of lobbyist bellyaching. As Deep Throat (the Watergate one) is suppose to have advised, follow the money. Who has an interest in keeping homosexuality as an officially listed mental disorder? Whoever is providing 1,750 plus treatments for gayness. Leaving aside what these gayness treatments might consist of - heterosexual pornographic immersion therapy? - that's a nice cash flow.
We may have socialized health care in Canada, but the bureaucrats who run the system know that most of our doctors are a two hour drive from a fatter American paycheque (or paycheck, if you will). Keeping antiquated treatments on the books can be a kind of thank you to the provincial medical associations. Canadian doctors might get paid less, but they also have fewer hassles about collecting on bills or dealing with upstart competitors. Just send the bill to the ministry - hernia operations, cancer therapy, gayness treatments or whatever - and the check's in the mail.
The Alberta Diagnostic Code is a pretty obscure bit of medical bureaucratese, so few people pay it much attention. From time to time there's an embarrassing news story like this one. Everyone's hair gets a little frizzed and it's forgotten the next day. The classification is offensive, but not so much so that homosexual groups will be screaming bloody murder.
The political cost is low for keeping gayness treatments on the books, but it's moderate for getting it off the books. A fair chunk of the Alberta Tory base does think homosexuality is a mental disorder, or worse a sin according to their religious doctrines. Why modernize the diagnostic code if it's going to piss off both a small clutch of doctors and the gay-is-sin crowd? Best to leave well enough alone. Until the political cost rises.
Beneath the politicking, there's a genuine issue at stake. The overwhelming majority of us know, at least from the time of puberty, whether or not we prefer those of the opposite sex. For a small minority, finding their orientation is less clear cut.
Sorting out sexual identity is an emotionally fraught experience that can take years, even decades. There is a role for specially trained psychologists to help people work out these concerns. It's a sensitive issue that the blunt hand of a bureaucratic state is ill equipped to deal with. Homosexuality isn't a mental disorder. Believing that government health care can cure "gayness" is, however, some sort madness.
Posted by Richard Anderson on December 29, 2010 | Permalink
Comments
Hard to find the proper box for this . I had a lot more patience for the subject before they all became "loud and proud". (Of what ?) When 3 % of the population is bound and determined to change thousands of years of tradition (marriage) I find it more than annoying.Somewhere close to you are pedophiles rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of joining this "new" enlightened society. They are where gays were a mere 30 years ago and their love for children is just as real. Values are changing and nature hates a vacuum. We seem to be heading back to the great Roman Empire days. That Empire also fell because of rot from within.
Posted by: peterj | 2010-12-29 10:21:24 PM
All the more reason to get government out of the marriage endorsement and maintenance business and instead confined to enforcement of contract law for consenting adults. The free market can reconcile the differences between the Catholic boiler-plate and the man-sheep love society.
Posted by: John Chittick | 2010-12-30 9:40:03 AM
@peterj: the fall of the Roman Empire had nothing to do with gays. You don't have a right to a government-enforced definition of marriage. JC gets it right.
@Publius: slightly disturbed by your reference to abortion. How could total freedom of a woman over her body not be intelligent?
Posted by: Cytotoxic | 2010-12-30 1:11:26 PM
It seems to me that the title of this post is misleading. One can rightly argue that having the government in charge of health care is statism, but as to the definition of mental disorders that is a different matter. Psychiatrists throughout the western world labelled homosexuality as a mental disorder until they were forced to remove it by PC politics. If the field of psychiatry bases diagnosis on outside pressure, then it cannot claim to be a field of science. Image that medical doctors were forced to diagnose pregnancy as an illness due to pro abortion politics; they would no longer be able to claim that their profession is based on science. One can argue that the whole field of psychiatry is not science, and I would be the first to agree. That however is a different matter.
Another interesting point in this post was the ridicule of "sin". Again it is interesting how it is not considered acceptable today, but it remains the right of all religions to define sin. All religions and belief systems, including tribal groups, identify behaviours which they find unacceptable,. Most have to do with behaviours which endanger the survival of the group, society or nation. So while the concept of sin may not be popular today, it cannot be wished or voted away.
