The disease concept of homosexuality-as with the disease concept of all so-called mental illnesses, such as alcoholism, drug addiction, or suicide-conceals the fact that homosexuals are a group of medically stigmatized and socially persecuted individuals. ... Their anguished cries of protest are drowned out by the rhetoric of therapy-just as the rhetoric of salvation drowned out the [cries] of heretics. (Thomas Szasz)

The disease concept of homosexuality-as with the disease concept of all so-called mental illnesses, such as alcoholism, drug addiction, or suicide-conceals the fact that homosexuals are a group of medically stigmatized and socially persecuted individuals. ... Their anguished cries of protest are drowned out by the rhetoric of therapy-just as the rhetoric of salvation drowned out the [cries] of heretics.

Thomas Szasz

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alcoholism concept disease rhetoric

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A lack of desire to spend money becomes a symptom of disease that requires expensive medication. Which medication then destroys the libido, in other words destroys the appetite for the one pleasure in life that's free, which means the person has to spend even more money on compensatory pleasures. The very definition of mental 'health' is the ability to participate in the consumer economy. When you buy into therapy, you're buying into buying.

Jonathan Franzen

I'm pretty sure little François A-Houle does not need to travel with a bodyguard. I would like to know when this sort of violence, this sort of protest, has been inflicted upon a Muslim - who appear to be, from what I've read of the human rights complaints, the only protected group in Canada. I think I'll give my speech tomorrow night in a burqa. That will protect me.

Ann Coulter

First of all, I was having fun. I was with a group of good-humored, cheerful, happy people. We were singing old protest songs and old Sunday school songs and clapping. I felt I had to be cheerful to set the tone. We didn't want any trouble or to do anything non-peaceful. Secondly, when I got arrested and the officers lifted me out I was afraid that America would see my underwear and that tickled me.

Cindy Sheehan

The advanced members of the medical profession know that the health of society is not to be obtained or maintained by medicines; - that it is far better, far more easy and far wiser, to adopt substantive measures to prevent disease of body or mind, than to allow substantive measure to remain continually to generate causes to produce physical and mental disorders.

Robert Owen

The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning.

Albert Einstein