Conversion therapy revealed

Via Ex-gay watch, the Winnipeg Sun tells the story of an ex-gay minister eventually convicted of sexual assault on one of his patients. Copying from Ex-gay Watch...

A young man is found by family to be sexually attracted to men and coerced through a fear of hell to seek “therapy” to go straight. This is the story that led a young Canadian man to seek out the help of Terrance Lewis, a minister and (former) counselor at Providence College and Seminary.

The man said Lewis started a program of “touch therapy,” which included the two kissing and fondling each other and engaging in sexual roleplaying.

“He said I was to tell no one about it because no one would understand,” the man testified.

During “touch therapy” sessions in Lewis’ car, Lewis asked him to masturbate, the man said. Lewis also admitted to fantasizing about him, the man said.

Many ex-gay therapists have practiced what they call “touch therapy,” including Richard Cohen, who extends this from touching to hugging or even cuddling on the couch. Dr. Chris Austin carried touch too far and was convicted of sexual assault, as was Terrance Lewis in the story above. While certainly not all ex-gay therapists go to this extreme, starting with the premise that sexual orientation should, or even can, be changed has led to unorthodox and at times, illegal “therapy.”

A-ha! So, the much hyped therapies to become ex-gay are only intended to become a closeted gay guy with your personal therapist, eh? Five to seven sessions of touch therapy weekly and you will be able to live a perfectly normal non-gay life. Reminds me to assaults on choirboys, which wouldn't be judged by courts because, in many cases, wouldn't be understood, or be just a matter of the divine, ethics, and moral. Religion, you know. Religion which wants to keep The Only Truth, The Key to Proper Sexual Life, The Authorized Science Guidelines, and The Door to Eternal Salvation. Were I to engage in such conversion therapies, at least I'd choose two or three hot therapists. Ex-gay ministries can call at my door with Jensen Atwood as touch therapist.

Spain pre-election promises, promises, promises...

With most eyes focused on the American campaign, I've just following, like most Spaniards, the moves of our pre-elections season. Eventually, the Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy disclosed some amount of the changes to bring about on society: contract agreements for immigrants to "behave like Spaniards" and "fulfill the existing laws" (I had never guessed that any person coming to Spain, tourist or permanent settler, had not the obligation to respect and fulfill our laws, and that Spanish behavior might mean they will have to shout and scream in bars for most of the Saturday evening, drive fast and half drunk, and learn how to throw papers and all sorts of other rubbish out of the wastecans when walking the streets); of course, on homosexuality the Party is starting to appear more the wolf they are than the sheep: the first (notice: the first) proposal is to ban homosexual marriages from adoption. It's just a first step, I'm afraid, later on it'll come the banning of homosexual marriage too. But the implications are broader: if homosexual couples can't adopt, it must be because they are not able to raise children correctly, and hence... what will we do when a lesbian couple give birth to a baby? Of course, call the social services and find a suitable home. Preferably traditional, catholic, and conservative.

On other parts of the world, Romania's Senate is trying to amend the Romanian Civil Code on marriage to explicitly forbid same-sex marriages, though that's a move which could bring about some sort of admonition from the European Union. When joining the EU in 2007, Romania had to "recognise same-sex couples registered in other member states". A couple of cases brought before the European High Court could oblige lawmakers to rewrite their homophobic moves.

And just two interesting links to finish: Patrick Chapman makes a brief but interesting critic to the NARTH Journey into Straight, showing that studies of ex-gay organizations are not always trustable, while Ziggy on High posts The Gay Agenda according to the US ultraconservatives.

Italian reparative therapy, and exorcising homosexuality out.