Cytotoxic, Peter did not write that the fall of the Roman Empire was due to "gays", so please read what others write. Peter correctly stated that the fall of the Roman Empire was due to the rot from within which included many factors.
In your argument that a woman must have total freedom over her body, like all pro abortionists you ignore that a baby is not part of her body. Like it or not, it remains a separate being and not a piece of malignant tissue. This is simply dishonesty to avoid facing the truth.
Posted by: Alain | 2010-12-30 1:58:26 PM
I'm curious about the actual procedures which are covered. Just listing it in the code book is one thing, but dispensing "treatment" is a mystery to me. Are we talking surgery, drugs, or what? Or is this simply treatment for collateral damage from living a gay lifestyle?
Posted by: dp | 2010-12-30 2:04:07 PM
Pretty insulting to gays , comparing gay sex to pedophilia , two consenting adults who gives a hit what they do. It will never be acceptable, adults abusing children.
Posted by: don b | 2010-12-30 3:35:48 PM
Homophobia is high in Alberta. If anything it should be included as a mental health problem!
All this is bound to change if the Right Wing gets it's way!
The Wild Rose for instance support doing away with the Canada Health support and go the private insurance route. That would be the US way.
Here is a link that will open a new dimension for you.
http://albertathedetails.blogspot.com/2010/12/canada-is-under-seige-from-within.html
Canada spends 10.6% of its GDP on Health Care and covers 100% of its citizens.
The US spends 16.0% of its GDP on Health Care and there are 55 million Americans without health care and another 20 million in fear of loosing theirs as the Republicans look to curtail medicaid spending.
Posted by: cyberclark | 2010-12-30 3:47:53 PM
This just another example of why the state has no place in healthcare. I suppose, to appeal to the dairy producers' lobby, a way can be found to make lactose intolerance a treatable disorder. With long-term therapy and medication, and not individual decisions, like proper diet, lactose intolerance will be treated and the billings flooded to the government.
Posted by: AB Patriot | 2010-12-30 4:22:32 PM
In fairness the Wild Rose Party has put out a new health coverage plan. While it is 180 degrees away from what she said in Sherwood park two weeks ago it has a nice ring to it; regardless of what is true.
Posted by: cyberclark | 2010-12-30 5:23:18 PM
Response to AB Patriot | 2010-12-30 4:22:32 PM
I'm not sure you read the numbers correctly.
The US system is at least 50% higher than that of Canada! 50% is low because those 55 million Americans are included in the GDP.
Alberta has not increased the per-capita spending on Health since 1986! What the Conservatives have done is spend billions on executive wages and severances over the years driving up the cost of health care.
They have also bought and paid for new hospitals on taxpayer money fully prepared to turn it over to private care companies at a penny on a dollar of value.
There is nothing nice to say about this Government!
Posted by: cyberclark | 2010-12-30 5:28:36 PM
cyberclark, there is no such thing as "homophobia", let's drop the word invention. That people are not inclined to homosexuality does not make them "phobic" in any sense. In fact I have yet to meet any adult, including the most religious, who want to criminalise homosexuality. People just don't care what consenting adults do in private, but they strongly resent having it constantly thrown in the face and pushed down their throat. The same goes for other practices such as bondage.
When it comes to consenting adults I feel it is up to them what they choose to do to and with each other, which is why I always find the concept of a law enforcement vice squad a waste of time and resources.
Posted by: Alain | 2010-12-30 6:29:47 PM
It will never be acceptable, adults abusing children. - don b
It will never be acceptable, killing unborn babies just for convenience.
It will never be acceptable, this idea of homosexual "marriage".
It will never be acceptable, .... well, you get the idea .....
Posted by: Doug | 2010-12-30 6:48:22 PM
Response to cyberclark
I dont' really care what you said, because it's completely off my point.
Government makes decisions based on political expediency, not unbiased and rational considerations. The state has no business being involved in healthcare because it will forever make decisions that are hostile to the free-market, individual choice, and personal Liberty. It's obvious that the point of this article was that the government was dragging its feet on this issue because it did not want to offend a certain constituency whose vote is covets. This decision has likely cost the government a small fortune already. So, given the reality of political expediency in all decision-making, there is no small chance that they will implement any policy, no matter how fiscally insane, just to score some constituency's support.
