Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) is teaming up with various anti-gay legal groups to intimidate GLBT campus organizations in high schools, colleges and universities. They are threatening to sue if these organizations don’t distribute the bizarre theories of Richard Cohen.

It is hard to believe, but Cohen is the former President of PFOX. They still promote his books and training sessions. And, if you ask for a speaker – they will likely send you Mr. Cohen – who was expelled for life from the American Counseling Association. If PFOX tries to get into your school, simply show administrators this clip of Cohen from the documentary, “Chasing the Devil.” It is clear, based on this clip – and his record – that disseminating PFOX’s material may put students at risk. Any responsible school that protects its students will not allow PFOX near its campus.

Addendum: PFOX last summer was accused by two different scientific research teams of distorting their research.

Exodus International continues to affirm its participation in a Uganda conference 10 days ago which advocated life imprisonment and ex-gay detention camps for Uganda’s gay and transgender population.

At the conference, Exodus board member Don Schmierer yielded the Exodus soapbox to Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, who yesterday defended his ongoing proposal to force Ugandans into ex-gay therapy. Conference organizer Stephen Langa added that Uganda’s life-imprisonment sentence for same-sex-attracted persons is not harsh enough.

Exodus refused to disavow Langa’s or Lively’s views in Uganda, leading the conference attendees, Ugandan media, and Ugandan legislators to believe that Lively enjoyed Exodus’ full support. Exodu also refused to disavow the promotion of ex-gay witchcraft by Caleb Lee Brundidge, who is an associate of longtime P-FOX president and disbarred counselor Richard Cohen.

Since then, Exodus has done nothing to inform Ugandans of Exodus president Alan Chambers’ belated and unofficial statement that Exodus does not support imprisonment or forced therapy.

Exodus officials clearly wish for Ugandans to support imprisonment and forced therapy.

Furthermore, Exodus remains eager for Lively to capitalize upon Exodus’ support — even if these Exodus leaders lack the courage to state such politically unpalatable convictions themselves.

Hat tip: Box Turtle Bulletin

Ex-gay survivor Daniel Gonzales remembers being forced to sit with his father as a leading ex-gay therapist tried to make them falsely believe that Gonzales had been abused as a child. The same therapist later urged Gonzales to help him rig the results of a flawed 2001 study by Dr. Robert Spitzer.

Former ex-gay Peterson Toscano was horrified to discover that the same therapist — the longtime president of a supposedly secular organization that promotes ex-gay therapy — has been using his phony claim to be secular to spread blatant religion-based bigotry having nothing to do with science or mental health.

Now, from 2006 Yale University graduate Gabriel Arana, comes word that the therapist — Joseph Nicolosi of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality — mis-counseled him for three years, teaching him superstitions instead of truth. Among the myths:

• homosexuality is a sublimated desire to reconnect with one’s lost masculinity (the homos-are-pansies theory)
• under-attentive fathers and over-attentive mothers create gay children (the parent-bashing quackery promoted by Exodus and Focus on the Family)

More alarming: Arana confirms Gonzales’ accusation — denied by Spitzer — that Nicolosi actively sought to rig Spitzer’s survey of alleged success stories among ex-gay counselees. In other words, Nicolosi allegedly fostered research fraud: (Read More)

The Washington Times was among the news media that were quick to blame unspecified “gay activists” today for the failure of a symposium on religion and ex-gay conversion therapy that was to be held at the Washington Convention Center at the same time as an American Psychiatric Association convention.

But from the start, the planners of the symposium doomed the forum through political and clinical biases:

• None of the panelists demonstrated professional knowledge of the myths perpetrated and the harm done by so-called conversion therapies
• Former ex-gays — those injured by conversion therapies that are promoted by two of the would-be panelists — were excluded from the discussion
• The symposium was promoted, and important facts distorted, by Focus on the Family
• Symposium publicity exaggerated the forum’s level of official APA support

Political distortion and exploitation of the symposium by Focus on the Family emerged weeks ago. The symposium’s lead planner — Dr. David Scasta, former Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists president — seemed stubbornly ignorant of the damage being done to legitimate science and to the victims of the ex-gay industry, as well as the unearned credibility being conferred upon would-be panelists who have misused religion as a political weapon to promote bigotry and emotional harm among unpopular demographics.

Scasta was quoted by the Times (with erroneous credentials):

“It was a way to have a balanced discussion about religion and how it influences therapy,” said David Scasta, a former APA president and a gay psychiatrist in charge of assembling the panel. “We wanted to talk rationally, calmly and respectfully to each other, but the external forces made it into a divisive debate it never intended to be.”

In criticizing Bishop Gene Robinson for dropping out of the symposium and precipitating its failure, Scasta shows that he naively ignored the ultimate basis for Robinson’s decision:

“I got one e-mail from him [Bishop Gene Robinson] saying he thought I was being used by the other side, such as Focus on the Family,” Mr. Scasta said, calling the reaction from gay groups over-the-top and self-defeating.

“This was supposed to reduce polarization, which has hurt the gay community. They are blocked into this bitchy battle and they are not progressing. They are not willing to do missionary work and talk to the enemy. They have to be willing to listen and change themselves.”

Calm, rational, and respectful discussion is an essential element of sound discussion about psychiatry. But when that tone of discussion is achieved through half-truth, exclusion of essential facts, naivete, and political bias among the planners, such discussion is bound to harm professionalism in the mental-health fields.

Instead of resolving obvious and potentially fatal flaws in his plans, Scasta appears to have shut out early gay-media inquiries about the flaws in his program, ignored Robinson’s warning about antigay activists, scapegoated Robinson, and finally wasted time whining about gay activists. (Read More)