Via Vecchifroci I came to know about Davide Vari, an Italian journalist who posed as homosexual in order to enter religious "reparative" therapy circles. Though affiliated somehow with NARTH, the people involved in ex gay movements in Italy are also affiliated with the Catholic Church (Roman, that is), and Vari dissects the process and procedures of diagnosis and therapy in an article published in Liberatione, but also in his own blog. For those of you understanding Italian, this is the full text of its report. In brief, as I'm not really fluent in Italian, Davide posed as a gay man having had "full sexual relationships" with other men "both active and passive", and conducted a series of interviews with priests and psychologists, undergoing what he clearly describes as the Minnesota Test for purposes of measuring his degree of homosexuality, perceived in such circles as a deviation from natural law, perversion, or neurosis, depending on the interviewer.

Prompted by this article, Arcigay's president, Aurelio Mancuso, issued an statement asking to the proper Health institutions in Italy to watch carefully those reparative "therapies" and reminding that as of May 1990, the World Health Organization declassified homosexuality as disease and filed it into a natural variant of sexuality.

Of course, Catholics will not stay quiet about this statement, perceived as a direct attack to the Church: Catholic World News affirms that such WHO declassification of homosexuality was a success of The Homosexual Lobby — whenever I read "Homosexual Lobby" I can't help figuring out some sort of obscure and evil council of leather daddies, smoking cigars, plotting the conversion of all the world's children into gays and lesbians over a huge plasma round screen in the middle of an oval table. It might sound funny but it's the 21st century and you can't bring up again the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, can you? — plus defending their psychologists in the worst way they could to the eyes of a former Catholic: building their academic authority in their militancy with the Legionaries of Christ.

But on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, AlterNet offers an interesting interview with Scott Harrison, who

"desperately tried to change his sexual orientation in various "ex-gay" ministries for eight years, three of them as a ministry leader in Southern California. Most of his experience with ex-gay groups — Christian organizations that see homosexuality as a choice that can be changed with proper therapy — was with Living Waters and Desert Stream, two curricula of a national ex-gay network that has more than 80 branches today. When Harrison joined in 1982, he felt ex-gay ministers were then a band of compassionate outsiders attending to the first AIDS victims. But by the end of that decade, Harrison had taken note of the movement's increasing radicalism, symbolized for him by the minister at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship in San Pedro, Calif., who performed an exorcism on him in an attempt to cast out the "demons" said to be the cause of his homosexuality. Harrison finally quit the movement in 1990 after deciding he could, after all, reconcile his sexuality with his Christian faith."

Technorati tags: Ex gay, Reparative therapy, Italy, Davide Vari

Ex Gay movements turning violent

Ex-gay Watch, a blog devoted to keep an eye on ex gay movements, writes about the relationship between JONAH, (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality) and NARTH. Among the many points of similarly neo totalitarist rhetoric of NARTH, these bloggers count the following:

• NARTH sports a guide to “taking back” schools from pro-tolerance activists, written by Scott Lively. Lively is a former American Family Association state chapter leader (he’s still listed as an active director) and the author of the book The Pink Swastika, which (according to the SPLC) falsely asserts that more gays were involved in the perpetration of genocide than were murdered under the Nazi regime. Lively has used The Pink Swastika to achieve popularity in Eastern Europe and among Russian-speaking U.S. immigrants. Lively is now a leader of a Slavic organization called Watchmen on the Walls (Google translation link), which has applauded the murder of a Sacramento gay man by Slavic skinheads, used West Coast Russian-language radio shows to promote anti-gay ethnic cleansing, and taught audiences that homosexuals have a contagious disease that must be quarantined and treated. If you think this sounds eerily familiar, you’re right.
• Paul Cameron, previously reported to be a supporter of a “Final Solution” for homosexuals and an admirer of Nazi officer Rudolph Höss, is still quite pervasive in NARTH’s library. Articles that cite his work can be found here, here, here, and here.

Another author enlisted in NARTH ranks is Joseph Nicolosi, who, with Gerard J. M. van der Aardweg, the latter being a psychologist deeply involved with the Opus Dei, make the core project of the Catholic Ex-Gay movement, which tried to root in Spain as well as in Latin America apparently without much success, as one can deduct from the site Es Posible El Cambio, promoted by a so called Grupo Juan Pablo II.  It's likely that Courage Latino be more active around Latin America, though.

