Adults Raised by Gay Couples Speak Out Against Gay ‘Marriage’ in Federal Court

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div id="title-wrapper" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <h1 class="title" id="page-title" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </h1> </div> <div class="region clear-block" id="main-content" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <div class="node clear-block" id="node-879359" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <div class="meta" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span class="submitted" style="border: 0px; display: block; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="blog-style-author no-photo count-0" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <div class="author-detail" style="border: 0px; float: left; margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <div class="user-name" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">By <a href="http://cnsnews.com/source/lauretta-brown" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lauretta Brown</a></span></div> </div> </div> </span></div> <div class="content" id="node-content" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <div class="addthis_container" style="border: 0px; clear: both; margin: 20px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style pull-left" style="border: 0px; float: left; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <a class="addthis_button_compact at300m" href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/lauretta-brown/adults-raised-gay-couples-speak-out-against-gay-marriage-federal-court#" style="border: 0px; 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margin: 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Supreme Court Gay Marriage" width="220" /></span></a><div class="caption" style="border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 10px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, Fil</span></div> <div class="caption" style="border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 10px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">CNSNews.com) – Four adult children of same-sex parents have submitted </span><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">amicus curiae</i><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">briefs in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals asking that it oppose the legalization of same-sex “marriage."</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The Court, in New Orleans, La., heard arguments on Jan. 9 as it considers whether to uphold traditional marriage – defined as being between one man and one woman -- in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">B.N. Klein, Robert Oscar Lopez, Dawn Stefanowicz, and Katy Faust all grew up with homosexual parents. All four argued that redefining marriage to include same-sex couples would harm children by depriving them of a mother or father.</span></div> </div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In her brief, Dawn Stefanowicz described her experience living in a same-sex household.</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I wasn’t surrounded by average heterosexual couples,” she says in her court brief.  “Dad’s partners slept and ate in our home, and they took me along to meeting places in the LGBT communities. I was exposed to overt sexual activities like sodomy, nudity, pornography, group sex, sadomasochism and the ilk.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“There was no guarantee that any of my Dad’s partners would be around for long, and yet I often had to obey them,” she said. “My rights and innocence were violated.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“As children, we are not allowed to express our disagreement, pain and confusion,” Stefanowicz explained. “Most adult children from gay households do not feel safe or free to publicly express their stories and life-long challenges; they fear losing professional licenses, not obtaining employment in their chosen field, being cut off from some family members or losing whatever relationship they have with their gay parent(s). Some gay parents have threatened to leave no inheritance, if the children don’t accept their parent’s partner du jour.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I grew up with a parent and her partner[s] in an atmosphere in which gay ideology was used as a tool of repression, retribution and abuse,” <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/240312276/B-N-Klein-Amicus-Brief" style="border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">B.N. Klein wrote of her experience</a> with a lesbian mother. “I have seen that children in gay households often become props to be publicly displayed to prove that gay families are just like heterosexual ones.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Klein said she was taught that “some Jews and most Christians were stupid and hated gays and were violent,” and that homosexuals were “much more creative and artistic” because they were not repressed and were naturally more ‘feeling.’”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“At the same time I was given the message that if I did not agree (which I did not), I was stupid and damned to a life of punishing hostility from my mother and her partner,” she recounts. “They did this with the encouragement of all their gay friends in the community and they were like a cheering squad. I was only allowed out of my room to go to school. This could go on for weeks.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I was supposed to hate everyone based on what they thought of my mother and her partner,” said Klein. “People’s accomplishments did not matter, their personal struggles did not matter, and their own histories were of no consequence. The only thing that mattered was what they thought of gays.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/251078014/Robert-Oscar-Lopez-Amicus-Brief#scribd" style="border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Robert Oscar Lopez </a>who was also raised by a lesbian mother and her partner, had a different experience which he described as the “best possible conditions for a child raised by a same-sex couple.”</span></span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Had I been formally studied by same-sex parenting ‘experts’ in 1985, I would have confirmed their rosiest estimations of LGBT family life,” Lopez wrote, but then went on to argue against same-sex marriage saying that, “behind these facades of a happy ‘outcome’ lay many problems.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">He describes experiencing a great deal of sexual confusion due to the lack of a father figure in his life. He turned to a life of prostitution with older men as a teenager.</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I had an inexplicable compulsion to have sex with older males,” he recounted, saying he “wanted to have sex with older men who were my father’s age, though at the time I could scarcely understand what I was doing.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“The money I received for sex certainly helped me financially because it allowed me certain spending money beyond what I earned with my teenage jobs at a pizzeria and in my mother’s [psychiatric] clinic,” he states in the brief. “But the money was not as impactful as the fact that I needed to feel loved and wanted by an older male figure, even if for only as short as a half hour.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“As early as ten years ago, I developed a clear stance on homosexual relationships. A civil union or some kind of state recognition would have helped my mother and her partner,” Lopez writes.</span></div> <div dir="rtl" style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; text-align: right; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Yet the traditional marriage laws in New York State as they existed back then prevented my mother and her partner from entirely cutting my father out of my life,” he explained.  “The latter reality proved pivotal because my re-establishment of ties to my father in 1998 led to a transition in my life, from being lost and sexually confused to being stable and romantically fulfilled.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/240312274/Katy-Faust-Amicus-Briefs" style="border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Katy Faust, </a>who grew up with a lesbian mother and her partner also testified against gay marriage but clarified that “my advocacy against gay marriage and for the rights of children will never include condemnation of my mother and her partner or details about their private lives.”</span></span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“When we institutionalize same-sex marriage,” Faust writes, “we move from permitting citizens the freedom to live as they choose, to promoting same-sex headed households. In doing so, we ignore the true nature of the outcropping of marriage.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Now we are normalizing a family structure where a child will always be deprived daily of one gender influence and the relationship with at least one natural parent,” she explains, “Our cultural narrative becomes one that, in essence, tells children that they have no right to the natural family structure or their biological parents, but that children simply exist for the satisfaction of adult desires.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The 5th Circuit is still considering the legality of state bans on same-sex “marriage” and will issue an opinion in the coming months.</span></div> <div dir="rtl" style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; text-align: right; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The U.S. <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/16/supreme-court-gay-marriage/21867355/" style="border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Supreme Court announced </a>on Jan. 19 that it will consider gay  “marriage” bans in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee with oral arguments in April and a ruling before the end of the current term in June.</span></div> </div> </div> </div> </div>

