Ex-Gay Watch

Melvin W. Wong was the lead speaker at a group of ex-gay seminars organized by Focus on the Family in Singapore last week. Wong is affiliated with the Exodus International referral network.

A blogspot blogger, Rabelaisian Rebel, uncovers professional criticism of Wong’s credentials. Here is an e-mail sent by a group of gay-affirming psychologists, explaining its discoveries regarding Wong:

To: “AFFIRM Network”
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 6:41 AM
Subject: [affirm] RE: HELP!: Reparative Therapy Seminar in Singapore

Psychologists Affirming their Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Family

Hi and thanks to all who weighed in on this issue and contributed facts and ideas!

Today the AFFIRM Advocacy Committee has sent “official” letters expressing concern about this seminar to:

1.) Dr. Wong (via his website email contact address)
2.) the California Psychological Association Ethics Committee (via fax)
3.) the Straits Times Forum Desk and Life Desk (this is the largest circulation newspaper in Singapore), via fax;
4.) the Singapore Psychological Society (via their website email address).

If anyone would like to disseminate this letter further, please feel free to contact me (backchannel preferred) and I will email you the letter as an attachment. The text of the newspaper (Straits Times) letter is copied below (minus addenda which quote the APA resolution on reparative therapy). The text of the CPA Ethics Committee letter is quite similar.

– Karen

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter is to alert the public to serious ethical and scientific concerns about the “reparative therapy” seminar to be presented by Melvin Wong, Ph.D, in Singapore, 25-28 November 2003 (see attached copy of the email announcement of this event). Dr. Wong, under the auspices of James Dobson’s group “Focus on the Family,” apparently is importing a highly controversial, ethically and scientifically questionable “treatment” to Singapore, playing on the public confusion and prejudices as Singaporean laws regarding homosexuality are changing. Contrary to misleading representations of his qualifications in published announcements, Dr. Wong is not a member of the American Psychological Association, nor is he on staff of the University of California at San Francisco. His approach to working with homosexual clients is not congruent with that of mainstream American psychologists or psychiatrists. Indeed, “reparative therapy” has been largely discredited in America as discriminatory, disrespectful, ineffective, and often harmful to the patient.

There are three serious problems with this seminar, of which the Singaporean public should be aware if they are considering attendance at this event:

First, the description of Dr. Wong’s qualifications is misleading. The announcement states that Dr. Wong is “affiliated with” the American Psychological Association (APA). In fact, Dr. Wong is not a member of the APA, and is not even eligible to become a member, because he did not graduate from an APA-accredited institution. Although Melvin W. Wong is licensed as a psychologist in California, his degree is from the “Center for Psychological Studies” in Berkeley, CA, an educational institution that is not regionally accredited and not even eligible for APA accreditation as a doctoral program in psychology. He is not on the staff of the University of California.

Second, Dr. Wong’s advocacy of “reparative therapy” is highly questionable in light of the APA Code of Ethics to which all psychologists licensed in California are expected to conform, whether or not they are APA members. The APA Code of Ethics states:

“Psychologists are aware of and respect cultural, individual, and role differences, including those based on ..sexual orientation.. and consider these factors when working with members of such groups. Psychologists try to eliminate the effect on their work of biases based on those factors, and they do not knowingly participate in or condone activities of others based upon such prejudices.”

Third, there are serious scientific as well as ethical concerns about “reparative therapy” that have been raised by organizations such as the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association (see postscript below). It is ineffective, provides no demonstrated benefit, and can be harmful.

It is to be hoped that Dr. Wong will become aware of these ethical and scientific problems and work towards eliminating his apparent biases and prejudice, and towards putting his energy into treatments that actually work to relieve psychological suffering, instead of those that create psychological harm.

Sincerely Yours,

The AFFIRM Network Advocacy Committee
Miriam Ehrenberg, Ph.D.
Marvin R. Goldfried, Ph.D.
Norman Weissberg, Ph.D., Chair
Karen Wills, Ph.D.

Karen E. Wills, Ph.D., LP, ABPP
Pediatric Neuropsychology
Department of Psychology
Children’s Hospitals and Clinics
2525 Chicago Avenue South (mailcode 17-301)
Minneapolis, MN 55404
(612) 813-6344

Focus on the Family extended its ex-gay political campaign to Singapore late last week with seminars marketing “recovery therapy.” And already the lead speaker faces professional criticism for misstating his training and credentials.

The Focus on the Family campaign consisted of several seminars.

A three-hour seminar for “Christian professionals” titled “Preventing Homosexuality” is described as follows:

Homosexuality – Is it learned, biological … or both? Many would have us believe that nothing can be done to foster the development of healthy heterosexual orientation in children. But clinical evidence and experience indicate otherwise.

This seminar aims to help concerned educators and youth workers uncover the most significant factors that contribute to children’s healthy sense of themselves as male or female, and provides clear insight and practical knowledge for identifying potential developmental roadblocks and detecting early warning signs of homosexuality.

