I continue to value the friendships I have developed with my gay and lesbian classmates and colleagues. I believe I have developed, to some extent at least, a greater understanding of and compassion for the challenges they face and the pain they often experience. I believe homosexual people have the right to live their lives free from discrimination and violence. I believe the gospel makes it clear that expressions of hatred, persecution, or violence toward homosexual people are inappropriate and morally wrong. As Latter-day Saints, I believe our responsibility to homosexual people is to care about them, avoid judging them, and seek to help them in appropriate ways. However, this does not mean that we must give up or compromise our religious beliefs that homosexual behavior is morally wrong. Our very difficult challenge, in my opinion, is to condemn homosexual behavior while still providing caring, acceptance, and help to people with homosexual tendencies. I now find myself unwilling to accept the notion that gay affirmative therapy is the only treatment option we should offer clients, just because this is currently the “politically correct” thing to do. I believe that Latter-day Saint (and other) therapists have a right to offer reparative therapy as a treatment option to those who request help in understanding, controlling, and/or overcoming their homosexual tendencies. In fact, if we do not inform such clients of this option, I believe we are letting them down. In saying this, I am not endorsing all “reorientation” or “sexual orientation conversion” therapeutic approaches which have been utilized over the years. For example, I agree with the gay activists that some of the reorientation approaches (particularly the surgical and the electrical and chemical aversion therapies) are dehumanizing and may be harmful (Hancock & Cerbone, 1993). I also believe that we need to further test the efficacy of the contemporary reparative therapy approaches with carefully conducted research. Although the gay activist position (Hancock & Cerbone, 1993) that there is no valid evidence that people can change their sexual orientation seems clearly untenable to me in light of the therapy outcome research cited earlier, I do agree that this data base has methodological shortcomings and that more rigorously designed studies need to be done. Such research could help us better understand which reparative approaches are most effective and what types of changes people are most likely to experience during therapy.I also do not believe that we should impose reparative therapy on homosexual clients who do not wish to change their sexual orientation. The American Psychological Association (APA) ethical standard 1.09 states that “In their work related activities, psychologists respect the rights of others to hold values, attitudes, and opinions that differ from their own” (APA, 1992, p. 1601). I believe that in order to avoid imposing reparative therapy upon those who do not want it, we should not only be trained in reparative therapy, but we should be well-informed about the gay affirmative therapy model and about the challenges and issues gay and lesbian people face. If we cannot empathize with their pain, how can we avoid inflicting more? I also, of course, do not believe that gay affirmative therapists have the right to impose gay affirmative therapy on homosexual clients who wish to control and overcome their same-sex attractions. This would also be a violation of the APA ethical standard 1.09. I believe that ethical gay affirmative therapists will remain open-minded and become informed about reparative therapy approaches and the issues and challenges “non-gay homosexual” people face. Only by empathizing with non-gay homosexual people, and attempting to more fully understand why they have made the value choice to reject the gay or lesbian lifestyle, can gay affirmative therapists themselves avoid being oppressive, culturally insensitive, and unethical. Finally, as psychotherapists, I believe all of us need to be explicit with our clients about our values and about treatment options that are available so as to maximize their freedom of choice (Bergin, 1985, 1991). In so doing, we will show respect for our clients’ right to own and follow their own cultural or religious values, regardless of how divergent these beliefs and values may be from our own. P. Scott Richards is an assistant professor of Educational Psychology and Coordinator of the Counseling Psychology program at Brigham Young University. He is also editor of the AMCAP Journal.

Manhattan Psychoanalyst Natalie Shainess adds that bisexuality and homosexuality are symptoms of “developmental damages” during childhood. A homosexual, she notes, grows up distrusting the opposite sex; a bisexual is in a sense in a worse plight because he distrusts both sexes. Moreover, the constant ricocheting from one sex to the other, says Shainess, can create unstable friendships as well as a chaotic homelife. If there are children involved, this may confuse their sense of sexual identity. She asks: “Is this invitation for anything-goes sex helping human beings lead more satisfying lives?” Her answer: “It is not.”

“Enslavement of other people does occur in the social situations. The problem is not society’s reaction to Africans living freely. The problem is Africans living in undeveloped settings, like jungles. In other words, what is happening here is classic social pressure to conform. Indeed slavery can be painful but it is not all bad. This practice is not in and of itself destructive. However I would admit sometimes it can get out of hand and become destructive.”

