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

A Tidbit on Morality: Under the mindset that my opponent is trying to emphasize, in which there is a relativistic threshold on morality that can create a warrant for almost any perspective of morality, it's perfectly fine and okay for homosexual bashers to cause harm to homosexuals because under a certain form of morality (this being Christianity or religions in general). The question then comes down to why my version of morality is paramount and why my opponent's is wrong. Actions do need a warrant through a perspective of morality, but a perspective of morality needs a warrant as well. Morality has a purpose, as Professor of Philosophy Bryan Benham (source cited at bottom of round) explains, where it is not only to guide actions for society, but the end result is to promote social harmony and ameliorate suffering. The entirety of my Contention 1 explains exactly why my version of morality promotes this general purpose: it actually betters a population of people within a community at some level by reducing their risk of stigmatization and eventual mental illnesses and issues. A homosexual basher's morality is not this way. Not only does their mindset and morality have no sort of validation that their purpose is being achieved other than what they believe will be achieved, although it is not proven, but their mindset does nothing but the opposite of the purpose of morality: undermines the purpose of justice by placing judgement or punishment on people based on religious belief rather than the objective analysis of a person's actions, harms an entire population of the community under a mindet with no warrant, and otherwise brings unnecessary conflict all based on this mentality. Pain and Suffering/Tolerance: My opponent pretty much misinterprets everything I said and turns it into a strawman argument. The entirety of my sub-point 1a and 1c aims to explain the inherent immorality (with a moral perspective I just gave a warrant for in the previous paragraph) of ex-gay research and the inadequacy of it from a moral perspective toward society in general, let alone children. He, however, perceives this as some sort of implicit notion stating that tolerance will accrue from this, even though my only intention was to prove that the inadequacy of the research exists. If there is anything that I'm trying to prove will reduce pain or suffering at any level is the information posted in sub-point 1b, where it explains the danger of people entering the research in the first place, which moves toward the argument that ex-gay therapy should not be used for children. Misuse of Science: First, my opponent needs to understand my intention in bringing the APA into this matter. I needed a point source of credible opinion which is directed at providing the reason as to which the field of pscyhology exists. My opponent seems to be mistaking the research I post up with a sort of authoritarian claim from some sort of "big daddy" of psychology (even though the APA is the largest psychological association in the world and one of the most respected). Ex-gay therapy misuses science because they use pscyhology in a way that harms people, which is contrary to the general objective of science toward building up a better world and thus achieving morality. If anything, the ex-gay therapy here is unethical based on my evidence (and it's not just because the APA said it was, even though they hold a certain credibility when they do). Long-Term Harm: It's very evident that my opponent completely misunderstands everything that the research talked about. When they talked about the conclusions they came from the 80 studies, they were talking about the conditions of ex-gay therapy itself, and when they talked about insufficient evidence, they were talking about the proof that sexual identities were changed beyond a shadow of a doubt after the ex-gay therapy. This was done by analyzing people after the research, and while they found little to no evidence stating that there was a change in sexual orientation, there was ample evidence to state there were harms from the research. I'm not sure where my opponent believes that I need a single study to prove inefficiency (even though this was not a single study but a general conclusion from the 80 conducted by the APA), but that was never my intention. I'm sorry if my opponent misunderstood that. I hope that my opponent can also run by me a stronger explanation as to why my information from the APA is biased in its sampling in order to provide a more effective rebuttal. My opponent states that I would need to prove morality, but I already talked about how morality has an inherent purpose for society and explained that morality needs to fit along those purposes in order to be valid. This would require only further study based on making decisions in order to prove the validity of a moral perspective, meaning that at the end of the day, something testable would need to be used in order to evaluate not only a moral decision but the validity of morality itself. This still, however, doesn't answer the general idea about something testable cannot be used to prove something untestable, however, when even through analyzing the action through a moral perspective, a look at the effects or on the action itself, meaning evaluation would need to be done. Discrimination: At the point where despite everything my opponent has said about my evidence, even though my opponent seems to have mostly misunderstood it or misinterpreted it, that my opponent has no warrants for the information that he's talking about when he says that ex-gay therapy isn't entirely useless under the idea that ex-gay therapy will be successful (begging the question), the fact that I have evidence on the effects of this research and he doesn't means that this debate will lean more toward my side of the debate when it comes down to the evaluation, and what I have been able to show is that not only are these institutions pretty much virtually useless, but also greatly harmful to the mental health of its patients. Second, paints a black-and-white scenario of this religious family where it apaprently seems like the only option is ex-gay therapy or face the disassembly of the family itself. The cohesion of the family in question depends on the parents' tolerance, and the alternative exists where the parents can just get over the differences. As for the warrant for my drawing the line on discrimination, I believe I had touched on it before: discrimination against a group is morally permissible when the group in question has done something in order to make them punishable. Under my form of morality, homosexual bashers would be punishable because they violated the rights of a person. Under their form, they would not be punishable, but their morality has no warrant anyway. Human rights: I was looking at a general context when it came to human rights. If my opponent wants to talk about the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Child, he should've taken note of section 2, which states that spiritual growth is a right, but this needs to be done so in a healthy and normal manner--a manner which ex-gay therapy does not provide, in conditions of freedom and dignity, which parents do not provide since the action is coerced anyway rather than allowed to have a personal approach to the situation. Whether you look at it through either document, either way, the coercion violates the human rights. I never meant the comment to be insulting, and for that, I apologize.