Awwww, this is too bad. Poland unfortunately lags behind the rest of the European Union when it comes to abandoning medieval views about sexuality, so Joseph Nicolosi and NARTH were able to book one of their weird little “Reparative Therapy: How To Without Leaving Visible Wounds” conferences at a medical school in that country. But then the school canceled. The source article is LifeSiteNews, so you’ll have to filter this out of wingnut speak and into grown-up reporting in order to get the gist:

A conference on the treatment of homosexuality has been denied use of facilities at a medical school in Poland, after the school had initially given approval for the event. The decision by the Medical School (UM) Foundation not to host the September 16 Reparative Therapy Conference, featuring psychologist Dr. Joseph Nicolosi of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), followed front-page criticism of the conference by leading Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.

“We received a reservation request for the organization of this conference and we granted it,” said UM Foundation President Roman Dworzynski at the time. “I see no (problem). (Reparative therapy) is a scientific theory like any other … When Louis Pasteur spoke about the existence of bacteria, no one believed him.”

Obviously Roman Dworzynski hasn’t been introduced to the wonders of Google or he would understand why he sounds like a product of the Texas school system with that remark.

Gazeta Wyborcza’s (GW) coverage of the conference has stressed that the American Psychological Association (APA) expresses concern about the effects of treatment for same-sex attraction. The APA also states, however, that there is “insufficient evidence” to either approve or discredit such therapy.

Actually, the APA resolution moreso says that there’s insufficient evidence to approve the therapy. The “discredit” part is really you all being cute with language. But again, we’re used to crappy reporting from right wing sources.

Here’s the female Polish wingnut version of Joseph Nicolosi, whining about censorship:

The Foundation for Health and Psychotherapeutic Education head, psychologist Bogna Bialecka, said that her Poznan-based organization has been planning the conference for several months so that Nicolosi could share his professional experience helping men deal with their unwanted same-sex attraction.

“The decision of the Medical University’s governing body is a sad example of censoring the freedom of speech,” she said.

Yes, well, Ms. Bialecka, in the United States we have a word for people like you: quack. She showed up in the comment section to the piece and said this:

It’s still hard time. We are fighting for the right to free speech. And happygael is right. The worst part of it are thousands of homosexuals who don’t identify with gay activism, who are looking for change, but can’t receive it, because of lack of trained, fully professional reparative therapists.

No, you’re fighting for the right to hurt people based on your own bigoted, uneducated, ill-trained notions of psychology. And without unqualified hacks like you and Joe Nicolosi, spamming the public with your perpetual nonsense on sexuality, there wouldn’t BE “thousands of homosexuals” who are unhappy with their sexual orientation. People like you must first inject hate into the discourse for people to be unhappy with their natural sexuality. That said, Bialecka’s complaint about “trained, fully professional reparative therapists” and the “lack” thereof are not the result of censorship of free speech, but more about the fact that no such thing exists.

This crap might fly in Poland, but ask your friends at NARTH how well they’re doing in the United States.

There are two really interesting articles in this past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine dealing with the intersection of religion and sexuality, and both merit a careful look.  In another piece, I’ll examine the one about gay activist turned “ex-gay” activist Michael Glatze, but that’s going to take some time, so I’m tackling this one first.  It’s about the idea of therapists — not complete wingnuts, mind you – helping clients either stay in the closet or live lives which are completely counter to who they really are, based on the clients’ religious desires to remain “pure.”  Or something.  Let me say on the front end that this article makes me want to throw things, because it elucidates so clearly the harmful effects that fundamentalist religious indoctrination has on people.  Having experienced such indoctrination myself, it makes me furious, but simultaneously grateful that I was able to, over a period of years, to abandon that indoctrination entirely.*

The article presents us with a conundrum:  what to do when a client comes in and can’t balance their religious indoctrination/beliefs with their sexuality?  Which wins out?  How do good, well-meaning therapists treat these clients for whom tweaking the specific doctrines of their religious beliefs isn’t an option?  As it turns out, some mental health specialists have some ideas, but I don’t think they’ve found the answers yet:

“I’m a very strong believer in people’s rights,” [therapist Denis Flanigan] said one gray morning at a Starbucks in Houston. But during his early training, he encountered a few clients who either would not come out of the closet or suffered mightily when they did. Christians of the kind who earnestly believed that the Bible deplored homosexuality were particularly troubled as they tried to reconcile their faith with their sexual orientation. The more Flanigan studied this conundrum, the more he came to see it as intractable. Some gay evangelicals truly believe that to follow their sexual orientation means abandonment by a church that provides them with emotional and social sustenance — not to mention eternal damnation. Keeping their sexual orientation a secret, however, means giving up any opportunity to have fulfilling relationships as gay men and women.

“When these clash, what do you do?” Flanigan recalled thinking, and when he began to research the topic about a decade ago, he found few answers beyond the obvious. Antigay religious groups would not condone homosexuality; they thought gays should just give up their orientation, and the most extreme among them offered frightening “conversion” practices. Nonreligious gays thought the conflicted should just walk away from churches that won’t accept homosexuals as they are. “Which trumps which?” Flanigan asked himself. “Religion or sexual orientation?”

