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Posted April 23rd, 2008
 By Jack Drescher, MD
(Reprint from AGLP Newsletter, April 2008)
The last AGLP Newsletter announced this year’s APA annual meeting would include a symposium, “Homosexuality and Therapy: The Religious Dimension.” AGLP has no official connection to the symposium, although our convention newsletter routinely reports APA programs that may be of interest to our members.
The symposium’s organizer wondered, “Could we ever get a group of scientists and clinicians on both sides of the religious divide to seek common ground while committed to honesty in the scientific research about homosexuality–no matter what the outcome?” This is an interesting question. Yet while the panel includes two psychiatrists and a psychologist with strong religious interests, there are no scientists. Instead there is a controversial gay Episcopal bishop and the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. So what is going on here? (Read More)
Tags: ex-gay, psychiatry, science
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Posted April 23rd, 2008
By Wayne Besen
In 2002, a large gay rights organization was hosting a luncheon that featured a transgender speaker. During the Q&A, there was discussion on the merits of adding “gender identity” to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) - which, if passed, would protect people from being fired because of their sexual orientation.
In the middle of a serious debate, a new staffer, who was just hired from the bluest city in a blue state, earnestly rose to his feet. He proclaimed that he “couldn’t comprehend” anti-trans attitudes and was dumbfounded that average people still held deep-seated prejudices against such non-conforming individuals.
“Why was this out-of-touch person hired for a GLBT movement job?” I thought to myself, upon hearing his assertion. It was one thing to believe that transgender Americans deserve equality - which I do - and quite another to be “perplexed” that some conservatives are still freaked out by transgender (and, yes, gay) people.
If we are really interested in change, employees of GLBT groups should be as comfortable in the Waffle House as they are in the U.S. House of Representatives. If you can’t speak the language of the American people, then you aren’t much help to the cause.
Workers at our major GLBT organizations should be encouraged to get out of their sterile cubicles and visit places where discrimination is still a daily part of life. It is easy to lose touch with the very people we are trying to persuade, and get a false sense of security when living inside an insular world.
I know this to be true, because I live in New York City, and previously resided in Miami Beach and Washington, DC. Without frequent travel to other regions, it would be simple to confuse the echo chamber of Chelsea with the thoughts and values of Middle America.
Unfortunately, there are some activists who are living in a bubble. This was made clear to me on a liberal GLBT list serve last week when some advocates claimed that it did not matter whether Americans thought homosexuality was inborn or a choice. Nothing, of course could be further from the truth.
To mainstream America, the question of nature vs. nurture is the only one that matters. In most of the country, when a person comes out they get asked three questions:
1) When did you know you were gay?
2) Are you sure it’s not a phase?
3) Are you able to change?
Of course, the answers most often given are:
1) I’ve always known I was gay.
2) It definitely isn’t a phase.
3) I believe I was born gay and there is no way I could change.
When a person comes out to people they care about, these straightforward answers are enough to turn many people from anti-gay to pro-gay. These responses help people realize:
1) Sexual orientation is often fixed at a very young age, if not in the womb
2) A person’s coming out is not some sort of rebellion or attempt to mock religion or societal norms
3) Attempts to go straight are a waste of time and quite possibly harmful, so why try?
The rise in acceptance of GLBT people directly correlates with the understanding that sexual orientation is a natural phenomenon. A May 2007 Gallup Poll showed that 42 percent of Americans believe that homosexuality is inborn, compared with 13 percent in 1977. The number who say upbringing and environment fell from 56 percent in 1977 to 35 percent today.
Residual opposition primarily comes from those who still believe that homosexuality is a casual choice that can be altered through therapy and prayer. A November 2004 Lake, Snell, Perry and Associates poll shows that 79 percent of people who think homosexuality is inborn support civil unions or marriage equality. Among those who believe sexual orientation is a choice, only 22 percent support civil unions or marriage rights.
In a perfect world, it would not matter whether sexual orientation was a product of nature or nurture. But, this is the nation that twice elected George W. Bush. Clearly, the issue of “choice” matters and activists who deny this reality are doing so at their own peril and that of the GLBT movement.
Of course, the message should not be shame-based, such as, “we can’t help being gay.” It is perfectly fine for homosexuals to point out that they are happy and would not change if they could. We should also say that homosexuality is a natural and normal orientation - and the moral equivalent of heterosexuality. In doing so, we blunt the right wing’s pseudo-science where they claim being gay can only come from parental neglect or abuse.