The workshop description begins with false assertions about the mainstream health community’s findings on development of orientation, then proceeds to sell the workshop to educators and youth workers without specifying what “clinical evidence,” “factors” and “warning signs” will be promoted. To find out whether the workshop consists of sound peer-reviewed information or quackery, educators and youth workers are expected to subsidize Focus on the Family to the tune of S$50 per person.

Another, all-day workshop titled “Caring for Homosexuals” exhibits a clear intent to manipulate health science to serve a political and religious goal of “change,” not to treat a person according to the individual’s unique circumstances and health needs:

This full-day training aims to equip psychologists, social workers, professional counselors, and others in the helping profession with the necessary framework and skills to guide homosexuals towards an understanding and recognition of their condition so to encourage and facilitate change.

Focus on the Family offers the following profile of its main speaker, Melvin W. Wong (Google search):

Melvin W. Wong, Ph.D
Licensed Clinical Psychologist, California, USA

The Speaker has been in private practice in San Francisco and Fremont for over 15 years, dealing mainly in the areas of family, forensic and neuropsychology. Bilingual, bi-literate and bicultural, Dr. Wong has published more than thirty articles and research reports about mental health in English and Chinese and spoken in the US, Canada, England, Australia, Hong Kong, Taipei and Singapore. His 20 years of cross-cultural experience spans clinical psychology, counseling, psychiatry, therapy and teaching. He was appointed assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine and attending psychologist at the San Francisco General Hospital in-patient psychiatric unit.

Six years ago, Dr. Wong began to take a keen interest in Gender Issues and Homosexuality and has since been actively engaged in recovery therapy for homosexuals. He is affiliated to the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). He is married for 20 years and has a 15-year-old daughter.

Neither Focus on the Family’s profile nor the psychologist’s own online profile mention where Wong obtained his education, nor do they indicate any clinical training or certification in treating same-sex-attracted individuals. In fact, a professional group warns that Wong’s college was unaccredited and that his teaching ties to the University of California-San Francisco are far weaker than Focus on the Family implies.

Nevertheless, Exodus International refers Californians and Pacific islanders to him.

Wong is not the only speaker for the seminar series. The Focus on the Family/Singapore web site links to PDF files listing panels of additional speakers.

The speakers for the seminar for Christian professionals include Focus on the Family/Canada president Darrel Reid (Google search) and Singapore constitutional law scholar Thio Li-Ann (Google search). The seminar’s PDF brochure reveals a partisan political motive behind the seminar:

A liberal view of homosexuality actually harms our families, churches, schools, businesses, government and the media. The truth is that people can escape from the bondage of homosexuality – it is both preventable and treatable.

An evening forum for “Pastors, Elders and Lay Leaders” promises to “deal honestly and compassionately with homosexuality from various perspectives while presenting a biblical basis for better understanding its causes and conditions.” But despite the claim to offer various perspectives, the speakers appear to be antigay evangelicals: Wong, Reid, Victor Roh of Nanyang Technological University, and author/lecturer Tom Harvey.

Strangely, a Google search for Victor Roh turns up nothing relating to homosexuality. And the staff directory for NTU does not even list Roh. Are Roh’s credentials as wobbly as Wong’s?

Continuing the selective morality discussion:

Froma Harrop of The Providence Journal wrote an excellent commentary Nov. 26 on the extremely high divorce rate among Bible Belt Christians — 73 percent in Mississippi, she says; 79 percent in Oklahoma. (Those numbers sound a bit high to me; I’d like to know the data source.) Divorce rates are far lower in Connecticut and in Europe.

Harrop notes that Focus on the Family — by far the best-funded organization leading the ex-gay culture war — comforts its divorced followers while threatening gay-tolerant judges and condemning gay couples to hell.

Divorce used to be socially condemned and very difficult to obtain. Now, however, instead of restoring accountability to their own marriages, gay-marriage opponents like Maggie Gallagher change the subject.

On Oct. 31, Exodus spokesman Randy Thomas accused people who disagree with his opinion on homosexuality of worshiping “personal interest” and having “compromised the integrity of the scriptures to condone homosexuality.”

Unfortunately the eternal souls of those dealing with homosexuality are placed on the back burner to affirm or condemn their temporal sexuality. Most homosexuals understandably look at the church “battles” and think, “I want ‘none’ of that.”

But what some people find offensive is Thomas’ insistence on putting the souls of other people on the front burner — or any burner at all.

Earthly arguments convince them to walk way from the very house of Christ….

Not quite. Self-righteous and self-serving arguments by the political religious right cause some gay people to reject a Christian faith identification as patently immoral. What Thomas describes as “earthly arguments” are, in fact, discussions of faith, identity, relationships, history, and science.

Faith in Christ is a personal relationship not a social war.  The “dialog” over homosexuality has essentially turned into the “art of one-ups-manship” and people will perish for the lack of saving knowledge in Christ.  This is wrong and it must stop. 

Thomas seems to lump together truce-oriented dialogue with a culture war that Exodus has escalated since 2001. This perception that dialogue turns into culture war may be a projection of Thomas’ own journey. Thomas abandoned dialogue-oriented efforts in the late 1990s, while still an ex-gay advocate in Texas, and then joined the Exodus staff.