Posted by: AB Patriot | 2010-12-30 9:31:45 PM
@Alain: there is no such thing as an unborn child. It's a fetus bereft of rights. Further, you're being an ass wrt to homophobia. While certainly much improved over the past, it's still a problem in schools and the US military only recently ditched its asinine DADT policy.
@CyberClark: Canada covers 100% of its people!?! STOP YOU'RE KILLING ME!! PLEASE STOP!! Oh good lord that's some serious black comedy right there. Pure genius.
Posted by: Cytotoxic | 2010-12-30 10:51:00 PM
Gay marriage there s no victim , pedophilia there are victims , big difference.
Posted by: don b | 2011-01-01 9:35:48 AM
Well, the APA still thinks homosexuality is a mental disorder.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=528376
Posted by: Harry98 | 2011-01-01 9:57:41 AM
''Gay marriage there s no victim , pedophilia there are victims , big difference.''
Tell that to your friend when he gets AIDS. There are plenty of victims, even in gay marriage.
Posted by: Harry98 | 2011-01-01 10:00:32 AM
Harry98
A consenting adult choosing or acceding to a gay lifestyle is engaging voluntarily in a higher risk activity not unlike the skydiver, back-country skier, mountain climber, gambler, drinker, smoker, whore master etc. They are not victims unless they were forced into the behavior.
Personally, I consider homosexuality deviant behavior but completely non-threatening as compared to say the motives of left-lib fascists (Red Tories included). I do however have a problem with Gay activist rent-seekers as with all rent seekers. I don't want to see the state sanctifying gayness any more than I want to see it sanctifying Shariah.
Posted by: John Chittick | 2011-01-01 11:41:35 AM
Harry 98 wants to ban gay marriage because someone might get aids, sorry dont get the connection.
Posted by: don b | 2011-01-01 12:19:38 PM
John Chittick, Hear! Hear!
You also stated more clearly than I. When I said that while everyone I know remains indifferent to the sexual behaviour of consenting adults (in private), they resent and object to the "in-your-face" thing. Actually I should have said we resent and object to the special status based on identity politics. The first imposed special status group was women, then it was expanded to include natives, disabled and visible minorities. From there a big leap was made to create a special status group based on their sexual behaviour. I am fed up with the whole thing like many others when it comes to special treatment for special interest groups.
Posted by: Alain | 2011-01-01 12:44:47 PM
Hear, hear, Alain.
It is typical of the effeminate, limp-wristed, lisping pansies (in government today) that they will pander to any group, give them some kind of special status, and bankrupt the treasury to buy them off. We have seen it time and time again. I suspect, in the future, we will see other groups receive protection on the most ridiculous grounds. The rise of Islamism is something of note that we should all be threatened by, but it will also be quite humorous. Imagine the imposition of all those Islamic customs that turn back the tide of show-called progress for women, gays and lesbians, not to mention a whole bunch of other groups. I guess all those statists will have to go back to the drawing board.
Posted by: AB Patriot | 2011-01-01 1:08:22 PM
I have taken the time to read the new Wild Rose Health Care policy and it is the same as the old one.
It is a good read as far as reading material goes but it come back to their premise. Ralph Klein was correct in introducing the third way.
The Third way was a user pay through private insurance. Only if you were flat broke or passed the provinces ways and means tests will you be given any provincial coverage.
No matter which way you cut it, this is the US system!
Posted by: cyberclark | 2011-01-02 10:56:51 AM
AB Patriot | 2010-12-30 9:31:45 PM
The Government as you put it is not a foreign power it is supposedly my Government and my Taxes you speak of.
Do I want to spend my taxes on a vibrant public health care system? Yes I do!
Do I want to pay 800 or 2000 dollars or more a year to private insurance companies to get the same coverage I now enjoy? No I certainly don't.
The latter is more than 50% higher than our present experience and, why would any one in their right minds want to go there?
This is a Conservative dream come true; a chance to go to the US system under the any fluff banner one might choose.
Posted by: cyberclark | 2011-01-02 11:01:28 AM
By my reckoning, Canada's health insurance plan or the provincial health insurance plans combined if you like, cover much more than 100% of it's citizens.
