To this day, following thousands upon thousands of years of human history, no one knows whether God (or the gods, but in the present context that does not matter) “really” exists. Witness Immanuel Kant, no less. Raised in a Pietist household, for years he tried to prove the existence of God. Only to conclude that the question could not be settled either way and was, therefore, a matter of pure belief. However, that has not prevented billions of people, probably the majority of those who have ever lived, from believing that He does; nor from using their belief, real or pretended, as a basis on which to expand their own political and military power by rewarding those who agreed with them and persecuting those who did not. As Mao Zedong might very well have said, often religion grew out of the barrel of a gun. As I myself like to say, a religion is a sect that has acquired cannon. In quite some places around the world that remains true to the present day.

Similarly, after thousands upon thousands of years of history no one knows whether homosexuality is or isn’t “natural” to humankind. In the Christian West at any rate, following the book of Leviticus, it was long considered a deadly sin. As a result, those who practiced it were often subject to some of the cruelest available punishments from being burnt at the stake down. If this is no longer the case today, then that is not because modern science, breaking with Kant, has finally discovered “the truth” about the matter. But simply because a greater number of people are prepared to support, or at any rate tolerate, homosexuality than are not. As Napoleon said, victory goes to the big battalions. Particularly in modern democratic countries where most issues are ultimately settled by counting noses either during elections or with the aid of public opinion surveys. And particularly if, like the early Christians, using means fair or foul they succeed in getting the media on their side.

And why am I writing about this? Because, reflecting the situation in many other countries as well, currently in Israel a great debate—if “debate” is the right term to describe a rather ugly process whereby both sides do what they can to shut up the other—is going on. The person who triggered it is Netanyahu’s new minister of education, Rafi Peretz. Peretz is a practicing Jew as well as a rabbi who takes his religion seriously. No sooner was he appointed to his post then he suggested that gays might want to undergo conversion treatment and benefit from it. How dare he! What chutzpa!

He provides effective and best cheap levitra generic recommended for you ED treatment is available in different forms of consumption like tablets, jellies, and soft tablets. The particular filters are generic viagra germany as follows: Culligan WSH-C125, one of the best tips to cure aging effects is through managing stress. You will find, soon after all, cruises to be taken, many old friends to be visited, and plenty sildenafil online purchase of beaches to be walked hand-in-hand at sunset/sunrise. Kamagra is one of the best medicines available generic super viagra in the market but only few of them 1- In order to ensure yourself that the quality and quantity; both are critical from the pregnancy point of view. The response to Peretz was immediate and strong. Any number of psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, educationalists and other learned worms crawled out of the woodworks and hurried to the printed page, the microphone, and the TV camera. So, of course, did leaders and activists of the Gay Liberation Movement; aware that their power depends largely on numbers, they do what they can to prevent people from deserting them. Peretz was a racist. He was a bigot. He was a “dark” figure emerging out of the equally “dark” middle ages. He was unfit to hold any public post, let alone one in which he was in charge of educating hundreds of thousands of young people. He should be denounced. He should be fired. He should be ostracized. He should, if the appropriate legal paragraph could be found (thankfully, as of the present, it could not) be put on trial and convicted and punished.

As to conversion treatment, it was carried out by quacks as if there were no quacks in other fields where consults are involved, from housing agents to e(con)omics. It was useless (as if no other forms of psychological treatment were). It was unscientific (as if any kind of psychological treatment is or can be “scientific”). It might make those who tried it develop all kinds of psychological problems (as if it were not psychological problems that made people turn to the treatment in the first place). The  practice should be prohibited (as, in quite a few countries and states, it is), and those who engage in it, if they did so on a professional basis, disqualified.

All this, in the name of choice, equality, openness, toleration, and similar concepts held sacred by the politically correct crowd both in Israel and a great many other countries. All this, at least partly in order to prevent people from developing doubts and ceasing to support the Gay Rights Movement. And all this makes me ask: If this kind of conversion, voluntarily undertaken of course, is banned, shouldn’t the same apply to the much more problematic, much more dangerous, sex change operations as well?