XPost: rec.aviation.piloting, sac.general, soc.culture.british   
   XPost: nyc.general   
   From: gay-perverts@hillaryclinton.com   
      
   The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, also known as the DSM, is   
   the official list of mental disorders that all mental health   
   professionals refer to when diagnosing patients.   
      
   The first version, released in 1952, listed homosexuality as a   
   sociopathic personality disturbance. In 1968, the second version   
   (DSM II) reclassified homosexuality as a sexual deviancy. Soon   
   afterward, gay protestors began picketing at the APA’s annual   
   conventions, demanding that homosexuality be removed from the   
   list completely. In 1973, after intensive debate and numerous   
   disturbances by gay activists, the APA decided to remove   
   homosexuality from its next manual (DSM III).   
      
   What followed was a swarm of outrage from psychiatrists within   
   the APA who disagreed with the decision and demanded that the   
   issue be reconsidered. In 1974, a referendum was called and   
   approximately 40 percent of the APA’s membership voted to put   
   homosexuality back into the DSM. Since a majority was not   
   achieved to reverse the decision, homosexuality remains omitted   
   from the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.   
      
   To the LGBT community, this omission from the DSM was a logical   
   move. They felt that, absent from any nonbiased social-science   
   research to prove that homosexuality is inherently pathological,   
   the only thing that had been keeping homosexuality in the DSM   
   was societal prejudice. However, many in the scientific   
   community have criticized the APA’s decision to remove   
   homosexuality from the DSM, claiming its motives were more   
   political than scientific.   
      
   Dr. Ronald Bayer, author of the book Homosexuality and American   
   Psychiatry, writes:   
      
   The entire process, from the first confrontation organized by   
   gay demonstrators to the referendum demanded by the orthodox   
   psychiatrists, seemed to violate the most basic expectations   
   about how questions of science should be resolved.   
      
   Instead of being engaged in sober discussion of data,   
   psychiatrists were swept up in a political controversy. The   
   result was not a conclusion based on an approximation of the   
   scientific truth as dictated by reason, but was instead an   
   action demanded by the ideological temper of the times.   
      
   Along these same lines, a recent radio documentary on the   
   subject of homosexuality revealed that the president-elect of   
   the APA in 1973, Dr. John P. Speigel, was a “closeted homosexual   
   with a very particular agenda.”   
      
            
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)