It also covers a small army of immigrants who get their medical up grades when they move to Canada even though they do not yet have citizenship.
There have been on going news snippets of US people taking up addresses in Canada to get access to our public system.
I am saying the public system is far less expensive than the private and it does a great deal more than look after our citizens.
Posted by: cyberclark | 2011-01-02 11:06:19 AM
It seems someone is taking some serious drugs....
Posted by: Alain | 2011-01-02 2:40:31 PM
seems someone is taking some serious drugs....
Posted by: Alain | 2011-01-02 2:40:31 PM
And that is also amajor problem. At over 28 billion a year big pharma is on a roll. You can't turn on the TV without seeing a pill to solve anything and everything. 90% are "wannabe" drugs of which the generic versions have been available for years. Doctors are part of the problem as they are rewarded for name brand prescriptions although they are no better and sometimes worse. I used to think Insurance companies were the biggests sheisters in the free world until I started reading about big pharma. They make Wall street look like saints in comparison.
Posted by: peterj | 2011-01-03 4:19:40 PM
Peter, I agree, but I also believe that people should be free to make their own choices, good or bad. As for big Parma, I would like to see all government substuties to them ended along with all other substuties. Furthermore, put an end of government lobbies by all special interest groups.
As to my comment regarding drugs I was referring to the ridiculous claims made by cyberclark. I admit I should have refuted his claims but feeling lazy (not an acceptable excuse) I poked fun at him.
Posted by: Alain | 2011-01-03 6:29:47 PM
As to my comment regarding drugs I was referring to the ridiculous ........
Posted by: Alain | 2011-01-03 6:29:47 PM
That was quite clear. Just had to get my licks in re: big pharma. Since they do almost all the r&d the search for cures to almost everything has ground to a halt. The holy grail is 2 or 3 (expensive) pills a day to keep diseases in check. A cure is self defeating as it leads to a profit "dead end", and shareholders look for long term growth.
The subsidies they receive from taxpayers shows the rot or the political ignorance in the system.
Posted by: peterj | 2011-01-03 8:49:00 PM
I know it is politically incorrect to face the connection between Homosexuals and child molesting (the Liberal Media censors this, surely not Western Standard) but did you know the following?
- A male homosexual was the teacher most apt to have sex with his pupils in a study encompassing 7 countries. Overall, 43% of teachers who made the news for having sex with their pupils over the last 27 years engaged in homosexuality. Homosexual teachers violated 1,925 (56%) of the 3,457 pupil-victims. Women were 11% of perpetrators, but a heterosexual female teacher was least apt to have sex with pupils.
Lexis-Nexis was searched from 1980 through 2006 uncovering 902 teachers who had sex with pupils. Teachers who engaged in homosexuality constituted 63% of perpetrators in Ireland, 62% in New Zealand, 60% in Canada, 54% in Scotland, 48% in Australia, 47% in England, and 35% in the U.S.
"Astounding," said Dr. Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute, a Colorado Springs think-tank, who conducted the investigation: "Similar results have been reported in U.S. studies from 1978 through 1996. Prior studies included two polls of superintendents (homosexuals were 27% and 29% of perpetrators), convictions in 10 states (homosexuals were 32% of perpetrators), a poll of principals (35% of complaints were about homosexual teachers), and adults reporting on their experiences as students (23% of reports involved homosexuality). It's unusual to get such consistency from method-to-method, much less country-to-country." Most (54% of 810 male, 83% of 92 female) teachers violated only opposite sex pupils, and 1,889 (55%) of the 3,457 victims were boys.
The study was published in the new, free-access, on- line, peer-reviewed Empirical Journal of Same-Sex Sexual Behavior full study found www.ejssb.org
How about this: Tammy Bruce a lesbian and former head of the Los Angeles chapter of the militant feminist organization called National Organization of Women said in the Report newsmagazine on July 22, 2002, "A majority of gays I believe, have their first sexual experience as a minor with a gay adult, and almost every gay and lesbian knows its true."
Chillingly a British Columbia Ministry of Health study reviewed 2,099 cases of child sexual abuse and found that 94 percent of the perpetrators were male and 50 percent of the victims were boys mostly under 12.
