(unless, of course, you think ignoring it will make it go away)

I have been enjoying the little ad banner which appears from time to time above my blog page, as it is nice to know someone is reading my blog.

Regeneration Books Christian help for sexual healing Change is possible. www.regenbooks.org

What's this? Sexual healing? Finding a religious "cure" for "homosexuality"? On MY WEBSITE?

Hey, am I supposed to be pissed off or what?

My first reaction is that I can't help but notice that the ad is accompanied by its own advertisement from blogger.com -- "Get rid of this advertisement," with a corresponding link to information on an ad-free blog page.

If thine ad offends thee, pluck it out?

Much as I might have thought I would have better things to do than be forced to address reparative therapy for homosexuality on this website, some people have placed this ad on my website, and because it stares me in the face, I would be a coward to pay money to get rid of it. Besides, I am too cheap right now. I should be glad to know that I have a "sponsor!"

So, rather than be offended and take the coward's way out, I think for now I'll just let them bombard me and all "homosexual" visitors with advertising I am sure many would consider "hurtful and offensive." (And please DON'T COMPLAIN TO ME ABOUT THE BANNER AD! Because I am trying to address it. If you are offended, talk to blogger.com.)

Healing, especially healing someone sexually, is a complex topic, one which I touched on earlier when I discussed penis spam.

I guess that's life on the Internet. At home you're bombarded with emails telling you to grow larger penises, and then when you try to "work" on your blogsite, people are telling you how to use your penis properly -- and how to get "cured" if you use it the wrong way! Both of these approaches are gratuitous in the extreme, because I requested neither a larger penis nor instructions on how to use it.

Using a strictly medical model, I guess you could say that information on growing a bigger penis is a health issue -- although the fact that the claims are obviously false place the spam more in the category of snake oil salesmen, faith healers, or psychic surgeons.

But let's return to the banner ad for "healing." My proud advertiser, "Regeneration Books Christian Resources for Healing Homosexuality and Brokenness" (sponsored by an outfit called Exodus International) is not telling you to heal your physical penis; rather they are saying that your sexual desires, if homosexual, make you broken and in need of their form of healing.

It is amazing to me how many books they sell which are apparently written on this subject. I won't list all of them, as I am not going to go out of my way to promote the lifestyle choices of my "sponsor." However, here's one book taken at random:

First Steps Out of Homosexuality:How to Find Lasting Freedom by Frank Worthen Item: PR-04 Publisher: Exodus Our Price: $ 4.00 Another helpful booklet from the series of practical inexpensive helps from Exodus International-North America. This booklet gives practical advice for the man or woman just leaving the homosexual lifestyle. Written by one of the elders of the ex-gay movement, this booklet is practical and encouraging.

I am all for freedom, and that includes the right to leave any lifestyle. That is because the right to join something includes the right to leave it. Just as you have a right to own or collect guns and practice target shooting or hunting, you have just as much right to get rid of all your guns, stop going to the range, and "leave the lifestyle."

Say! I wonder if Sarah Brady and her crowd have thought of this one! Reparative therapy for gun nuts! "Leaving the guns behind!" Practical tips! Like, what to do if a burglar breaks in, perhaps?

Returning to the people telling me to leave the homosexual lifestyle, what kind of practical inexpensive tips are we talking about? How about what to do with that pesky lover who has lived with you for ten years and is now dying of AIDS. Throw him out? Or cure him of sexual desires he no longer has on his deathbed? Teach him how to sexually copulate with women so he can start all over?

Is that it? Do they simply want to shame all homos into enrolling themselves in how-to courses on the finer arts of penile-vaginal intercourse? (The latter I discussed in a blog last year.)

Surfing about in the expensive and seductive web pages, I do not think courses in the latter are what they offer...

Well, I will say one thing: when they say "inexpensive," they mean it! The above book costs just four dollars, and the other ones are equally inexpensive. Where the hell can you get a book these days for four dollars? How many books do you think they actually sell? (At least, how many are willingly purchased by their ostensible audience?) Who pays for these banner ads, anyway? I hope they're not asking people for money to subsidize them, because I am not sure they are getting their money's worth.

I wish I could tell you how much it costs to advertise here, but right now, no advertising is being sold.

Someone obviously paid for these ads, though, and enough to keep the ads alive even during these obviously tough times at Blogger.com where no other advertising is permitted.

Of course, then we have the Exodus website. Everyone -- young impressionable homosexuals especially -- really should check it out. Cute young guys on the home page. (They really want us to harden ourselves against this sort of thing...) Very slick; obviously a good deal of money went into the web design.

The central premise of Exodus is stated on the the website:

What is Exodus?