So basically, the approach they’ve taken is to focus on the client’s needs and desires first and foremost. Is the religious angle so important to them that they want to find a way to be authentic within that framework? Are they looking to keep a job in that religious framework while remaining husbands and fathers in public?

“Psychological ethics say that we’re supposed to support religious beliefs and support sexual orientation,” Flanigan told me. “But there was nothing I knew of that says what to do when they conflict.” As far as he could tell, the only choice those people had was to give up one or the other.

Here is the tragedy in all of this. They’re working with these clients, trying to meet them where they are, but they’re addressing none of the root causes of people’s anguish, which is caused by religious indoctrination. It’s sad that there are so many people brought up in those sorts of environments, where the idea of “Christian love” has a lot more to do with judgment and guilt than it does with any human definition of “love.” It should be taken as a given that this article is dealing with grown-up, reality-based mental health professionals, so the crock of shit known as “ex-gay” or reparative therapy is not even on the table. No, that has been successfully laughed out of intelligent, educated company in this country, and for good reason.

So these mental health professionals are essentially helping people stay in the closet. That might be a band-aid, but it’s not a solution. The difference here is that we’re dealing with therapists who actually do mean well and have their clients’ best interests at heart, unlike the Joseph Nicolosis of the world, who go about their work with the empathy of common sociopaths. Another therapist, Douglas Haldeman, discusses the approach he came up with to deal with these sorts of cases:

Haldeman found in his research that the vast majority of people seeking to change their orientation held strong religious beliefs; often, these were married men with families who grew up in a church and who felt that they had far too much to lose by coming out.

[...]

In other words, Haldeman was certain that conversion therapy didn’t work, but he wasn’t sure that gay-affirmative therapy — helping gay clients to see that their discomfort with their orientation might come from internalizing a prejudice — would help them find peace of mind, either. In these circumstances, Haldeman tried a different approach.

[...]

The approach Haldeman used was, in the therapeutic parlance, client-centered; that is, the client’s desires took precedence over any values or opinions held by the therapist. So if John wanted to be a gay man who lived as a straight man, Haldeman would help him become that person.

I said before that this article makes me want to throw things. It still does.  I was raised in a marginally conservative home, but ended up being exposed to seriously hateful religious indoctrination in high school in two churches I was involved with.  Perhaps it was because I’ve always been strong-willed that I was able to at least put the self-hatred I had learned, along with the religious spew, in order to at least start on the journey out of the closet.  It makes me seethe knowing that there are others who truly believe what they have been taught, that who they really are is unworthy of God.

Again, these therapists are certainly well-meaning, as they try to find answers for how to treat those who have been spiritually bullied and abused into believing that self-hating religious beliefs are truly what is best for them, or worse, that those beliefs are actually true in any sense.  But the mental health community doesn’t have the real answers yet, possibly because we still haven’t wrapped our heads around the notion, in this nation at least, that spiritual abuse is itself a sickness inflicted on unwitting individuals.  And as you read this piece, you’ll see that this sort of “client-centered” therapy leads to some serious double-lives, some grade-A hypocrisy, in the pursuit of giving these poor souls a little inner peace.

Warren Throckmorton is discussed in the piece as well.  Most of you are familiar with him, but if not, in a nutshell:  Warren is a Christian psychologist who used to preach the “ex-gay” nonsense, but became disillusioned when he realized that the luminaries of the fundamentalist/”ex-gay” industries are common liars, and started to question everything he thought he knew about human sexuality and its intersection with religious faith.  In the section about Throckmorton and Mark Yarhouse, our own Wayne Besen is quoted:

Yarhouse and Throckmorton came up with what they called sexual-identity therapy (SIT). At first, Yarhouse told me, many left-leaning therapists saw SIT as a trick — conversion therapy by another name, and many remain skeptical: Wayne Besen, the founder of Truth Wins Out, an organization devoted to debunking the ex-gay ministry, told me that though he respects Throckmorton, he still believes that SIT is just another way of encouraging repression. “I think Throckmorton means well and really wants to help people reconcile their faith and sexuality,” Besen said. “However, the more appropriate way is for people to find a more moderate religion that doesn’t force them to live at cross purposes with their sexual health.”

Therein lies the rub. Some people of faith are raised to view it as a source of comfort, support, love and fellowship. The fundamentalist world is lacking in those departments, though, if you don’t easily conform to their definition of “normal.”  The sad thing, though, is that while Wayne is completely right about the best way to handle these things — find a more moderate religion, do some research and go through the long, arduous process of abandoning religion altogether, etc. — some people are just far too tortured by their religious faith to do so.  Abusers like to break their victims down until they feel that they are powerless and weak without the abuser around.  You see this with abusive husbands, child rapists and anyone else who gets off on controlling people.  These are also the hallmarks of fundamentalist religious indoctrination.  Find comfort from the pain at the source of the pain, etc.

I wish I had the answers.  Instead I just encourage the mental health community to keep working on their side of it, keep trying new things that, above all, respect people’s integrity and their true selves.  The good news is that more and more people are abandoning religious fundamentalism every day, so future generations of Americans, perhaps, won’t need such therapy as much.  Moreover, more and more people are getting the counter message of love and acceptance and equality — the It Gets Better project comes to mind — far earlier, even while they’re still being drowned in the baptismal font.  The bad news is that as they lose power, religious abusers are digging in their heels and will certainly be around to hurt a few more generations of their own gay offspring.

