Slashdot Mirror
Apple's App Store Accepts 'Gay Cure' App
parallel_prankster writes "Apple is under fire for approving a controversial app created by a religious organization — Exodus International. The app seeks to help gay individuals become heterosexual. It received a '4' rating from Apple, which indicates the company considered the app to contain 'no objectionable material.' The new smartphone app was released last week and is now available through iTunes. Exodus International claims to be 'the world's largest ministry to individuals and families impacted by homosexuality.' A petition has been launched by Truth Wins Out, which describes itself as a non-profit organisation that fights anti-gay religious extremism on the change.org website, asking Steve Jobs to intervene to remove the app."
Considering Apple is gay.
So would a god bashing app be allowed?
Homosexual? There's an app for that!
How nice for them.
"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Apple accepts this app and they're attacked for being anti-gay, supporting homophobia, etc... If Apple rejects this app, they'll be attacked for infringing on free speech, supporting a particular political agenda, etc... Either way, you're pissing customers off.
But all I feel is schadenfreude. They got themselves into this mess by imposing editorial control over the iPhone in the first place. They made their bed, now they get to lie in it.
"Stop using Apple products."
So... an app designed to turn black people white and de-black-ify their speech and appearance would just be good natured fun too? Just curious.
Homosexuality is not a choice and is not a disease. It can no more be 'cured' than heterosexuality, or race, or eye color (you can put in colored contacts -- just like you can go into the closet -- but it doesn't change the underlying reality of your eye color -- or sexuality).
The app is ignorant and bigoted and offensive, as well as pushing an agenda based on hatered and lies. That honestly sounds like 'good natured fun' to you? Really?
I agree with you that the app is absurd. But I don't find it particularly hilarious, especially knowing the number of people damaged and even driven to suicide by anti-gay "ex-gay" programs. There's a real human cost here, and I just can't laugh at that.
It was wrong to censor the Mark Fiore app, it is wrong to deny porn apps, but since that's the path Apple have chosen to take, I'd also expect them to censor an app which implies someone's sexuality is a thing which can or should be 'cured'.
Apple should be supporting free speech, and if that were the case I would say that while I find the opinions of the app developer extremely unpleasant, I support their right to speak. But Apple aren't supporting free speech in general - if the conservative groups get censorship of content they find offensive, then the gay right groups damn well deserve the same treatment. By far the preferable option is to defend that which I despise just as strongly as that which I support, but the horse already bolted there.
It took awhile, but Apple is finally going to have to face the consequences for putting themselves in a position to choose what is and is not allowed to run on their devices. Next up expect a lawsuit because someone used an app that Apple approved for copyright infringement and then the snowball will really start to move.
It's funny to read the same people decry Apples appstore censorship appeal to Steve Jobs to remove the app on the basis.
Free Speech hurts doesn't it?
I'd also expect them to censor an app which implies someone's sexuality is a thing which can or should be 'cured'.
Why? What if a guy wants to change? Shouldn't he be free to try? Or should other people decide "The Right Choice" for him?
And maybe he can't be "cured", but maybe he can have a life that is closer to his preference. You'd deny him the opportunity to try?
Anyone have a 'Religiousness Cure' app handy that can help people become atheist? Would be fun to watch the reactions when Apple approve that one...
If reading the Bible doesn't turn people into atheists, no app is going to do it.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The app is ignorant and bigoted and offensive, as well as pushing an agenda based on hatered and lies. That honestly sounds like 'good natured fun' to you? Really? I agree with you that the app is absurd. But I don't find it particularly hilarious, especially knowing the number of people damaged and even driven to suicide by anti-gay "ex-gay" programs. There's a real human cost here, and I just can't laugh at that.
Then don't download the app. Neither you nor anyone else has the right to decide what speech is damaging. The human cost for the suppression of free speech is far far greater than anything this app could possible do.
If this country oppressed free speech, then slavery may not have ended, Jim Crow may not have been defeated, and homosexuality may still have remained in the DSM as a mental disorder. At the time, speech proposing the end of any of those items was considered ignorant, offensive, and pushing an agenda based on lies.