Exodus is a nonprofit, interdenominational Christian organization promoting the message of

"Freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ."

Since 1976, Exodus has grown to include over 100 local ministries in the USA and Canada. We are also linked with other Exodus world regions outside of North America, totaling over 135 ministries in 17 countries.

Within both the Christian and secular communities, Exodus has challenged those who respond to homosexuals with ignorance and fear, and those who uphold homosexuality as a valid orientation. These extremes fail to convey the fullness of redemption found in Jesus Christ, a gift which is available to all who commit their life and their sexuality to Him.

I try to be fair, and in fairness to Exodus, I am glad that they at least "challenge" those who respond to homosexuals with ignorance and fear (although I hope they are not fighting ignorance with ignorance). As to "freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ," I think there are a number of unstated hypotheses and assumptions present there. The term "freedom from" clearly implies that a thing is enslaving a person. Anyone who feels that he is not free from that which he wants to be free from -- for whatever reason -- does not seem to have free will or control over that portion of his life. I feel genuinely sorry for such people, and I guess I would have to admit that if they seek freedom (if indeed they want to define unwanted desires in such terms), no one should deprive them of it.

But to speak of "freedom from" certain sexual tastes (irregardless of whether some people deem them sinful) strikes me as a simple abuse of logic. One is only enslaved by something if one allows oneself to be controlled by that thing, and a desire to do something is not slavery unless one is driven by some uncontrollable compulsion to do that thing even though he desires not to.

If we analogize to food, no rational person may properly be said to be "enslaved" by a taste, say, for cream-filled donuts.

What if you just can't stop eating the darned things? Slavery? I do not buy into the idea that addiction (if tastes be addictions) is slavery, because no matter how dependent we might think we are on a certain thing, there is always a way to control our desires -- IF WE WANT TO. Whether we want to control or modify our tastes and desires is a purely personal decision. For someone to come along and tell me that my desire for cream-filled donuts is a form of "slavery" which can only be overcome via changing one's desire according to what they deem to be God's opinion of that taste, is patently absurd. They say that their God hates certain forms sexual taste and sexual expression. They are entitled to their opinion. But that does not transform a fondness for tastes they claim their god forbids into a form of slavery.

Logically, things are no different if we consider aversions to the tastes of others. Personally, I hate liver, and I do not eat it. I may very well be missing out on a wondrous, nutritious food, the love of which some people may consider nothing short of divine. Fine. They can opine that I should try it, and I suppose they could even offer "reparative" programs which might help me learn to eat the horrid stuff in a quasi-medical setting. But to call this "healing" is just too big of a stretch for me. Similarly, to call me a slave and say that I am not free because I don't like liver is simply an abuse of language, because that is not what freedom and slavery mean.

While I am not sure about God's view of cream-filled donuts, I have no doubt that some religious rules forbid me to eat liver, and that there are people out there who feel strongly that god does not want me to eat it. Actually, I used to live in the Haight Ashbury, where I got to know my local grocer, a Palestinian, quite well. He used to watch me buy ham and other food products taboo to his religion, and I noticed a sad, even guilty look on his face when he would ring them up on the register. One day, he told me gently that these things were not good for me, and that God really did not want me eating them. I thanked him for his concerns (he was utterly sincere and obviously did care), but paid little attention.

If God is going to damn me for eating pork or liver, then I guess I either ought to stop eating pork and liver lest I be damned, or else maybe find a different god. But no one truly knows what opinion God (no matter which god or which religions might be meant by the term) has; all they can do is cite various religious texts -- which are nothing more than writings by various people over time who claimed (or who were said to have claimed) that either they knew (or someone else told them that God had told them) his opinion. If God exists and God is good, then that means infinitely, in an infinite number of forms. I don't especially need anyone to tell me that God is a bigot who hates my tastes, and it only adds insult to injury if they tell me that such tyranny is "freedom." How Orwellian! How hopelessly Medieval!

Once again, America needs to return to Classical Values!

While I am confident that the government is not funding penis spam, I certainly hope our tax dollars aren't going into this kind of "healing" of penis use, for while it may be a form of advice to some, to others it is an unwanted form of gratuitous harassment.

But healing it definitely is not.

Besides, healing can work both ways. While I would rather there be no such arbitrary and sterile modern categories as "homosexuality" or "heterosexuality" in the first place, I have to say that I have met more people claiming to be former heterosexuals than I have people claiming to be former homosexuals.

Why is it any more fair for the latter to claim to heal the former than vice versa?

And if you want to claim the right to "heal" penis usage in the name of religion, please read my blog about Phallic Cults.

(After a mouthful like that I dare not say anything about "food for thought" or anything like that, because I don't want to be accused of having bad religious "tastes.")