ABSTRACT
Professionals in the “helping professions” continue to debate whether homosexuality is a vice, a disorder, or merely a variant in sexual orientation, and whether it merits modification and treatment, punishment, or just acceptance. This chapter aims to offer a review of the research findings on the attitudes and practices of health professionals toward homosexuality. The American Psychological Association adopted the official statement that “homosexuality per se implies no impairment in judgement, stability, reliability, or general social or vocational capabilities”. As might be expected, there is some similarity between the attitudes toward homosexuality and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome among other medical professions. The training of mental health professionals is designed to foster empathy, unconditional positive regard, and respect for the individual. The nurses were more negative toward homosexual patients regardless of their diagnosis, suggesting that sexual orientation was an important factor in their prejudice independent of human immunodeficiency virus antibody status.