Adults Raised by Gay Couples Speak Out Against Gay ‘Marriage’ in Federal Court

By  Lauretta Brown Sharing Service 267   (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, Fil CNSNews.com) – Four adult childr...

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British Woman Allegedly Taken Hostage by Family in DRC “to Cure her Gayness”

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="entry-content" itemprop="text"> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><img alt="p1170094.jpg" class="size-large wp-image-426974 aligncenter" height="450" src="http://www.bellanaija.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Gay-British-Woman-Taken-Hostage-by-DRC-Family-BellaNaija-600x450.jpg" width="600" /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A British citizen has allegedly been taken hostage by her family in thइ Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) because her family would like to “cure her gayness.”</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The woman, 27-year-old <strong>Christina Fonthes, </strong>is a Manchester-based LGBT activist and a translator. On August 11th, she visited Kinshasa with her younger sister and mother.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">However, during the visit, Fonthes’ mother is said to have seized her passport. She was then reportedly told that her family wanted her to stay in Congo so they could help “fix” her sexuality, <a href="http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/british-woman-being-held-captive-so-her-family-can-cure-her-gayness--lJCNkAlpml" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><strong>The Independent</strong> </a>reveals.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">According to reports, BBC Sports presenter, <strong>Jessica Creighton</strong>, is Fonthes’ partner. She has been raising awareness about the situation via social media.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Creighton says: “It became apparent that her family were unhappy with her decision to be an out lesbian. They took her passport and want to… ‘cure her of her gayness.’”</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She also complained that the British government hasn’t been too swift about handling the issue. However, a </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Foreign and Commonwealth spokesman says they are providing consular assistance.</span></div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><strong>Photo Credit:</strong> The Independent</span></div> </div> </div>

British Woman Allegedly Taken Hostage by Family in DRC “to Cure her Gayness”

A British citizen has allegedly been taken hostage by her family in thइ Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) because her family would like...

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Ugandan lawmakers in campaign to revive gay law