Obviously, bisexuals have some choice in partners. However, they have no more choice in the fact they are bisexual than heterosexuals or homosexuals have in their uni-polar attractions.
While who we love is not a choice, we can choose to be effective activists by telling the truth about sexual orientation and not promoting bizarre ideas that are a distraction and anathema to mainstream Americans.
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Posted April 2nd, 2008 by Wayne Besen
 If the empty mantra, “Just Say No,” failed to keep teenagers off of drugs, it certainly is not going to work for sex. Yet, our government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on “abstinence only” programs that promote ignorance over education, while offering a warped view of sexuality. Like all programs steeped in religious extremism, these are fear-based, anti-science and prone to great exaggerations.
Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) released a report in 2004 that found 11 out of 13 curriculums that preached “abstinence only” were rampant with scientific errors. In another study, researchers found that those who took so-called “virginity pledges” refrained from sex merely eighteen months longer than those who had not made such a pledge. However, the pledge-takers were six times more likely to engage in oral sex. “ The Values Virgins” were also much less likely to engage in protected sex when they finally broke their pledge or to be tested for an STD. Disease rates between the two groups were similar.
Unfortunately, the New York Times Magazine reports that “condemn the condom” clubs are taking root at premier universities. As usual, they rely on breathless, overblown tales of breaking condoms, saying, “safe sex is not safe.” Well, actually, condoms are pretty effective for those of us who had comprehensive sex education and know how to use them. I’ve yet to find one Bible-waving fanatic who can show me an HIV epidemic that broke out among people consistently wearing condoms. (Read More)
Tags: abstinence only, antisex, celibacy, sex education
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Posted March 25th, 2008 by Wayne Besen
– The symposium will be at 2:00 p.m. on Monday afternoon (5/5/08) in lecture halls 159 A & B in the Washington, D.C., Convention Center –
Since 1973, the once dreaded American Psychiatric Association has become an ally of gay and lesbian equality. They have consistently withstood outside pressure from right wing organizations and instead chose to do what was in the best interest of GLBT mental health. Most notably, they endorsed same-sex civil marriage in a groundbreaking 2005 position paper.
In 1997, the APA first addressed ex-gay (or reparative) therapy by stating, “The potential risks of ‘reparative therapy’ are great and include depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behavior…Further, APA calls on these organizations and individuals to do all that is possible to decrease the stigma related to homosexuality wherever and whenever it may occur.”
In 2000, the APA issued an even stronger statement and recommended “that ethical practitioners refrain from attempts to change individuals sexual orientation, keeping in mind the medical dictum, to ‘first do no harm.’”
Unfortunately, a terribly misguided gay psychiatrist, Dr. David L. Scasta, is violating the spirit — if not the letter — of APA policy statements. In May, he will be part of a controversial symposium (Scasta calls it historic) he organized. It includes ex-gay therapist, Dr. Warren Throckmorton, who is the Sultan of Stigma and a leading purveyor of religion-based shame therapy.
Writing in the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists’ newsletter, Scasta claims this forum will seek, “common ground” on “both sides of the religious divide.” He also urges that participants keep the symposium, “scientifically and rationally based” and hopes those on stage are committed to, “avoiding rhetoric.” Near the end of his article, Scasta claims his goal is to “ratchet down the forces of polarization.”
If the seminar’s mission is to let cooler heads prevail, inviting Throckmorton is a curious choice. An unlicensed psychologist who teaches at fundamentalist Grove City College, Throckmorton wrote an inflammatory paper for a right wing website titled, “Is Sexual Re-orientation Possible?”, that compared leaving homosexuality to quitting smoking. (Read More)
Tags: conversion therapy, defamation, ex-gay, identity, psychiatry, pundit, research
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Posted February 27th, 2008
 Op-ed by Wayne Besen
By the time victims of so-called “ex-gay” or conversion therapy reach me at TruthWinsOut.org, their self-esteem has been trampled and their self-worth is non-existent. These individuals were often betrayed by therapists who were supposed to be helping, but turned out to be the root cause of their enormous pain and suffering.
Sadly, such therapists have aligned themselves with religious organizations that send the detrimental message that if a gay client refuses to undergo sexual conversion or commit to a lifetime of celibacy he or she will be socially ostracized or will burn in Hell. From my experience, I have yet to see how such coercive and cruel treatment is conducive to good mental health.
