Rev. Rebecca Voelkel of the National Religious Leadership Roundtable stated today:
The American Psychological Association has clearly articulated that ‘reparative therapies’ don’t work, in fact they can be very harmful. This resolution is welcomed news for all who support the full humanity, morality and worth of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, especially those of us who do so because of our religious understandings.
At the Task Force, we have worked with more than 3,400 congregations to create environments that are supportive and affirming of LGBT people. In addition to these, there are many, many supporters of LGBT people within many religious traditions, even those whose official policy is anti-LGBT. This is important because, while it may be the most psychologically healthy move for some to leave their religious denomination of birth, for others, faith, family, ethnicity, race and culture are inextricably linked and leaving is not an option. For these folks, finding those allies and supporters within their tradition is critical to spiritual and mental health.
Additionally, the report makes some important statements about the relationship between science and religion. Being deeply religious does not necessarily mean being anti-LGBT. In fact, this report shows that religious practice and belief can and does translate into support for LGBT people. The truth is that religion and science do not have to be opposed to one another. In fact, science can be an enormously important tool for understanding the grandeur and wonder of God’s creation. In this case, science helps us understand more fully the gift of sexuality ‚Äî one of God’s greatest gifts.
this is very good news a better world
Rebecca Voelkel misunderstands the recommendations review of harm of change therapies. See quote below from the APA’s report. Also, the APA’s report makes no comment about the increased health risks that come from living a sexually active gay lifestyle. http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/msm/resources/factsheets/msm.htm
A holistic and sincerely caring approach to those who struggle with gay feelings requires facts about all risks. By the APA’s own admission, there is no clear indication of harm for having change therapy, but the CDC has some fairly objective numbers for life threatening illness that may affect men who seek same sex partners.
“We conclude that there is a dearth of scientifically
sound research on the safety of SOCE. Early and recent
research studies provide no clear indication of the
prevalence of harmful
outcomes among people
who have undergone
efforts to change their
sexual orientation
or the frequency of
occurrence of harm
because no study to date
of adequate scientific
rigor has been explicitly
designed to do so. Thus,
we cannot conclude how
likely it is that harm
will occur from SOCE.
However, studies from
both periods indicate
that attempts to change sexual orientation may cause
or exacerbate distress and poor mental health in some
individuals, including depression and suicidal thoughts.
The lack of rigorous research on the safety of SOCE
represents a serious concern, as do studies that report
perceptions of harm (cf. Lilienfeld, 2007).”
BeckySue,
Your contention — that SOCEs should be recklessly conducted by amateur, unprofessional, self-appointed “counselors” until or unless there is peer-reviewed proof of harm, even when it is clear from the research that SOCEs generally do not change orientation and that the parent-blaming theories underpinning most SOCE are false — is contrary to basic medical ethics. The first priority is to avoid harm, not to charge forward with potentially dangerous treatment.
Furthermore, you misrepresent CDC data, which reflects the dangers of same-gender multi-partner sex without condoms — not “a sexually active gay lifestyle.”
BeckySue, I’d just like to point out something that is often overlooked. You refer to “the increased health risks that come from living a sexually active gay lifestyle [sic].”
Yes, there are health risks associated with gay sex. But people aren’t going to stop having gay sex because, you see — and I mention it just in case it hadn’t occurred to you — some of us are gay.
It’ the same with heterosexual sex. There are health risks associated with that too. A woman who abstains completely from heterosexual sex considerably reduces her chances of getting cervical cancer. (That’ why, I believe, it’ comparatively uncommon among exclusive lesbians.) But women will obstinately keep on having heterosexual sex because most women are heterosexual.
There were times in the history of England — and doubtless in many other countries too — when childbirth was one of the greatest mortality risks for women. A woman who signed the parish Marriage Register one year had a very high chance of appearing in the parish Death Register the following year. So did heterosexual women stop getting married or having sexual intercourse? Did they hell as like. The sexual instinct is very strong, whether you’re heterosexual or homosexual.
A realistic policy is to find as many ways as possible to minimize the risks — although some people don’t want to do that, as witnessed by opposition to inoculation against HPV. An unrealistic one is to seek to get rid of sexual activity.
Yes, you could abolish the risks of gay sex if you could turn all gay men into straight men. You could also abolish the risks of heterosexual sex for women if you could turn all straight women into lesbians. Neither is going to happen. This is the real world that we’re living in, BeckySue.
If the FDA took the same attitude toward prescription drugs that BeckySue takes toward ex-gay “therapy,” thousands and perhaps millions of Americans would die each year from untested prescription drugs.
William,
And it is unrealistic to get rid of change therapies. People are going to seek help to change their sexual orientation just like gay may are going to have protected and unprotected sex. Do we work to make therapies more effective or do we condemn them?