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="story-featured-image" style="background-color: white; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #333333; float: left; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-right: 15px; width: 368px;"> <img alt="Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni" class="attachment-bigstoryimage" height="269" src="http://www.punchng.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Ugandan-President-Yoweri-Museveni-360x269.jpg" style="background-color: whitesmoke; border: none; float: left; margin-right: 10px; padding: 4px;" width="360" /><div class="featured-image-caption" style="clear: both; color: #dd0000; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 5px; padding: 5px 10px 0px;"> Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni<br /><small style="font-weight: normal;"><em>| credits: therisingcontinent.wordpress.com</em></small></div> </div> <div id="nrelate_flyout_placeholder" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px;"> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> Ugandan parliamentarians are launching a campaign to revive a recently invalidated anti-gay measure and hope to have it passed within weeks, a lawmaker said Wednesday.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> <em>Associated Press</em> reports that about 150 lawmakers have promised to vote in support of the bill when parliament emerges from a recess later this month, said parliamentarian Latif Ssebaggala, who is collecting signatures from lawmakers who support the anti-gay measure.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> Ssebaggala said he was treating the anti-gay measure as a “national priority” after a Ugandan court last week declared it illegal because it was passed during a parliamentary session that lacked a quorum.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> The Constitutional Court didn’t rule on the substance of the law, so lawmakers are now able to reintroduce the same legislation, which allows for jail terms of up to life for homosexual offenses. Although the law had wide support among Ugandans, activists and watchdog group called the measure draconian and said it was unnecessary in a country where homosexuality had long been banned.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> The court’s decision sparked anger among Ugandans who believed the court’s decision was motivated by Western sanctions against Uganda’s government over the anti-gay measure enacted in February.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> After Friday’s court ruling, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni declined to comment on the decision, telling reporters at a news conference that he would discuss the matter with his party’s caucus. Many Ugandans believe he quietly backed the court’s decision amid mounting pressure from the East African country’s development partners.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> The legal petition against the anti-gay law, which was originally scheduled to be heard by judges in September, was wrapped up in a matter of days last week, leading some to question the urgency with which the judges acted. Such cases typically take years before a decision is returned.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> Medard Bitekyerezo, a Ugandan lawmaker who is a strong supporter of the anti-gay legislation, said this time there will be no questions over a quorum since “there will be a show of hands in parliament so that we know who is a homosexual and who is not” among lawmakers.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> “We have got the right to bring it back in parliament,” he said, referring to the anti-gay measure. “I can tell you that it is going to be bloody in parliament.”</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> Uganda depends on donor support to implement about 20 percent of its budget. A substantial amount of that funding goes toward health services, an area in which the country needs Western money and expertise to stem the spread of preventable diseases.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> <em>The World Bank and at least three European countries withheld aid to Uganda’s government after the bill was enacted in February. The US also halted or redirected funding from Ugandan institutions accused of rights violations, and imposed visa bans on unnamed Ugandan officials.</em></div> </div> </div>

Ugandan lawmakers in campaign to revive gay law

Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni | credits: therisingcontinent.wordpress.com Ugandan parliamentarians are launching a campaign to r...

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Chinese doctors offer cure for homosexuality •As activists fight conversion therapy

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A Chinese medical expert, Dr Zhou Zhengyou has claimed to cure up to 70 per cent of his gay patients, although he says it is a long and difficult process.</span><br /> <div class="itemFullText"> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But Gay rights activists in China are preparing for what they say could be a legal milestone in their fight to stop homosexuality being treated as an illness.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Later this month, a Chinese court will hear the first case of its kind brought against a clinic that offers so-called “gay conversion therapy.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A long campaign in Europe and America has been successful in shifting the medical consensus against such treatment, and now campaigners want Chinese doctors to follow suit.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“China declassified homosexuality as a mental illness well over a decade ago, but clinics like Zhengyou’s are still easy to find,” a protesting activist said.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">He said “Dr Zhengyou shows me some of the books he’s written on the subject over the course of his career.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“One of them is a guide for parents who suspect their son or daughter might be gay.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“The overriding message appears to be that it is their own parenting methods that are somehow to blame.</span></div> <center style="height: 0px; margin: auto; overflow: hidden; width: auto;"> <div style="padding-bottom: 5px; padding-top: 10px; text-align: left;"> </div> <div id="ebzNative"> </div> </center> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“And, his critics point out, at $120 (£70) a session - a lot of money on an average Chinese wage - long and difficult can mean lucrative.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Dr Zhou tells me that today he uses counselling alone and does not treat his patients with so-called aversion-therapy offered elsewhere in China. But he is happy to describe how it works.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“One common method is electric shock. When the patient has a gay thought, we electrocute them or inject them with drugs that make them sick.”</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A supporter of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community takes part in the Hong Kong gay pride parade on November 12, 2011</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Gay pride parades have taken place in Chinese cities, including neighbouring Hong Kong</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In a picture taken on 8 March, 2011 gay couples kiss during their ceremonial ‘wedding’ as they try to raise awareness of the issue of homosexual marriage, in Wuhan, in central China’s Hubei province.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">China’s gay community has begun to fight back. They’ve organised a number of protests - small in number but nonetheless brave in China.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Chinese gay activists have begun taking bolder actions to gain support and acceptance</span></div> </div> <div class="itemContentFooter" style="border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin: 16px 0px 4px; padding: 4px; text-align: left;"> </div> <div class="clr" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.235294); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f8f8f8; border: none; clear: both; color: black; display: block; float: none; font-family: lato, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; height: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> </div> </div>

Chinese doctors offer cure for homosexuality •As activists fight conversion therapy

A Chinese medical expert, Dr Zhou Zhengyou has claimed to cure up to 70 per cent of his gay patients, although he says it is a long and dif...

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