Except of course he clearly said “ostracism” and not “pressure.” Perhaps she could explain exactly how refusing to wear a dress harms a girl’s psychological development. And then come up with some way to explain Schonewolf’s defense of slavery. Or perhaps being enslaved was necessary for African-Americans proper psychological development?

“It implies that social ostracism toward boys who want to act like girls and girls who want to act like boys, is destructive, and fails to consider that there is a purpose to assigning gender roles and gender identity and a reason why most societies all over the world have historically done it–the preservation of the species.”

I took strong exception to this and wrote NARTH to say so. Here is how “Sojouneer” (the anonymous webmaster over at NARTH) defended Schonewolf’s comments:

“Michael, Regarding your accusation that Gerald Schonewolf and Narth are encouraging shaming of GID children. Schonewolf is not recommending nor encouraging shaming. He is just stating that OSTRACISM (my emphasis) of GID kids does occur in the social situations. He is saying the problem is not society’s reaction to GID kids. The problem is boys dressing as girls and girls dressing as boys. In other words, what is happening here is classic social pressure to conform. Indeed social pressure can be painful but it is not all bad. This pressure is not in and of itself destructive. However I would admit sometimes it can get out of hand and become destructive.”

When NARTH removed Dr. Berger’s awful suggestions that gender variant kids whould be ridiculed and teased, they “apologized” and explained that they posted his article because they “didn’t know what the guidelines were” for dealing with such kids.

OK. Let’s ask NARTH for specific guidelines for when shaming, ridiculing, teasing or ostracizing kids “get out of hand and become destructive”. How do they decide how much is JUST RIGHT to fix a gender variant kid?

And /snort — no, Satinover does not have a gay son. Last we heard he only claimed to have three children, all girls, the oldest of which is 19. You were most definately thinking of Socarides.

Ahhh, but so hard to tell them apart… and not just the spelling of the names…
“But isn’t one of them deceased?”
“Yes. And your point is????”

Try and find ANYONE on that list who isn’t either at least one of (sometimes all of!):

a religious crankan anti-gay bigotan anti-gay activista conspiracy nuttera therapist who qualified pre, say, 1965

Some are completely toxic. So toxic one wonders why NARTH hasn’t booted them them long ago? (rhetoric question, people).

Yahoo Nathaniel S. Lehrman and you soon find an decrepit holocaust revisionist — not a common hobby among Jews — who along with Scott Lively and Abiding Truth (sic) Ministries is a prolific, albeit plainly unhinged, publisher of the filthy lie that “the Nazi Party was lead by homosexuals” etc. That’s when he not making guest appearances at Paul Cameron’s FRI.

Fitzgibbon co-authored the hideously inaccurate “Homosexuality and Hope”.

van den Aardweg: another fossil, albeit now an Opus dei loon, from the Netherlands.

Mark Stern, presenting himself one way in the interview above (and yes Autumn, that was with Nicolosi) — doesn’t take much to find that he in fact holds these opinions.

[And who else is a member of catholic therapists.org?: Nicolosi and Fitzgibbons; along with his co-author Rudegeair.]

Goldberg, a real charmer who, along with Exodus et al, is working alongside Richard Cohen with the outer-body experience inducing team at P.A.T.H.. Yes the same Richard Cohen. The same Cohen that Alan Chambers claims to have commanded Exodus to avoid Cohen from 2000/01… and yet we in fact find Chambers taking Exodus into coalition with Cohen in 2003.

Harris, Pruden, Byrd et al — conservative LDS, with “conservative” turned up to 11 (and the volume knob pulled off to prevent anyone turning it back down.)

Go, take the challenge!!! Run through the entire list of NARTH officers and “scientific” advisors and attempt to find a single individual who is not, each in their own special way, a professional or personal flake.

Rather than attempt to list those who meet the specs listed above… we’d have a much shorter list if we listed those who do not…

Or, as Doug Haldeman so accurately described in 1995:

In the past 10 years, Christian fundamentalists have enlisted a coalition of old-style psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers who have become very visible in this country and internationally, and who have as a mission to ‘help’ homosexuals get rid of their sexual orientation…

Does this mean Mark Stern thinks Roman Catholic priests are mentally deformed?