Clinical psychologist?!?
This is just too tragicomic not to post. Welcome to Pride Week in Bulgaria, which is Homophobia Week for some people! And again I'm wondering how to summarize it for you because it's too much to translate.
This is a discussion for or against the forthcoming Sofia Pride in the "Hello, Bulgaria" show on Nova TV. The gentleman in the purple tie (for the "against" side) claims to be a clinical psychologist, mind you. His name is Petar Valkov, and he said he was a a representative of some "Civil Society for Protection of the Child and the Family" (translation mine). I googled said organization in Bulgarian and didn't find anything. (The other guy was some "musician" and I just didn't make much sense of all he said). The "for" side was represented by my friend Radoslav Stoyanov (next to the host in the middle), who is probably already familiar to some of you, and a newer LGBT activist, Dimitar Dimitrov from LGBT Action. Most of the "debate" was Radoslav (who is a student of psychology) struggling to refute the psychologist guy.
So the psychologist guy started the debate by saying (at 01:00 in the first video) that he protested against "homosexual behaviour" and not the persons who engage in that behaviour (unusual rhetoric for Bulgaria, but no doubt familiar to most of you), which behaviour the pride parades were trying to impose upon the Bulgarian society. Then he expressed his disapproval of the decriminalization of "homosexual behavour." Then he proceded to explain how risky (HIV!) and socially dangerous that behaviour was, I quote/translate : (03:10 ) "more than 1/3 of homosexual men and women exercise violence regularly, [...] 1/3 of them have sex with children, with youths."
And here is the ultimate gem, at 03:30 in the second video: "If today you parade, and impose upon society this homosexual behaviour, tomorrow they'll want to snatch our children from us for you to adopt..."
Now you have a good enough idea of who Radoslav had against himself. But here comes the hilarious part. When Mr. Psychologist started quoted his sources and authorities, he mentioned (at 03:11 of the second video) ... PROFESSOR GEORGE REKERS! It seems that the news of the rentboy scandal hasn't made it to Bulgaria... Then it becomes even more interesting at 04:11 of the second video: "I know that prof. Rekers personally," Mr Psychologist said. "We we've been together to a forum in Hungary.". Then he ended by recommending... the Bible as "The first psychotherapeutic book that was ever written," which wisdom he attributed to some university professor of his.
And now it's time to express my own opinion: I don't want any self-loathing closet cases clinical psychologists to import the American religious model of homophobia here in Bulgaria. We have enough trouble with the fairly secular local model.
On a brighter note, the eminent Bulgarian sexologist Dr. Rumen Bostandzhiev appeared on the phone at 04:27 of the second video and put our "psychologist" into his place... for awhile. If you are curious/patient enough to see the video, just watch Mr Psychologist's face at 04:54-05:12. LOL
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