I quoted liberally from the article, because it’s long and hits a lot of topics, but you all should take the time to read it if you haven’t already.  We all have a lot of work left to do.

*I also abandoned religious faith in general, but that’s not the point, as there are several valid ways to unshackle oneself from religious indoctrination.  My atheism has very little, if anything, to do with my sexuality, as I didn’t actually become an atheist until age 28, nine years after I came out of the closet.

[Warning:  This piece is completely freaking long.  I have tried to make it enjoyable.  If you don't like that, read something different.]

I have been arguing with myself over whether to post on this screed by someone called “Jim O’Neill,” because to do so could be very time consuming.  First of all it is so long-winded that to address its points could take the entire day.  Even simply mocking the piece, paragraph by paragraph, could take an hour.  What we have here is a guy who seems to have gone quite far off his rocker, who believes that obscure, fringe sources and unhinged hatemongers like NARTH and Scott Lively, who are rejected by the entire scientific and mental health communities, are somehow the only ones telling him the truth, and who truly thinks he has found a  nugget of an idea in stating that the “homosexual agenda” is actually the same as the “Islamist agenda,” because both [he says] are misogynistic!  Uh, yeah.  All you lesbians?  You hate women.  So much.  And all you gay men who shout “divaaaaaa!” at the ceiling any time a woman does something “fierce,” are also he-man woman haters.  Also, apparently liberals don’t care about female genital mutilation in the Islamic world.  Actually, I learned all about that issue from liberal sources.  Anyway, but first, before we enter the biggest vortex of stupid I’ve ever encountered [and this is in a world that contains Peter LaBarbera], let’s look at his bio, because it’s funny:

Born in June of 1951 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Jim O’Neill (constitutionalwrites.com) proudly served in the U.S. Navy from 1970-1974 in both UDT-21 (Underwater Demolition Team) and SEAL Team Two. A member of MENSA, he worked as a commercial diver in the waters off Scotland, India, and the United States. In 1998 while attending the University of South Florida as a journalism student, O’Neill won “First Place” in the “Carol Burnett/University of Hawaii AEJMC Research in Journalism Ethics Award.” The annual contest was set up by Carol Burnett with the money she won from successfully suing the National Enquirer for libel.

He is in MENSA, you guys! You know, I have had the opportunity to join MENSA, and have never done so, mostly because I don’t care, but even if I did, you would NEVER see my “MENSA membership” in my bio. I mean, my goodness. But also, he was a Navy SEAL! Now, as we all know, Navy SEALs are trained to be bad-ass and do things like shoot Osama bin Laden in the face, but this does not tell us anything about their perceptive capabilities when it comes to subjects like homosexuality, now does it? Indeed, there are gay Navy SEALs!  This would freak Jim O’Neill out, a lot, as you will see.

Also, your fancy pants college journalism award is named after a campy gay icon, so there is that.

Anyway, let’s jump into the vortex of stupid, but we’ll try not to stay too long.  The supposed thesis of this word salad is that gays should not be able to serve in the military:

(Read More)

I love how evil always dresses itself up with high-minded, euphemistic names. For example, the repressive government of Myanmar is known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council(SLORC). In Zimbabwe, the brutal and corrupt Robert Mugabe’s political party is known as the Patriotic Front.  And, of course, during the Joseph McCarthy era, we had the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee. There are countless other examples of reprobates disguised as responsible leaders or political parties.

We can now add the The Society for Truth and Light to this repugnant list of phonies who hide their sinister behavior, sinful lies and outrageous cynicism behind a facade of “good”. The Society is an anti-gay “Christian” outfit based in Hong Kong that has published an irresponsible report hawking unscientific “ex-gay” snake oil cures.

Although the 52-page booklet is raw hatred of gay people, it is deceptively named, “Acceptance–Caring for Homosexuality”.

How much does this group care?

They are using materials from the discredited anti-gay organization, The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). This is an organization that:

1) Had to kick George Rekers off its board this year after the “esteemed” doctor was caught taking a prostitute on a European vacation that he had met on Rent Boy.com

2) Had to kick off another board member this year, Arthur Abba Goldberg, who had been exposed by South Florida Gay News and Truth Wins Out as a convicted felon. Goldberg refers clients to a “life coach” who asks clients to strip naked and fondle themselves.

3) Had for years regularly published essays by Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, who also is a catalyst behind Uganda’s infamous “Kill the Gays” bill. Lively is recognized by the Southern Poverty Law Center for running a certified hate group.

4) Has virtually no peer review studies on homosexuality, yet mysteriously claims expertise on the topic. NARTH’s information runs counter to every respected medical and mental health organization in the nation — including the American Psychiatric Association, American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

5) Had a board member, Gerald Schoenwolf, who wrote a noxious essay on NARTH’s website that seemed to justify slavery

6) Had used widely condemned and discredited “life coach” Richard Cohen as a therapy trainer. Cohen was permanently expelled from the American Counseling Association for misdeeds.

Given NARTH’s sordid history, why is this Hong Kong organization — that claims to stand for morality — peddling its lies?

Clearly, this  organization is obscuring truth and shedding little light on the topic of LGBT people.

Hong Kong residents should beware of this ministry.