Cycling through series of futile discussions, dialog and policy is not true fellowship and only provides stumbling blocks for seeking souls. 

Thomas steadfastly declines to recognize that those who disagree with his political and moral opinions on homosexuality are just as sincere and well-founded, if not more so, in their commitment to morality and religious faith. Endeavoring to understand people who are different from oneself is not, by any means, a “futile” effort.

Instead of discussing faith-related differences of opinion with his foes within the Christian community, Thomas dismisses the discussion as untrue fellowship and a stumbling block to his evangelical intentions. But in nonpartisan evangelism, all parties recognize a need to understand God better; in Thomas’ style of evangelism, it would appear that he has the answers, regardless of his imagined foes’ questions.

If a group of people cannot agree on the character of God, His revelation through scripture and the issues of redemption from sin…why are we arguing theology with unbelievers?

In this message, and in his responses to some XGW readers in recent months, Thomas has declined to discuss his misstatements about the religious, moral and political beliefs of those whom he criticizes — and whom he implicitly threatens with damnation.

I regretfully observe that Thomas’ Oct. 31 message suggests a judgmental unbelief in grace, an insecure unbelief in fellowship with a Christian who disagrees with him, and a conformist unbelief in the essential disagreements (diversity) of any healthy faith community.

I respectfully direct the Exodus spokesman to the following writings of Christian blogger Allen Brill:

The Art of Interpretation, Brill’s history of biblical inerrancy

A bible passage about being in the dark when hating a sister or brother

A response to Albert Mohler’s bashing of progressive Christians

I also recommend “The Different Drum,” by M. Scott Peck. The book reflects on the disagreements that are implicit (and essential) in religious community-building.

(There are probably more recent books on the subject; suggestions welcome.)

The Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale) asked different Florida private schools how they might handle a gay student differently from Jupiter Christian, which allegedly demanded the student enter ex-gay therapy or leave.

Exodus International launched a campaign last week against ‘Law & Order:SVU’ over an episode that it apparently didn’t watch, or only saw parts of.

Conservative writer and activist Brent Bozell apparently didn’t watch the full episode, either, but that didn’t stop him from joining the campaign today.

In doing so, Bozell misstates the mission of Exodus; the organization does not merely seek to change individuals’ sexual behavior. And Bozell conceals the role of Focus on the Family in the campaign, hiding it behind the name of one of its publications: Family News in Focus.

Bozell operates the Media Research Center, which presumably criticizes a variety of other media products that it has never seen.

Pro-Family Network is a Dayton, Ohio-based project of ex-gay activist Gregory Quinlan, who periodically uses ConservativePetitions.com to promote antigay political measures. ConservativePetitions.com collects $1.95 for each fax sent by an individual to lawmakers — and $3,000 from organizations having a petition hosted by conservativepetitions.com.

The following e-mail was distributed today by Quinlan. People who sign the petition are automatically signed up to receive political propaganda from William J. Murray’s Religious Freedom Coalition, which is cosponsoring the petition with Quinlan.
Read more…

Meryl Cohn, a.k.a. Ms. Behavior, today advises an ex-gay man on his lack of honesty with his (female) fiance about his gay past, about their “not-so-exciting sex life,” and whether acting straight really makes one straight.

Instead of telling the man to become ex-ex-gay and dump his girlfriend, the columnist thoughtfully encourages the man to talk to a therapist, be honest with his fiance, and see where things go.

Further to our ongoing discussion of selective morality among antigay activists, the Dallas Morning News reports today on the complete failure of America’s clergy to confront the nation’s most obvious and pressing health-related sin: Gluttony. (The link requires a free subscription.)

I’m not joking about this. I really do consider overeating a major ethical matter as well as a health issue.

Conservative Catholic celibate gays in Providence, R.I., say that if God allowed it, they would like to be in monogamous relationships.

But a Nov. 23 Providence Journal story (free subscription required) describes the local Courage chapter as a “12-step program” in which participants say the rising acceptance of gay marriage and civil unions only makes their sexual struggle harder.

“It’s wrong,” a participant named Richard said. “These people in the gay agenda are trying to rationalize, legalize, and make a certain lifestyle choice look good and even holy.”

Separation from, and opposition to, gay couples and gay-affirming celibates seems to be an underlying theme among interviewed group members.

The group’s spiritual director, retired priest John F. Randall, emphasizes the separatist sentiment.

“Their struggle, their life, is not easy — to lead a chaste lifestyle,” he said. “They are like men and women without a country in a way … they must hold firm to a strong faith or they don’t make it.”

He said the men and women are bombarded with different messages in society. “The culture is trying to make homosexuality like a civil right. These people don’t believe that.”

Not that co-existence would be easy for opposing groups of religious activists.

They were told by picketers that they were victims, and the Catholic church was to blame. God loves you, someone shouted, even if you’re gay.

A member of Courage recalled that he told her, “we’re not just living for today, but for eternity.”