I was reading (no way!) a case study on Muslim homosexuals in Australia who went to social workers for help and assistance dealing with the apparent contradiction. However the code of ethics social workers are obliged to follow (membership to the AASW is mandatory, so is the code) states that you can not try and change a persons religion or sexuality. Ah the conundrum!

Its an interesting question for professionals, what do you do in that situation? You can’t tell a person their theology needs to change (or be rejected outright) and you can’t tell them their sexuality is wrong even if the person believes this themselves. It’s not about intent to influence someone to believe something, your actually not allowed to say anything at all. Leaving aside all the “now look inside yourself, what is it you truly see” kind of stuff there isn’t a whole lot you can do. The whole thing ended up being a total dud except in the case where a social worker and a non-religious homosexual got together and jointly convinced the guy the theology was flawed. The social worker still broke the code though and later had to apply for concientious objection.

I’m not suggesting that the Southerly Change thing is a good outcome, but no matter which way you go you get problems. You try and ex-gay them you piss off the pro-gays, you try and accept them and you piss off the Christians and if you do neither you sit on your ass twiddling your thumbs and can’t help the people who need it. 😕

I think Sandy that increasingly this will be a non issue.

Why, because people are increasingly accepting of their sexuality and pro-gay theology?

Ok, thanks for the clarification.