It is selling outdated and bankrupt ideas hatched in America that no one here takes seriously.

Please, do your research. Do not be misled by ideologues and money-hungry charlatans who are out to commit consumer fraud.

Don’t be fooled.

Don’t be duped.

Don’t be misled.

Don’t be taken advantage of.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, July 19, 2010

Contact: Wayne Besen, TWO Executive Director
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org

Therapist Alan Downing, A Key Figure In JONAH and People Can Change, Allegedly Made Clients Get Naked And Touch Genitals

NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out (TWO) released an exclusive video statement today from two former clients of “ex-gay” life coach Alan Downing. The clients, Ben Unger and Chaim Levin, alleged that during individual therapy sessions, Downing (pictured) made them undress in front of a mirror and touch their bodies while the significantly older therapist watched. Unger and Levin call the sessions a “psychological striptease” and believe they were harmed by what they consider unprofessional behavior and sexual misconduct.

Downing, who admits he is still attracted to men, is a major player in the “ex-gay” industry and a practitioner of so-called “reparative therapy”. He is the lead therapist for Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) and is listed on the People Can Change website as a “Senior Trainer” for Journey into Manhood, which is a controversial “ex-gay” backwoods retreat designed to supposedly make gay men more masculine.

“These dysfunctional, unscientific programs are rife with sexual impropriety and need to be shut down,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Too often, repressed ‘ex-gay’ quacks pretend they are trying to get into your head when they are really trying to get into your pants. They call what they do reparative therapy, but it’s more like re-perv-ative therapy.”

“He was encouraging me, ‘it’s okay Ben, you can take your shirt off’…here was a man that was much older than me, and I was around 20,” said Ben Unger, a former client of Alan Downing. “At that point, I was just staring at a mirror with my shirt off and he was right behind me staring at the mirror with me at my body. Then telling me to look at my body and feel my body. It was weird.”

“While I was standing there without my clothes on, he asked me to touch my genitals,” says former Downing client Chaim Levin. “Once again, I communicated that I was not comfortable with it. And he was like, you know, ‘just feel yourself. Just feel it for a second. So, you can grasp your masculinity physically.’”

“If you believe having a closeted gay therapist undressing clients makes one straight, than you’ll believe that playing doctor makes one a brain surgeon,” said TWO’s Besen. “The concept is both outrageous and ridiculous and these sick, exploitative practices should be abandoned immediately.”

JONAH was co-founded by Arthur Abba Goldberg, a Wall Street criminal mastermind who was convicted in 1987 of “fraud of spectacular scope”. Upon completing parole, Goldberg secretly reinvented himself as a moral leader who “cures” gay and lesbian people. Known as “Abba Dabba Do” in the financial world, Goldberg was sentenced to 18 months in jail for bilking poor communities with complicated bond schemes and served six months in prison.

“Given the sordid history of JONAH, this latest scandal is not too surprising,” said TWO’s Besen. “This is an unscrupulous organization of high moral turpitude that has few qualms about harming desperate and vulnerable clients. This group has consistently been tied to bizarre, sexually suggestive methods that are unsettling, dangerous and ineffective.”

Journey into Manhood, where Downing is a counselor, exhibits similar eyebrow raising techniques. Writer Ted Cox infiltrated this peculiar program and was surprised to find what he called, “homoerotic exercises” and a cabin that he called “The Cuddle Room” because it was a space where supposedly “ex-gay” men gave each other inappropriate massages.

“Apparently some of the guys in one cabin threw their mattresses into the middle of the room and had an all-night holding session,” said one of the men attending the Journey into Manhood session, according to Cox’s article.

“How ironic that therapists that claim to cure homosexuals keep ending up naked with their gay clients,” said TWO’s Besen. “Such lurid exploitation has moved from a disconcerting pattern to a full-blown trend and it needs to be investigated by the authorities.”

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights religious extremism. TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes their leaders as charlatans. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.

The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is back in the news after its most prominent board member, George A. Rekers, was discovered by the Miami New Times with a male prostitute he met on RentBoy.com.

This has put a searing spotlight on an organization that works hard to portray itself as reputable and mainstream. However, a closer examination of NARTH reveals that it has long been a refuge for disreputable characters, extremists and even criminals. It is a thoroughly discredited “ex-gay” fringe organization that peddles fraudulent “cures” for homosexuality. Sadly, a lucrative market still exists for anti-gay stereotypes disguised as science and the greedy ideologue “therapists” eager to profit from unnecessary pain. They take advantage of vulnerable people who want to “fit in” and exploit suffering families who are desperate to believe they can cure a loved one.

Here are 13 Key Facts to know about NARTH:

1) Dr. George Rekers is on NARTH’s Board of Directors. He is the author of numerous books including, “Shaping Your Child’ Sexual Identity” and “Growing Up Straight: What Every Family Should Know About Homosexuality.” A major anti-gay figure that used to work at University of South Carolina, Rekers is also a founder of the Family Research Council and testified as an expert witness in favor of gay adoption bans in both Arkansas and Florida.

On May 5, 2010, Miami New Times reporters Penn Bullock and Brandon K. Thorp discovered that he had vacationed with a male escort in Europe that he had met on RentBoy.com. When the anti-gay doctor and his hooker arrived at Miami International Airport, reporters photographed them with a little pink camera. Confronted with the evidence, Rekers said he learned that his companion was a prostitute only midway through their vacation.