Moralities change in this country, and what is considered offensive, dangerous, and disgusting evolve and change. But through it all, we retain the right to speech and that is--more than anything else--what allows us to evolve as a society. It is the thin layer separating us as a free society from an oppressed one where some self-imposed leader decides what is right and what is wrong.
1. It doesn't sound like a "completely unrelated point" to me ...
2. You come across as a "the gentleman doth protest too much" type. Repressing?
As for your prior claim:
Do you have any proof that sexuality of any sort is a "preference"? Did you wake up one day and decide that you were going to be a straight sexually-repressed Catholic? Or did you become straight because Jesus, the Bible, or someone else told you it was the "right thing to do and you should put away those shameful lusts?
Or did you instead just realize that you instinctively preferred partners of the opposite sex? Same as gays and lesbians realize it despite all the social pressure to deny it?
If you don't want people criticizing your bigoty, JUST DON'T POST! It's that simple!
But since you put it out there, let's see some proof of your claim that heterosexuality, homosexuality, lesbianism, transsexuality, etc., are "nothing more than a preference."
I'm going to download it so I can write a review. Here's the preview:
"**** awesome app. I was blowing random dudes at gas stations but after 3 days of using this app I'm down to finding Justin Bieber attractive. With constant use, I hope by next week I'll like boobs."
"You don't know any 'ex-gays' either. Because there is no such thing. There are only gay people who have gone back in the closet."
That would be a surprise to those I know. I was wrong on one point. I thought you were going to say they weren't gay in the first place, just experimenting.
Either way, the fact that it is a choice doesn't fit into your pro-homosexual agenda, so it can't be an option.
Spot on. But it's important to remember that we're seeing a trivialization of government, despite the ongoing claims of government being "too big". There's an effort to make it meaningless, to put government itself behind the "walled garden" so that corporatists can do as they please. It's why I'm very leery of the "government is the problem" crowd, because throughout our history, if government has been a problem, it's been our problem. But the effort to destroy our institutions is coming from a level above governments. Destroy Social Security so all the enormous amounts of money it collects goes to the transnational banks. Destroy Medicare so the transnational insurance companies can get all that money. Destroy education and the legal system so the big corporations involved in "privatizing" schools, and prisons can collect all the money. There's a law in Michigan being passed by their GOP government to allow the governor to take any municipal government, any town, any county and just hand it over to "private industry" (which just happens to be the governor's buddies). There will still be taxes collected, but it will go into the hands of people beyond the control of citizens. After all, if you objected to say, Haliburton, how would you go about using the "free market" to bring them in line? How do you vote Haliburton or Bank of America or Goldman Sachs out of power?None of us are their customers.
TaoPhoenix, you're right on the mark with your "fast and rough theory". And the best we can hope for is that the "deep social pressure" overflows with enough force to disrupt their plans.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That's not how personal preferences are formed. You don't have a genetic program that determines who you will have sex with. If there were a gay gene, they'd have found it by now. Sex is a creative process, and the people taking part in it decide how it will happen. Saying you don't choose to be gay is like saying you don't choose to be an engineer. I happen to be an engineer, but I don't believe that I had to be one, or that I could not put down my computer and pick a paintbrush or a hammer tomorrow if I wanted to.
Human development is a process of growth and exploration. It's not a deterministic process of like following a flow chart to your destination. People self-select who they are and who they will become. It is an amazing process that is shrouded in mystery. Telling someone that they are who they are, and they can't choose is as bad as telling them that it's wrong to be who they are because the did have a choice. Either is dis-empowering and unloving. Ultimately, you are responsible for who you are and who you will become. Where these Christian nut-jobs get screwed up they think it's their job to take that responsibility from the ones who rightly have it.
This app is misguided, but it's completely voluntary. If it's another step in people learning about who they are and taking the next step, I'm all for it, no matter how misguided it is.