Finally, and about the involvement of Mr. Scott Lively with Watchment on the Walls, we recommend you an interesting reading, this article from Alternet published on October 5th.

Anti-gay movements are out there and homosexuals are their target. Even physically. Beware.

Technorati tags: Religion and Homosexuality, Ex gay, Violence against homosexuals, Catholic, NARTH, JONAH, Ex gay watch, Courage Latino, Es Posible El Cambio, Watchmen on the Walls

Ahmadinejad, Akinola, and the peanut butter jar

Oh, yes! It's been some hours and I bet the whole TLGBlogosphere is already spreading the video like fire. Well, here it is:

 

Of course, they can't have such a thing. As it's well pointed on Towleroad, they get rid of them. I was chatting with a good friend from the Gulf and he was like ROTFL when I told him about the above statements.

But then that feeling doesn't seem to be an exclusive of Mr. Ahmadinejad. Over the weekend you have all read about the Anglican meeting in the USA where even the Archbishop of Canterbury is seen as taking more tolerant (I hate this word, it should read "respectful") positions towards the inclusion of homosexuals within the Anglican ranks. And then we have our old friend (I'll leave Phelps to you, Lex, I have enough with this) Akinola, touring the USA in order to reap discontent fundamentalist Episcopalian bishops for his homophobic cause. I don't have a single doubt that Akinola and Ahmadinejad could find a final solution for "the homosexual problem". Nor you would read any statement from the Primate of Nigeria in support for the young guys threatened with death penalty in the sharia-applying states of the North.

Akinola, however, is not alone in his crusade for morality. Pentecostal churches (which belong to the same type of belief that Evangelical and in general, newborn Christians are) all along Africa are getting more and more base, as well as in Latin America and Europe. And what solutions do they propose for a problem which is not a problem? Conversion, no less. As I wrote in former posts, newborn Christians claim that it's possible to shift sexual orientation, as if it was a driving wheel, finding Jesus and repenting from abomination. They have scientific proof, grounds of which may be questioned by serious scientists, but whatever, isn't Final Proof of Creation (and not Evolution) to be found in a jar of peanut butter?

Still, what would newborn Christians do with those among homosexuals who don't want to be converted, or fail the conversion "therapy"? Would they handle us to Fred Phelps or to Ahmadinejad?

Technorati tags: Ahmadinejad, Akinola, Anglican Church, Religion and Homosexuality, USA, Ex gay, Conversion Therapy, Evolution disproved

A Story in First Person: Gamal Speaks from Egypt

Time to give the posting space to someone (of course, Gamal is not his real name) who's got a lot to say. This narration I received on the email, and I'm publishing as is, with only some orthographic editing. So, let's give voice to the once voiceless, and you all say with me: "You are not alone".

This might be as a biography of a simple person who came to this world and did nothing wrong in this life but finding himself the way he is. Since puberty I discovered myself attracted to the same sex. I was raised up in Saudi Arabia but got nothing to talk about sex there. I was always touching myself imagining that one of my teachers was doing it. Anyhow I considered my self weird and this feeling needs to be buried because no one is similar to me. Then I came back to my country when I was 17 years old with those feelings tearing me apart, knowing that there is nothing like this in this life. Till I finished college then a friend of mine gave me a chatting program on the computer. It was shocking to discover that there are millions like me all over the world. I started meeting people at the age of 23. I am straight looking and acting, which is really something I like about myself because this may be homosexuality but it’s still men seeking men. Anyhow, the tragedy began when a member of my family saw some pictures and movies on my computer.

I ended up telling my parents about it. I said to myself I have to be honest to every one including myself, so I told them that I’m not attracted to women, only to men, and this was the start of my nightmare, including the way they looked at me, the way they dealt with me . One of my family members whom I really adore more than myself even threatened me about never looking at me again, and my family said they would cut me off from every penny. I was silent as I had nothing to do because I know that this issue is against every religion, but I kept wondering if God made me like this or if I am sick being gay, and why should I suffer of something I got nothing to do with it?!