“I had surgery,” Rekers told the New Times, “and I can’t lift luggage. That’ why I hired him.”

2) Arthur Abba Goldberg was a prominent member of NARTH’s Board of Directors. He is also the co-founder of Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH). On February 15, 2010, a Truth Wins Out (TWO) and South Florida Gay News (SFGN) investigation revealed that Goldberg was a Wall Street criminal mastermind who was convicted in 1987 of “fraud of spectacular scope”. Goldberg was sentenced to 18 months in jail for bilking poor communities with complicated bond schemes and served six months in prison. Upon completing his parole, he secretly reinvented himself as a moral leader who “cures” gay and lesbian people. As a result of this investigation, Goldberg was removed from NARTH’s Board of Directors in March 2010.

3) In 2006, Gerald Schoenwolf, PhD, also a member of NARTH’ “Scientific Advisory Committee,” wrote a polemic on the group’ website that seemed to justify slavery: “With all due respect, there is another way, or other ways, to look at the race issue in America,” wrote Schoenwolf. “It could be pointed out, for example, that Africa at the time of slavery was still primarily a jungle, as yet uncivilized or industrialized. Life there was savage, as savage as the jungle for most people, and that it was the Africans themselves who first enslaved their own people. They sold their own people to other countries, and those brought to Europe, South America, America, and other countries, were in many ways better off than they had been in Africa. But if one even begins to say these things one is quickly shouted down as though one were a complete madman.”

4) In 2006, NARTH psychiatrist Joseph Berger, MD, a member of its “Scientific Advisory Committee,” wrote a paper encouraging students to “ridicule” gender variant children. “I suggest, indeed, letting children who wish go to school in clothes of the opposite sex–but not counseling other children to not tease them or hurt their feelings,” Dr. Berger wrote on NARTH’ website. “On the contrary, don’t interfere, and let the other children ridicule the child who has lost that clear boundary between play-acting at home and the reality needs of the outside world. Maybe, in this way, the child will re-establish that necessary boundary.”

5) NARTH associates with known extremists. At one NARTH convention, Richard Cohen (see Cohen and Nicolosi videos below) served as a therapy trainer. Cohen once belonged to a cult that practiced nude therapy and was permanently expelled from the American Counseling Association in 2003 for malpractice. Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, a NARTH therapist, has written that Prozac may cure gayness. Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, has been a frequent contributor to NARTH’ website. Lively’ book, “The Pink Swastika” blames the holocaust on gay people. NARTH therapist Christopher Austin, (mugshot left) who taught seminars for NARTH, was convicted for sexually abusing his clients.

6) NARTH habitually distorts research. In 2008, Dr. Lisa Diamond, University of Utah, publicly rebuked NARTH in a Truth Wins Out YouTube video. Diamond claimed that Dr. Nicolosi deliberately twisted her work for political gain. NARTH also uses outdated studies from up to 100 years ago and repackages these invalid studies as new.

7) NARTH recommends “treating” males as young as three years old, referring to them as “pre-homosexual boys.” In our view, this is consumer fraud since parents are unlikely to see results, despite expensive therapy sessions. We also believe forcing children to undergo traumatic, shame inducing “therapy” is child abuse that may cause lasting psychological scars.

8) Reparative therapy is not considered a legitimate and accepted form of psychological care. It is soundly rejected by every mainstream medical and mental health organization in America. The American Psychological Association says attempts to change sexual orientation can cause, “anxiety, depression and self destructive behavior. In August 2009, the American Psychological Association produced a landmark report that said, there was “no evidence” that ex-gay therapy was effective, and many cases it was linked to harm. There are survivor organizations to help the victims of such therapy, as well as support groups for spouses who married a gay partner who could not change sexual orientations.

9) The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is a discredited “ex-gay” fringe organization that peddles fraudulent “cures” for homosexuality. Sadly, a lucrative market still exists for anti-gay stereotypes disguised as science and the greedy ideologue “therapists” eager to profit from unnecessary pain. They take advantage of vulnerable people who want to “fit in” and exploit suffering families who are desperate to believe they can cure a loved one.

10) NARTH believes that heterosexuality is quite malleable. The group’ founder, Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, claims that if a straight male suffers “defeat or failure” he could become vulnerable to homosexuality.

11) NARTH is not a secular organization, as it often claims. For many years, Dr. Joseph Nicolosi served as a spokesperson for the far right Christian organization Focus on the Family. On CNN’ 360 Degrees with Anderson Cooper, (April 14, 2007), Nicolosi said, “We, as citizens, need to articulate God’ intent for human sexuality.” At the Feb. 10, 2007 Love Won Out conference in Phoenix, the “secular” therapist told the audience, “When we live our God-given integrity and our human dignity, there is no space for sex with a guy.”

12) Upon co-founding NARTH, its co-founder, Dr. Charles Socarides, who has a gay son that once served as President Bill Clinton’ gay liaison, told The Washington Post, “Homosexuality is a psychological and psychiatric disorder, there is no question about it. It is a purple menace that is threatening the proper design of gender distinctions in society.”

