BMJ  2004;328:955 (17 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7445.955-b

Letter

Treating homosexuality as a sickness

Enlightenment is worrying

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—I remember reading some psychiatry texts as an undergraduate some 15 years ago that classified homosexuality as a sexual disorder. Now, thanks to progressive "enlightenment," homosexuality has not only been declassified, but also decriminalised—at least in most of the Western world.1

However, some of us still struggle with these changes for different reasons. Watching a programme on BBC1 (Question Time) recently, I learnt that people in one or two European countries adopt a rather more relaxed attitude towards paedophilia (which to my knowledge is still classified as abnormal and criminal) than we do here in the United Kingdom. So what I, as a father of young children, would most like to learn from those who know about these things is how quickly we as a society and profession are likely to become "enlightened" enough to declassify or decriminalise paedophilia?

Uche O Igbokwe, acting consultant histopathologist

Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore, Middlesex HA7 4LP ucheure@doctors.org.uk

Competing interests: UOI is a Christian and . . . [Full text of this article]


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