"Jesus loves you. Everyone else thinks you're an asshole"

I was watching Saved last week, and while it was a pretty good movie with an effective message, there was one part that I thought was glossed over somewhat to make the story seem nicer. The main character, played by Jena Malone has a boyfriend who thinks that he might be gay, and only plays along in the boyfriend role to validate the Christian ideals of those surrounding him. Of course, once his parents discover his issue of Honcho under his mattress it's game over. They send him away to be spiritually cleansed of his gayness, and refilled with Christ's love.

Flash forward to an article in today's New York Times, where Alex Williams tells of a 16 year old gay kid from Tennessee who comes out to his parents and immediately ship him off for degayification. Not only do centres like this actually exist (talk about the naive Canadian), but there are 120 'programs' nationwide devoted to this kind of nonsensical deprogramming/reprogramming.

The whole notion that gayness is something that can be changed through behaviour modification borders on contempt for humanity. The fact that parents can forcibly put their kids in places like this against their will should be seen as child abuse. How states tolerated this and not stepped in as of yet is reprehensible.