Michael, How about people dying from untested gay affirmative therapy? I have a friend who could only find therapists who told him he needed to accept he was gay. He has slept with over 1500 people and he was very unhappy with himself. Grief therapy over unusual childhood suffering has helped him stop using sex with men as a defense against sadness and then helped him face life as it really was and is. (I recognize that others may not feel this is applicable to them, but it is true for my friend). Prior to the therapy, he was suicidal.
Also, Michael, on your first comment,
The whole point of NARTH is to improve this type of therapy that some feel the need to request. Additionally, a good therapist goes where his or her client goes. A good therapist doesn’t “tell” his client that his parents did this to him. He just listens. The things needing to be grieved will present if you just listen because the client is the one holding this knowledge. Also, NARTH therapists can have different schools of thought on the parental influence aspect.
I do not write to attack men who are happy living a gay lifestyle. You made that choice after a long struggle no doubt. It is not my place to judge you. But some have and will benefit from what NARTH offers and I believe the recent report from the APA is biased and may hurt individuals’ access to needed mental health care services as relates to treating depression and anxiety.
type correction…pardon me.
William,
And it is unrealistic to get rid of change therapies. People are going to seek help to change their sexual orientation just like gay men are going to have protected and unprotected sex. Do we work to make therapies more effective or do we condemn them?
BeckySue, I take issue with your use of the expression “change therapies”. The word therapy derives from the Greek word “therapeuo”, which means “to cure”. Homosexuality is not a disease or a disorder, and cannot therefore be cured. But that’ perhaps a small point.
Now there will always be people who are dissatisfied with some aspect of themselves which isn’t an illness, whether its their height, the colour of their eyes or their sexual orientation, so yes, people are going to seek help to change their sexual orientation, and they’re going to continue to be disappointed. It’ like the adverts in Old Moore’ Almanac that promise you ways of changing all sorts of things: exercises to increase your height (“You can be inches taller in weeks!”), better sight without glasses, and so on — all for a fee, of course. People have the right to waste their money as and how they wish, of course, but it isn’t a kindness to encourage them to do so. And I particularly object to attempts to MAKE people miserable about their natural sexuality by putting improper pressure, psychological or moral, on them in order to create a “need” for change “therapy”.
If at some time in the future a way can be found that will GENUINELY change someone’ sexual orientation, then I don’t see a problem with that, but I would condemn unreservedly any attempt to pressure anyone, no matter how subtly, into availing himself/herself of it.
As for your friend who has slept with over 1500 people and was very unhappy with himself, well it’ a good thing if he’ been able to stop using promiscuous sex as an anaesthetic, and even better that he’ no longer suicidal. Heterosexual people can use (or abuse) sex in this way too; my dad knew a bloke who did it. You say that he’ stopped “using sex with men as a defense against sadness” and can now “face life as it really was and is”. Good. Has his sexual orientation changed, however? You don’t tell us. Is he having sex with anyone? Perhaps he’ living a life of sexual abstinence at the moment, and that may the best thing for him at the present time. But it’ quite likely that sooner or later he’ going to actually fall in love with someone — people usually do. Will it be a man or a woman?
There was a television documentary shown here in the UK a couple of years ago entitled “Sad to Be Gay”. It followed the progress of a gay bi-racial BBC journalist through an ex-gay programme in America. He’d had a very miserable childhood, being rejected by his mother and being shunted from one children’ home to another, where he was repeatedly abused. He had been very promiscuous as a gay adult and was very unhappy with himself, just like your friend, so he went over to America and enrolled in a Love in Action programme. The only benefit that he received from it — and it was a valuable one — was learning not to have sex on every possible occasion and with every possible guy. He said that he now hadn’t had sex for months, and felt very happy about having recovered from his sexual addiction. But had his sexual orientation changed? No, he said. He was still as gay as ever.
BeckySue,
NARTH does not “improve” therapy. As I indicated here:
http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/apa-repudiates-bogus-claims-of-narth-founder-joseph-nicolosi/
the APA report repeatedly criticized NARTH co-founder and former president Joe Nicolosi for his flawed, rigged research.
Furthermore, Nicolosi attempted to join the APA task force in order to obstruct the report’s objective, independent analysis of his research and that of other researchers.
NARTH is opposed to objectivity, the scientific method, and standard professional ethical precautions which protect patient welfare and which forbid therapists from inflicting their own agendas upon clients.
It disappoints me that you falsely attribute your own strawman arguments to a responsible therapist, and blame that therapist for the reckless and unsafe sexual activity that is promoted by ex-gay and antigay therapists as “the gay lifestyle.”