Having studied the “ex-gay” movement for a decade and authored a book on the topic, “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the ‘Ex-Gay’ Myth,” I have found that conversion therapy is ineffective, harmful and anachronistic. These therapies don’t make clients heterosexual, nor do they help reconcile faith and sexuality. All that is accomplished, unfortunately, is enticing vulnerable clients to pay dearly for the identical shame and repression they previously received for free.
Regrettably, a well-financed cottage industry has arisen to deny reality and distort the lives of gay and lesbian people. This is evidenced by a group of politically motivated right wing counselors who filed a formal complaint in February with the American Counseling Association falsely claming that the ACA had violated its own polices and had stigmatized the beliefs of Christian counselors. It’s real goal, however, was to bully the ACA into allowing some practitioners to harm clients, while shielding this damage in the cloak of religious liberty.
In another example, last summer, right wing therapists wrote a letter to protest the American Psychological Association. They were expressing their outrage over an APA task force that will review current scientific research and stances on conversion therapy in a brazen attempt to intimidate the reviewers.
On behalf of the survivors of such therapy, I implore all mental health associations to withstand such political interference and resist the attempt to mainstream fringe therapies that harm gay and lesbian Americans.
There are three primary reasons why such therapy models should be definitively rejected. First, they confuse stereotypes with science. Secondly, they lack peer review studies and evidence that such therapies work – while there is a growing body of evidence that they hurt large numbers of people. Third, they rely on bizarre techniques that are a blight on the field of mental health. (Read More)
Tags: conversion therapy, families, John Paulk, Joseph Nicolosi, Michael Bussee, research, Robert Spitzer, scandal
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Posted February 20th, 2008
By Wayne Besen
Dr. Warren Throckmorton, the shamelessly self-promoting “ex-gay” therapist, has stepped up his holy war against gay people. This week, he organized a pack of fundamentalist quacks to file a formal written complaint with the American Counseling Association. Throckmorton’s crew is upset because they believe the ACA is inhibiting their ability to destroy the mental health of gay and lesbian people in the name of religion. They also believe that they have the special right as fundamentalists to use bizarre techniques and ignore normal therapy guidelines.
What is so morally distasteful and ethically disgraceful about Throckmorton is that he is taking this measure without offering a shred of evidence that his shame-based therapy model works. What Chutzpah! How can he credibly complain to the ACA without offering multiple “success” stories by people other than those who get paid to say they have gone from gay to straight?
Indeed, the ACA should launch a full-scale investigation against the good doctor. He works at little Grove City College, a fundamentalist school in a rural Western Pennsylvania town of merely 8000 people. The truth is, you probably could not find 250 farmers, no less gay people in need of ex-gay therapy in this neck of the woods. To no ones surprise, this brain-twisting blowhard has yet to produce on-record accounts out of his large pool of supposed clients. Clearly, he is either exaggerating the number of clients or his therapy is a monumental failure.
With such a paltry and embarrassing record, why is Throckmorton attacking the ACA? The reason is simple: Throckmorton and his cohorts act more like ministers than mental health professionals. Instead of ethical counselors who just happen to be Christian, they are politically motivated fundamentalists who can’t separate church and couch. This is the same type of backwards, “intelligent design” promoting crowd that wears lab coats, yet disdains science and stealthily tries to slip their oddball theories into the mainstream. (Read More)
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Posted December 29th, 2007
 By Wayne Besen
With Republicans deeply dissatisfied with their presidential candidates they have turned to chicanery to try to steal the 2008 election. This time, they have recruited surrogates on the Religious Right to place a constitutional amendment banning gay unions on the ballot. Although they deny their intentions are politically motivated, it can hardly be a coincidence that the Republican Party of Florida was the largest contributor of the petition drive, funneling $300,000 of the $557,000 raised.
Such cynical manipulation worked wonders for the Republicans in 2004 - when they used this strategy to turn out right wing voters in droves. In total, there are now 27 states that have constitutional amendments prohibiting marriage equality. The anti-marriage train seemed unstoppable until it was derailed in Arizona, where voters narrowly rejected a ban by a 52-48 vote.