13) NARTH’ co-founder, Joesph Nicolosi encourages male clients to become more masculine by drinking Gatorade and referring to friends as “dude”. NARTH therapists have been known to practice rubber band therapy, where a gay client is made to wear a rubber band and snap it on his wrist when sexually stimulated. It is a mild form of aversion therapy meant to “snap” the client out of the moment of attraction. NARTH members have also been known to practice “touch therapy”, where a client sits in the therapist’ lap for up to an hour, while the therapist caresses him.

In a post yesterday, I wrote the following:

Personally, I don’t like the bogus term “SSA”, which stands for “same-sex attraction.” There is no such thing (or diagnosis) as SSA and it is a manipulative attempt to separate LGBT people from their natural, inborn sexuality.

The term SSA is skillfully employed to make it appear as if fundamentalist bigots are not attacking the person, just their sexual feelings. It is a diabolical method of creating a medical-sounding term to deliver Anita Bryant’ hateful “love the sinner, hate the sin” message. At least Bryant had the courage to say what she believes and not hide behind euphemisms and phony pop psychology.

If you think I am wrong, ask yourself: Why does disgraced “sexual reorientation coach” Richard Cohen (pictured) love the term SSA so much? It is all over his website and his books. He is basically turning you into a sick patient rather than a real person. The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) also loves SSA.

We should not help our enemies by adopting their language, which is specifically designed and employed to portray us as freaks with a problem that needs to be fixed. SSA — much like STD — sounds like you have a disease that can be cured by running to the local doctor for a shot, the pharmacy for a prescription, or the shrink for a session.

If you don’t think language is important, consider yesterday’s CBS/New York Times News poll. It found a significantly higher level of support for “gays” in the military rather than “homosexuals” in the armed services. Here is an excerpt:

A New York Times/CBS News poll finds that a majority of the public support allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military.

There’ less support, however, for allowing homosexuals to serve openly.

Confused?

The results highlight the importance of wording on the issue. In a test, half of the poll’ respondents were asked their opinion on permitting “gay men and lesbians” to serve, and the other half were asked about permitting “homosexuals” to serve.

The wording of the question proved to make a difference. Seven in 10 respondents said they favor allowing “gay men and lesbians” to serve in the military, including nearly 6 in 10 who said they should be allowed to serve openly. But support was somewhat lower among those who were asked about allowing “homosexuals” to serve, with 59 percent in favor, including 44 percent who support allowing them to serve openly.

At Truth Wins Out, we are not the word police. We allow a great divergence of opinion and if you love to use the phrase SSA, then keep doing so. It’s a free country. Please realize, however, that you are making Dr. Joseph Nicolosi and Richard Cohen quite happy by adhering to their slick public relations scheme.

More than 35 years after homosexuality was erased from the DSM (list of mental disorders) why voluntarily describe yourself in sterile, medical terms, as if you have a “problem” that quacks can “fix” for a hefty fee?

My new phrase of the week:

“It’s Gay, Not SSA”.

The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is a discredited “ex-gay” fringe organization that peddles fraudulent “cures” for homosexuality. Sadly, a lucrative market still exists for anti-gay stereotypes disguised as science and the greedy ideologue “therapists” eager to profit from unnecessary pain. They take advantage of vulnerable people who want to “fit in” and exploit suffering families who are desperate to believe they can cure a loved one.

Here are 10 Key Facts to know about NARTH:

1) NARTH recommends “treating” males as young as three years old, referring to them as “pre-homosexual boys.” In our view, this is consumer fraud since parents are unlikely to see results, despite expensive therapy sessions. We also believe forcing children to undergo traumatic, shame inducing “therapy” is child abuse that may cause lasting psychological scars. (Read More)

Pride Source (Detroit, MI)

Getting Fixed

Confused. Isolated. Depressed. Angry. Lansing resident Patrick McAlvey was all of these things both before and during his stint in ex-gay therapy. Now, through a new video produced and released by Truth Wins Out, he’s just determined to make sure that no one else goes through what he did.

The 24-year-old McAlvey’s video was released last month just as the American Psychological Association announced that “mental health professionals should avoid telling clients that they can change their sexual orientation through therapy or other treatments.”

It was too late for McAlvey, but he hopes that the APA findings – plus stories like his – will help other gay youth to love and accept themselves.

Like so many other gay youth, McAlvey was scared when he realized he was attracted to men in sixth grade. Raised in a conservative Christian home, “I didn’t think it was safe to tell anybody,” he said of his young adulthood.

But he did tell one person: Mike Jones, director of Lansing-based ex-gay organization Corduroy Stone.

“When I was 19, I was kicked out of a missionary training school and was forced to move back home with my family,” McAlvey recalled. “I was kicked out because of my attraction to men, so in that time I was sort of in a crisis mode and was very low, very depressed and just trying to make sense of my life and my attraction.”

He contacted Jones, whom he had spoken with before about his “problem,” and began several months of therapy with Jones that supposedly would cure him and make him straight.

Therapy consisted of embarrassing questions and uncomfortable situations. Jones would instruct McAlvey to lie in his arms for an hour at a time – known in the ex-gay circuit as holding therapy. He forced McAlvey to learn about tools and home repair, and to watch the play “Equus” with him, which features full male nudity. He would ask him to rate his attractiveness on a scale of one to 10.