I’d wish things were stable on this limit, but what happened is that they decided to get me cured, and this was the start of the torture for every one: for them cause they thought there is a healing, and for me because that’s what u will figure out all after reading the story of torture I have been through.

When they asked me to go to a doctor I said this belongs to a shrink so I chose shrink through a friend. This shrink was really open-minded and up-to-date in every thing. When I told him the story he said you got nothing wrong with yourself you can go and live abroad as you can’t live here. We tell people here that homosexuality is a disease so they won’t kill homosexual people. I told my family this result and they didn't get convinced. They sent me next time to an acupuncture Doctor with needles. I don’t know what’s homosexuality got to do with such a thing, but I said yes cause every time I refuse they threatened me of kicking me out of the family house, cut me of money, as my salary cant afford me a good living or even a fair one, so I went with them to the acupuncture guy. he assumed that he is a doctor but believe me he doesn’t even look like a vet. The way he dealt with other people’s diseases was really awful. Imagine a person dealing with serious problems like cancer with acupuncture devoting people that this will help.

This guy was putting me through sessions of inserting long needles into my groin area and other areas in my arms and legs then connect them with electricity at minor voltage which was really so painful that actually pain doesn’t even describe the feeling I got when he inserted his needles inside me. Imagine what after connecting them to the micro voltage electricity. At the time I stepped out of the office I had an accident. Every time I go I keep crying as a babe and keep asking god why me?!

Then I told my family that I was not getting any progress with this guy, so they sent me to another venereal doctor who was specialized in treating sexual impotence. When he saw me he started asking me do u believe in God; and he started talking to me as if am a devil’s advocate. I said to him I do believe in God and I believe in prophets. Then he said those things are repairable by surgery. What surgery I didn’t know, but I told my family this guy is crazy I swear he is crazy. but they didn’t believe me, only till he kept delaying my appointments, then family said he has no experience in this field; so he sent me to another shrink who did the same by delaying my appointments, and then I stopped going to him, till my family said there is a sex therapist who studied in the USA and is able to cure you. She is so famous in this country. A veiled woman talking about sex and she treats married normal couples. I went to her, then she started to criticize every thing in me; kept asking even my straight friends, my relatives, to check on things she said, like the way I talk, the way I walk… none of them mentioned any thing. I felt that she was trying to destroy my self-confidence, and that affected my work as I started to not be able to talk fluently; I started babbling, you know this disease.

So I decided to stop seeing her. Now my family they think I am cured.

Imagine every time I go to any doctor how do I feel?

Each doctor kept taking about money in spite of knowing that there is no treatment.

I understand why my family did so because they wanted me to be a normal son and to see my sons.

And I don’t know if God made me like this, why people make me suffer?

I figured out that the solution will be immigrating to another country, but without giving any shame to my family, because I still adore them, so you can feel the agony I feel every day when you love someone and he doesn’t understand you.

Word Usage in Ex-gay Conversions.

While browsing for more information on ex-gays I've found a web site which includes a detailed analysis on reparative therapy, also called conversion therapy. The whole analysis can be found here, but I just wanted to include in this post their comparison on terminology. Very interesting.

Common Conservative Christian Usage	Common usage by other groups
Homosexuality is a behavior	Homosexuality is an orientation
Homosexuality is what one does	Homosexuality is what one is
Sexual preference	Sexual orientation
"I am cured from homosexuality" OR "I am an ex-gay"	"I was a sexually active homosexual. I am now a homosexual who has chosen celibate"
"I was once in the homosexual lifestyle, but I am a heterosexual now"	"I was a bisexual who engaged in same-sex relationships. My orientation is still bisexual, but, I now choose to have only relationships with the opposite gender."
A person involved in the homosexual lifestyle	A person with a bisexual or homosexual orientation who is sexually active with members of the same gender.

It would be worth checking how much money is involved in such called conversion therapies if the groups advocating those (which are most commonly conservative Christians) really try that hard to make therapies appear successful.