The key to this desert victory was that voters were persuaded that the proposed amendment would affect domestic partner benefits for unmarried heterosexual partners - particularly senior citizens. This message could resonate in Florida with its huge population of seniors. Indeed, informing this demographic of the consequences of passing this amendment appears to be the central strategy in defeating it. (Read More)
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Posted August 14th, 2007
 (Weekly Column)
Every now and again, a snake will show its fangs. Case in point is Dr. Warren Throckmorton, one of America’s leading “ex-gay” therapists. Last week, a Nebraska-based website so obscure it was inaccessible by popular search engines such as Google, was discovered by right wing activists. What the website had to say was quite disturbing.
“Without GSA [gay straight alliance] access, students are forced to simply kill classmates who taunt & bully - shooting, stabbing and poisoning are the common forms of retribution.”
Immediately, anti-gay groups rightfully criticized the site. However, they were disingenuous in their conjured anger, as their real target was not the ugly message, but the Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Education Network (GLSEN) that helps students form GSA’s. The GSA clubs protect students from bullying and create safe space where they can find support.
Throckmorton wasted no time implicitly tying the website to official GSA’s - the only problem was, GLSEN, had nothing to do with the website. Ex-Gay Watch uncovered that a country activist, Brian Wyant, who no one outside of Omaha had ever heard of, ran the offending site. The next day, Throckmorton ran a hollow apology, but the damage was done. (Read More)
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Posted March 8th, 2006
 (Alan Chambers)
(Weekly Column)
I know this is hard to believe, but the “ex-gay” group Exodus International is the next Starbucks. The organization, according to its executive director Alan Chambers, is expanding so fast that it will soon have storefronts on every corner where forlorn homosexuals can pray away the gay.
In 2003, Chambers claimed that there are “thousands of former homosexuals.” By 2004, he announced that he knew “tens of thousands of people whom have successfully changed.”
Last week, Chambers stunned the world when he boasted to The San Francisco Chronicle that there are “hundreds of thousands” of ex-gays. This must have been shocking news to the masses of gay people in San Francisco’s crowded Castro neighborhood, that didn’t know they were on the verge of extinction.
Folks, we need to put this mushrooming phenomenon at the top of the gay agenda. Even the success of Brokeback Mountain can’t halt the expansion of these free the fairies franchises. If we don’t stop Chambers by 2008 - a presidential election year - there will be millions of former homosexuals and most will vote Republican. And by the end of the decade, the number of ex-gays will look like a Bill Gates ATM receipt. Exodus might even have to get a sign, like McDonalds, so we can watch the numbers turn to keep track of the billions of transformed lives.
Sure, it seems like more people are coming out, but in Exodus “surreal-ity” the masses are going back in. I know it appears that gay Pride events are growing larger each year, but is it just the liberal media puffing up the crowd size to hide the fact that Chambers is decimating the annual parades? Thanks to Exodus, will Gay Pride soon be reduced to three stubborn drag queens lip-synching on a flat bed pick up truck?
Of course, there are still skeptics who believe that Chambers likes to pull numbers out of his posterior. He bases his inflated figures on the alleged 400,000 phone calls the organization receives each year. Why do I get the feeling that Exodus counts as ex-gays wrong numbers, telemarketers and calls from the pizza delivery guy? I called Chambers twice last year for columns and wonder if I was counted as two ex-gays?
What I find bewildering, is that if there are so many ex-gays, why can’t Chambers provide any to speak to the media that are not ministry leaders or paid lobbyists? Why do Exodus and Focus on the Family use the same tired ex-gays in their advertisements? Why do they continue to highlight the testimony of Phil Hobizal, a Portland ministry leader who stepped down in 2003 after having an “emotional entanglement,” whatever that means? Why must the American Family Association peddle a video by ex-gay Michael Johnston who suffered a “moral fall?” Perhaps, there simply are not replacements for these failed leaders?
One just has to look at Dr. Robert Spitzer’s 2001 study of ex-gays to underscore the difficulty of finding these mythical people. The psychiatrist had so much trouble coming up with a mere 200 study subjects that he unethically resorted to using paid ex-gay shills and referrals from anti-gay groups such as the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH).
There is even a cloud of suspicion surrounding the subjects who said anti-gay groups did not refer them to Spitzer. Daniel S. Gonzales, a former patient of NARTH’s Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, alleges that his right wing therapist “asked me to lie to Spitzer when I called in for my study interview by denying Nicolosi had referred me.”
In light of this revelation, Dr. Spitzer has an obligation to contact all of his supposedly “independent” subjects and find out if they were coerced into participating in his study under false pretenses.