Then there were the questions. “He asked how large my penis was. He asked if I shave my pubic hair. He asked what type of underwear that I wore,” McAlvey explained. “On one occasion, he asked me to take my shirt off and show him how many push-ups I could do, which I did not do.

“He wanted me to describe my sexual fantasies to him and the type of men I’m attracted to.”

But despite all his efforts, McAlvey never stopped being attracted to men. “I never felt like I was changing,” he said of the therapy.

Eventually, he told Jones he wasn’t going to come to therapy anymore. But the damage had been done.

“I just really came to hate myself; to loathe myself,” McAlvey said. “I didn’t trust anyone and I didn’t allow anyone to get close to me because I was terrified that they might find out my secret and that they would think less of me. I spent many years locked up in my room, crying by myself for no good reason.”

McAlvey hopes that telling his story will mean less LGBT teens face the same tough years he did. “I view it as a real assault on some of the more vulnerable members of the LGBT community,” he said. “I think it’s important to speak up to prevent other people from being harmed in the ways that I was.”

Now, less than five years out of his time in ex-gay therapy, he’s doing just that. And while McAlvey hopes that his video will help others, he also thinks it will help him to move on. “(It’s) a bit of a cathartic experience for me, saying publicly that this is not something anymore that I need to be embarrassed of or regret,” he explained. “Instead, I’m going to turn around and use it for good. … It’s turning a negative experience into something that can be used positively.”

The decision to take his story public took time, and a lot of personal healing for McAlvey. When he stopped seeing Jones, he was still grappling with his sexuality and acceptance of himself. Eventually, he was able to see that it’s OK to be gay. “I realized that I don’t think change is going to happen and I don’t think it needs to happen,” he said. “It was getting to the point where I really was comfortable with who I am, and that takes time, a lot of processing and figuring out how to undo some of the internalized homophobia that was the result of this therapy.”

The video, which has almost 6,000 views on YouTube, is the final step in that reparative process – and McAlvey wants to get his message out to LGBT youth. “I would communicate to them the freedom that I felt when I finally embraced my sexual orientation and accepted it as a beautiful and natural part of myself,” he said of speaking to another teen like himself. “I would certainly convey that it is my belief that their sexual orientation is a beautiful, natural part of them that they should feel no shame for and should not think needs to be changed.”

Focus on the Family does not want its readers to know what the American Psychological Association’s new report says about intentionally flawed studies of ex-gay success stories, and it certainly does not want supporters to know about the organization’s repeated acts of research fraud.

But Focus does want conservative Christians to know what ex-gay lobbyist Joseph Nicolosi, founder and longtime leader of NARTH, thinks of his critics:

Dr. Joe Nicolosi, founder and director of the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic, said the organization has overlooked years of clinical research that shows sexual orientation is changeable through therapy.

“The APA is really failing to not only represent science, which is its primary responsibility,” he said, “but it’s also failing to inform people.”

Good As You, however, points out that the APA report text didn’t overlook Nicolosi’s research; it referenced Nicolosi 60 times and found his work to be seriously flawed. If not for Nicolosi’s legacy of intentionally distorted research, self-promotion, and maltreatment of clients, the APA task force might have had far less reason to spend two years methodically repudiating the less-than-professional behavior toward patients and the bogus pseudoscience of the movement that he led.

Addendum: The APA report criticizes specific examples of Nicolosi’s sloppy research and unfounded assertions.

On page 32:

For instance, to assess whether sexual orientation had changed,
Nicolosi et al. (2000) performed a chi-square test of association on
individuals’ prior and current self-rated sexual orientation. Several
features of the analysis are problematic. Specifically, the nature of
the data and research question are inappropriate to a chi-square test
of association, and it does not appear that the tests were properly
performed. Chi-square tests of association assume that data are
independent, yet these data are not independent because the row
and column scores represent an individual’ rating of his or her past
and present self. Chi-square tests ought not to be performed if a cell
in the contingency table includes fewer than five cases. Other tests,
such as the nonparametric McNemar’ test for dichotomous variables (McNemar, 1969) or the sign (Conover, 1980) or Wilcoxon signed-rank tests (Wilcoxon, 1945) for nominal and ordinal data, respectively, are used to assess whether there are significant differences between an individual’ before and after score and are appropriate when data fail to meet the assumptions of independence and normality, as these data do and would have been more appropriate choices. Paired t-tests for mean differences could also have been performed on these data. There are procedural problems in performing the chi-square test such as missing data, and the analyses are conducted without adjustment for chance, with different numbers of subjects responding to each item, and without corrections to the gain scores to address regression artifacts. Taken together, however, the problems associated with running so many tests without adjusting for chance associations or correcting for regression artifacts and having different respondents in nearly every test make it difficult to assess what changes in scores across these items actually reflect.

Page 62:

Some SOCE teach men how to adopt traditional masculine behaviors as a means of altering their sexual orientation (e.g., Nicolosi, 1991, 1993) despite the absence of evidence that such interventions affect sexual orientation. Such theoretical
positions have been characterized as products of stigma and bias that are without an evidentiary basis and may increase distress (American Psychoanalytic Association, 2000; Isay, 1987, 1999; Drescher, 1998a; Haldeman, 1994, 2001). For instance, Haldeman (2001) emphasized in his clinical work with men who had
participated in SOCE that some men were taught that their homosexuality made them less masculine‚Äîa belief that was ultimately damaging to their self-esteem. Research on the impact of heterosexism and traditional gender roles indicates that an individual’ adoption of traditional masculine norms increases sexual selfstigma and decreases self-esteem and emotional connection with others, thus negatively affecting mental health (Szymanski & Carr, 2008).

