Resolved: Parents ought be banned from forcing minors into ex-gay therapy or conversion practices.

Inherant ImmoralityMy opponent comes up with three basic counter-arguments. First he asserts that it's OK to cause pain and suffering to homosexual bashers, as they have caused harm without warrent. I disagree with the "without warrent" part here. If it is really true that, as many of them believe, some God is up there who hates gays and will send them to hell upon their death, then sending minors to gay camps would, in fact, be a helpful and charitable act, as well as entirely warrented. How is he so sure their religion is false? As with all morals, who knows what consequences they will have in the future? Science can't prove morality (I proved that last round), so I'm still waiting warrent for why he knows that his beliefs are the only "moral" beliefs? Second he argues that pain and suffering does not result from promoting tolerance. This assumes that tolerance will actually accrue under his model, which it won't. Homosexual bashers will always be just as intolerant whether they run gay camps or not. Besides this, my opponent is being particulary intolerant of the religious view that gay kids need gay camps. He presents no warrent as to why the one is tolerable and the other is not. Third he argues that the camps misuse science. I question the arrogance of the American Psychological Association in determining what is right and wrong for psychological research. I am particulary offended at this as a student of psychology (among other things) in a country other than America. The American Psychological Association does not have a monopoly on psychological research, and could not have conducted much of its research if it wasn't for researchers in countries like mine. Besides this, science was always meant to be pushed into new directions. When Copernicus challenged the existing scientific hierarchy, Martin Luther made the same argument as my opponent does now. That didn't stop Martin Luther being dead wrong. There is no "correct" way to use science, and no institution has a monopoly say on the moral laws of psychology. Long-term harmAgain, my opponent runs three counter-arguments. First my opponent questions whether the APA really said that there was insufficient good-quality research. The answer is in the very passage he cited in round two. If you'll scroll back up, you'll see that of the 80 studies indentified "They found an overall abysmal state of research, with 'serious methodological problems' in most of the studies. .. Contrary to claims of sexual orientation change advocates and practitioners, there is insufficient evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual orientation". Second my opponent hints (forgive me if I read too far "between the lines" here) that you only need a single study to prove inefficiency. This is true, but only given one sample. You can't start making inferances about the population of the thousands of gay camps out there in the world, given only a select sample of a few studies. If you actually go back to the APA metastudy and check back on many of the "reliable" studies, you'll see that many are post-treatment studies, meaning they are unlikely to have many "fundamentalist" participants who "truely believe" and are thus most likely, in their faith-based healing worldview, to have truely changed their behaviour. Of those that did take consideration of the treatment given, they only looked at places that allowed this to happen, which is itself a skewed and biased sample. None of that proves inefficiency, and that's (apparently) the best data we have. Third he argues that you can prove a moral belief with science (although he claims not to "understand" my argument - some more direction as to what exactly is not understood would be appreciated) because "morality requires the evaluation of an action and/or its effects, meaning that something testable is needed in order to determine the evaluation itself anyway". Morality would only require this, however, if you could prove it. Since morality needs something testable however it cannot be tested, morality cannot be proven. If you accept your argument is a moral one, I contend this is equivalent to accepting defeat. DiscriminationWhile it is true that discrimination-stopping is not a reason why going to gay camps is good, this does not prove they're useless. The main merit in having gay camps is that they stop religious families from breaking apart just because they have a gay kid. It has happened often enough that families have literally abandoned their teenage children because of their sexual orientation and the family's religious belief. Gay camps help these families stay together because they allow the families to believe the gay minors have redeemed themselves in the eyes of God. This is particulary so because the gay camps are often run by churches themselves. My opponent admits that some discrimination is morally permissable, and yet continues to use discrimination as a moral standard for excluding gay camps (or as he so eloquently puts it, they are "inadequite for society at a moral level"). What he needs to tell us is where he draws the line - why is some discrimination OK, and other discrimination not OK. Until he does this, his point is void. Human RightsIn the same way as children around the world are coerced to go into school boards and healthcare districts, so is there nothing inhumane with coercing them to join this association. Why? Because children have other rights that are in conflict with this right. They have a right to free education, for instance, and social security, as outlined in the UN declaration of the rights of the child. The same thing is true here. Children have the right to spiritual development, and also to free association. According to the legal doctrine of Lex Specialis (. http://en.wikipedia.org...), the more general rule must be ignored in favour of the more specific one - and in this case, the special rule for children in terms of spritual development over-rides the general rule for humans giving free association. That having been said, this debate is not about whether such camps are illegal (overwhealming case law says they're not), this is about whether they should be made illegal. Children do not choose a nationality upon being born - they are forced into it by their families. It is NOT something they have "CHOSEN" (capitalisation is my opponent's). And no, children do not have to acquire a nationality themselves, it is presented to them with their birth certificates. This is legal because the UN declaration of the rights of the child gives all children the right to a name and a nationality, again over-riding the general rule of free association. My opponent says it is evident I have no understanding of human rights. If so, I ask that he please enlighten us, given that he couldn't even present the relevant law in round two, which isn't the Universal declaration of human rights but the UN declaration of the rights of the child. I'd appreciate it if personal insults like this could be kept out of the debate. Two DiscriminationsYes, I did make a case of my own! My case was that sexuality is premised on religion, and thus it is only just that religion governs sexuality. I ask my opponent to respond.