The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics found with decade of stats the same thing. Perpetrators 91 percent male and Victims, 46.5 percent young boys.
Posted by: StanleyR | 2011-01-04 5:46:51 PM
Homosexuals are exceedingly scary violent
According to the "New York Times," quote: "The man who knows more about violent death than anyone else in the country is Dr. Milton Helpern, formerly chief medical examiner of New York City."
In his biography titled Where Death Delights, Helpern wrote this, "It's not my role to condemn homosexuality as such, and I leave it to the psychiatrists and psychologists to try to figure out why people practice homosexuality." obviously not a Christian if he says that.
He said, "I'm not to judge it. But having performed sixty thousand autopsies, it is high time that those who deviate from the norms should understand the risks. I don't know why it is so but it seems that the violent explosions of jealousy among homosexuals far exceed those of the jealousy of a man for a woman, or a woman for a man. The pent-up charges and energy of the homosexual relationship simply cannot be contained. When the explosive point is reached, the result is brutally violent."
Helpern goes on, "But this is the normal pattern of these homosexual attacks, multiple stabbings, the senseless beatings that obviously must continue long after the victim dies. When we see these brutal multiple wound cases in a single victim, we automatically assume that we are dealing with a homosexual victim and a homosexual attacker," end quote. Why? Because there is a burning lust that is out of control. They burn in their desires. He went on to say in his book that in ten seconds they can look at a dead body and tell you whether it was killed by a homosexual because of the mutilations and the multiple stabbings or multiple blows.
Also David Island and Patrick Letellier two homosexual activists who wrote the book " Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them: Battered Gay Men and Domestic Violence" state that homosexual relationships are violent. Nearly 25% need hospitalization within one year from the hands of their partner.
Posted by: StanleyR | 2011-01-04 5:47:55 PM
All this may be true Stanley R , but what to do about it , continue to demoralize Gay people, or what.
I dont know why anybody would care about marriage, you love someone and then invite the Government in on it, Yuk.
Most gays i know wish they werent that way , it wasnt a choice for them, obvious lack of choices in partners and discrimination dont make it appealing.
I saw an interview on the Fanny Kiefer show a few years back , she interviewed a gay actor and he said " he believed that the 911 attackers were gay" i was stunned imagine if some politician had said that they would be i jail now.
Posted by: don b | 2011-01-05 10:08:43 AM
StanleyR, are you proposing that homosexual activity between consenting adults in private be criminalised? Perhaps I am missing the point you wish to make, but it gives the impression of the opposite extreme. By that I mean the opposite of the radical gay agenda seeking to force everyone to find such a lifestyle appealing. I have already stated my objection to that, but I also object to the opposite extreme of criminalising the behaviour.
Like I said perhaps I have misunderstood the point you wished to make, so please feel free to clarify.
Posted by: Alain | 2011-01-05 12:07:15 PM
I agree with you Alain, whats the solution ?
Posted by: don b | 2011-01-05 12:56:52 PM
The solution in my opinion remains that the state remove itself from identity politics, such as affirmative action. The state has no business in rewarding specific groups, much less imposing these groups on the rest of us including private business. No more state funding for Pride parades for example. We also need respect for private property rights, so that establishments are free to cater to whomever they wish, be they solely one-legged women, only men, only blacks et cetera.
As for public displays I do not want to have to watch two guys having sex in public anymore than I want to see a man and woman copulating in public. What consenting adults do in private is, or should be, solely their business.
Another thing would be to terminate the silliness of "hate" crimes, which accords special status to special groups. Assault is assault, murder is murder and result for the victim is the same and the guilty should receive the same treatment.
I am not holding my breath for any of this to happen, and I repeat that it is only my opinion of the solution.
Posted by: Alain | 2011-01-05 4:58:54 PM
Posted by: Alain | 2011-01-05 4:58:54 PM
Right on the money, but far too logical. The legions of social workers thrown out of work would actually have to find a real job and the nanny state could see a setback. We are a nation run by activists not common sense.
I like your solutions but as long as politicians pander to the tails that wag the dog we can only dream of the Canada that once was.
Posted by: peterj | 2011-01-07 6:41:54 PM
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