Page 66:

The first finding from our review is that there is insufficient evidence that SOCE are efficacious for changing sexual orientation. Furthermore, there is some evidence that such efforts cause harm. On the basis of this evidence, we consider it inappropriate for psychologists and other LMHP [licensed mental health professionals] to foster or support in clients the expectation that they will change their sexual orientation if they participate in SOCE. We believe that among the various types of SOCE, the greatest level of ethical concern is raised by SOCE that presuppose that same-sex sexual orientation is a disorder or a symptom of a disorder. (Footnote: See, e.g., Socarides (1968), Hallman (2008), and Nicolosi (1991); these theories assume homosexuality is always a sign of developmental defect or mental disorder.) Treatments based on such assumptions raise the greatest level of ethical scrutiny by LMHP because they are inconsistent with the scientific and professional consensus that homosexuality per se is not a mental disorder. Instead, we counsel LMHP to consider other treatment options when clients present with requests for sexual orientation change.

Chapter 8 begins with a criticism of Nicolosi, among others, for endorsement of involuntary ex-gay therapy for youths:

Publications by LMHP directed at parents and outreach from religious organizations advocate SOCE for children and youth as interventions to prevent adult same-sex sexual orientation (Cianciotto & Cahill, 2006; Kennedy & Cianciotto, 2006; Nicolosi & Nicolosi, 2002; Rekers, 1982; Sanchez, 2007). Reports by LGB advocacy groups (e.g., Cianciotto & Cahill, 2006; Kennedy & Cianciotto, 2006) have claimed that there has been an increase in attention to youths by religious organizations that believe that homosexuality is a mental illness or an adverse developmental outcome. These reports further suggest that there has been an increasing in outreach to youths that portrays homosexuality in an extremely negative light and uses fear and shame to fuel this message. These reports expressed concern that such efforts have a negative impact on adolescents’ and their parents’ perceptions of their sexual orientation or potential sexual orientation, increase the perception that homosexuality and religion are incompatible, and increase the likelihood that some adolescents will be exposed to SOCE without information about evidencebased treatments.

The report adds on page 72:

Childhood interventions to prevent homosexuality have been presented in non-peer-reviewed literature (see Nicolosi & Nicolosi, 2002; Rekers, 1982).57 These interventions are based on theories of gender and sexual orientation that conflate stereotypic gender roles or interests with heterosexuality and homosexuality or that assume that certain patterns of family relationships cause same-sex sexual orientation. These treatments focus on proxy symptoms (such
as nonconforming gender behaviors), since sexual orientation as it is usually conceptualized does not emerge until puberty with the onset of sexual desires and drives (see APA, 2002a; Perrin, 2002). These interventions assume a same-sex sexual orientation is caused by certain family relationships that form gender identity and assume that encouraging gender stereotypic behaviors and certain family relationships will alter sexual orientation (Burack & Josephson, 2005; see, e.g., Nicolosi & Nicolosi, 2002; Rekers, 1979, 1982).

The theories on which these interventions are based have not been confirmed by empirical study (Perrin, 2002; Zucker, 2008; Zucker & Bradley, 1995). Although retrospective research indicates that some gay men and lesbians recall gender nonconformity in childhood (Bailey & Zucker, 1995; Bem, 1996; Mathy & Drescher, 2008), there is no research evidence that childhood gender nonconformity and adult homosexuality are identical or are necessarily sequential developmental phenomena (Bradley & Zucker, 1998; Zucker, 2008). Theories that certain patterns of family relationships cause same-sex sexual orientation have been discredited (Bell et al., 1981; Freund & Blanchard, 1983; R. R. Green, 1987; D. K. Peters & Cantrell, 1991).

Page 82:

The recent nonreligious interventions are based on the assumption that homosexuality and bisexuality are mental disorders or deficits and are based on older discredited psychoanalytic theories (e.g., Socarides, 1968; see American Psychoanalytic Association, 1991, 1992, 2000; Drescher, 1998a; Mitchell, 1978, 1981). Some focus on increasing behavioral consistency with gender norms and stereotypes (e.g., Nicolosi, 1991). None of these approaches is based on a credible scientific theory, as these ideas have been directly discredited through evidence or rendered obsolete. There is longstanding scientific evidence that homosexuality per se is not a mental disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 1973; Bell & Weinberg, 1978; Bell et al., 1981; Conger, 1975; Gonsiorek, 1991; Hooker, 1957), and there are a number of alternate theories of sexual orientation and gender consistent with this evidence (Bem, 1996; Butler, 2004; Chivers et al., 2007; Corbett, 1996, 1998, 2001; Diamond, 1998, 2006; Drescher, 1998a; Enns, 2008; Heppner & Heppner, 2008; Levant & Silverstein, 2006; Mustanksi et al., 2002; O’Neil, 2008; Peplau & Garnets, 2000; Pleck, 1995; Rahman & Wilson, 2005; Wester, 2008).