Fortunately, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force released a paper this week, “Youth in the Crosshairs: The Third Wave of Ex-Gay Activism,” that examines how these groups prey on youth, often manipulating parents to force their children into psychologically damaging therapy against their will. These groups harm children as young as five years old and lure them and their parents with comics, youth groups and a slick CD Rom called “The Map.” More studies, such as this one and my book Anything But Straight, are needed to counter the ex-gay myth that is the centerpiece of the right wing’s campaign to deny gay people equal rights.
In 1979, most Americans believed there were few homosexuals. To challenge this misperception, the GLBT community held the first of four massive rallies in the nation’s capital. If Exodus wants to silence the skeptics they should put up or shut up. It is time for them to hold an ex-gay March on Washington where we can actually see, once and for all, the invisible hordes that only seem to exist in Alan Chambers over-active imagination.
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Posted March 17th, 2005
By Wayne Besen
As long as prejudice and violence against gay people exists in society, there will be a few gay men and lesbians who try to avoid discrimination by attempting to change their sexual orientation. These tormented individuals often fear coming out will mean rejection by family and friends, as well as withering condemnation in their house of worship. There are groups, unfortunately, who are in the business of exploiting these vulnerable and desperate people by peddling false hope and illusive cures for homosexuality. One such organization is the right wing political group Focus on the Family, which rolls into town this week with their anti-gay road show Love Won Out.While Focus on the Family has the right to prey on people who want to “change”, they also have the responsibility to tell the truth, which they do not. Instead of honesty, conference participants will get heavy doses of scientifically bankrupt theories and misleading information that conceals the true failure rate of so-called reparative therapy.
The facts on this subject are clear. Every leading medical and mental health organization says therapy designed to change a person’s sexual orientation is ineffective and can sometimes be dangerous. The American Medical Association, The American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics all have policy statements questioning the efficacy of such treatments. The APA says that attempts to change sexual orientation can lead to “depression, anxiety and self destructive behavior.”
History seems to reinforce the policy statements of these esteemed medical and mental health organizations. Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper, co-founders of Exodus International, the nation’s largest “ex-gay” group, denounced Exodus after divorcing their wives and holding a commitment ceremony together. Colin Cook, founder of Homosexuals Anonymous, was exposed as a fraud for giving nude massages and having phone sex with the very people he was supposed to be changing. Love Won Out also faced a scandal after the program’s director, John Paulk, was found lounging in a Washington, DC gay bar.
The truth is, the more people know about the techniques that are commonly used in reparative therapy the less credible it seems. For example, one commonly used method is the “rubber band technique” where a gay person wears a rubber band around his or her wrist and snaps it when he or she sees someone attractive of the same gender.
Another bizarre method reparative therapists use to cure homosexuality is called “Intrauterine Memory Recovery”. This method involves helping a person recover a traumatic memory that supposedly occurred while living in his or her mother’s womb. Of course, memory experts dismiss this technique pointing out that human beings can’t remember specific memories before two years of age.
Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, President of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality and a prominent Love Won Out speaker, has a few strange ideas of his own. For instance, he postulates that “non-homosexual men who experience defeat and failure may also experience homosexual fantasies or dreams.” He also encourages his clients to act more masculine by drinking Gatorade or calling friends “dude.” Another leading NARTH member, Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, M.D. believes that anti-depressants such as Prozac may help cure homosexuality.
With such peculiar ideas, it is no surprise that groups such as Exodus and NARTH scrupulously avoid documenting their work. When asked by Newsweek magazine why he kept no statistics, Nicolosi replied that he “didn’t have time.” These groups continue to exist, not to help people, but to help religious political leaders like Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and former Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell deny gay people equal rights. Their message is simple: Since gay people can “change” they do not deserve protection from discrimination.
A person who desperately wants to change sexual orientations has the right to pursue therapy, no matter how bizarre or ineffective. All we ask is that the organizers of Love Won Out and similar groups stop masking political intentions in the guise of false love and pseudo-science. We urge them to start keeping accurate statistics and provide conference participants with key information, such as the failures of supposedly “healed” leaders. To continue to manipulate vulnerable people for the purpose of advancing a religious political agenda is not faith healing, as conference leaders suggest, but faith hurting of the most cynical kind.
When those who are attending the conference learn to accept themselves for who they are and realize God loves them as openly gay men and women, they will finally find the peace and freedom they seek.
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