Ex-Gay Watch

A number of British conservative evangelical leaders have written to the Daily Telegraph to express their support for Lesley Pilkington, the Christian therapist found guilty of professional malpractice for offering a “gay cure” to an undercover journalist.

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, is among the 70 signatories of the letter. Also joining him are the former Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali, the current Bishop of Chester the Right Reverend Peter Forster, the Old Testament scholar Gordon Wenham — and several names representing the most extreme end of the anti-gay, ex-gay movement in the US. They include JONAH’s Arthur “Abba” Goldberg, PFOX’s Regina Griggs, and David Pickup, Jeffrey Satinover, Julie Hamilton and Benjamin Kaufman of NARTH.

To defend the practice of gay-to-straight reparative therapy, the signatories rattle off the names of Joseph Nicolosi, Dean Byrd, Robert Spitzer, and Jones and Yarhouse, apparently ignorant of just how limited – and sometimes outright misleading — the scope and results of such research have proved.

But Carey et al have also glossed over the reasons why Lesley Pilkington was banned from practising psychotherapy in the UK. That she offered to help journalist Patrick Chapman to change his sexual orientation is almost beside the point — she insisted, despite his denials, that the roots of his homosexuality were in low self-esteem, (non-existent) childhood sexual abuse and (also non-existent) a family history of freemasonry. Lesley Pilkington was guilty of sheer quackery.

It’s no surprise that Lisa Nolland and Chris Sugden of the ultra-homophobic Anglican Mainstream would support Pilkington. But that leading Church of England evangelicals such as Lord Carey and Bishop Michael Nazir Ali would not only support her but throw their weight behind the anti-gay pseudoscience of NARTH is indefensible.

[Edited to reflect the fact that Michael Nazir-Ali is the former Bishop of Rochester.]

A conference taking place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, today offers ways for conservative Christian churches to minister to “the lepers among us” — namely, gays and lesbians, or those who “struggle with same-sex sins.”

Astonishingly, Core Issues, which organized it and an identical conference taking place in London, England, tomorrow [correction: next week], failed to foresee the offence the “leper” label would cause.

A press release issued yesterday said:

The conference organisers recognise that the event’s title “The Lepers Among Us” has caused some misunderstanding, being taken as a call for the church to treat LGBT people in the way that lepers were treated by society in biblical times – shunned and regarded as untouchable. In fact the intention is the opposite. This conference criticises the church for behaving in this very way – treating LGBT people as “outcasts” – and calls upon it to help end prejudice wherever it is found, especially within the church.

So what can we expect of a conference organized by Core Issues? Their dubious choice of speakers in the past, including Lesley Pilkington, David Pickup and Arthur “Abba” Goldberg, of JONAH, shows a strong identification with the type of anti-gay, ex-gay conservatism promoted by NARTH in the US.

Core Issues Trust’s claim that it does not offer conversion therapy is somewhat disingenuous, for while it doesn’t directly offer therapy at all, it clearly stands for the NARTH approach. The homepage currently links directly to an article by David Pickup promoting “authentic reparative therapy” and decrying Exodus International for rejecting it. To support its claim that gay orientation is unnatural, the Core Issues website links approvingly to a PFOX article labelling homosexuality a “public health crisis” and citing the discredited “gays die at 41″ claim. The science section of its websites offers links to articles by Neil Whitehead and Jeffrey Satinover, both of NARTH. The latter is a Core Issues board member.

Core Issues promotes a “compassionate” approach to the “same-sex attracted,” but ultimately its message to gay Christians is that they need healing, and it is clear that by “healing,” they mean healing NARTH-style:

There is a growing body of research evidence indicating that sexual preference is neither immutable, innate nor chosen. As a consequence of our basic sinfulness we all have desires that we do not choose to have but we do have choices with respect to what we do about them. As a consequence our sexual identity can be reinforced or altered by either gender-affirming or gay-affirming lifestyles or therapies. CORE works with people who voluntarily seek to change from a “gay” lifestyle to a gender-affirming one. This is sometimes referred to as a “sexual re-orientation” process.

Merely abstaining from homosexual activity, although admirable, cannot be regarded as healing. Heterosexual preference is the goal of gender-affirming therapy and this may lead to marriage. However there will always be those who choose to remain celibate and single. Such singleness should be valued and respected.

In 2007, the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) posted an article by Dean Byrd on their website.  It seemed written to give the impression that noted geneticist Dr. Francis Collins agreed with both the idea that homosexuality did not have a genetic cause and that it could be changed or prevented.  To be sure, NARTH believes all this, but it did not sound like something with which Dr. Collins would agree.  Collins has a reputation for being a brilliant and reasonable scientist, passionate about the truth.

A careful reading of Byrd’s article revealed some select comments from Collin’s book conflated with Byrd’s pontifications and information from other sources.  We decided it best to contact Collins with our concerns to find out what he really thought.  All this along with Collins’ response is detailed in our subsequent post where Collins essentially agreed with our assessment and then some (read the article for details).

Since then, we have had to recall, re-emphasize and defend that exchange as various groups and individuals repeated the distorted notion of Byrd’s article.  Collins was contacted again and reconfirmed his original position.  Then early this year NARTH resurrected the issue after receiving copies of this writer’s email exchanges with Collins via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.  While they claimed they had made the request themselves, we now know that the information was forwarded to them from the anti-gay Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum who had made the original FOIA request.

In their most recent post, NARTH accused this writer of flattering Collins with “adulation and praise,” and misrepresenting NARTH and Byrd’s article. They announced their discovery of the email exchange as a find, even though the entire thing has been posted on XGW since 2008 for all to see.  Read our response to this if you care to get up to speed on the matter.

We decided to take a page from their book and request any correspondence between NARTH and Collins.  In response, we received a copy of a letter (PDF) sent to him by NARTH President Julie Hamilton sometime after they received the FOIA material from CRC.  In it, Collins is treated more like a doddering old man than the head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  Even though we sent a link to the original article with our email to Collins, and it is clear from his reply that he read it, Hamilton encloses a copy noting “Although Warren Throckmorton [see this post to see where he comes in] and David Roberts led you to believe otherwise, your statements were not misrepresented by NARTH.”  No, Dr. Collins, regardless of what you think, you do agree with us — sheer arrogance.

Hamilton continues to reassure Collins that what he said he saw in the article is not there.  One can almost visualize her speaking slowly to help him understand, the supposition being that if Collins didn’t agree with NARTH, he must certainly have just not understood.  There seems no way for them to comprehend that he really does think they misrepresented him.  Hamilton goes on to lecture Collins in the NARTH mantra of change, trying to plead the case that NARTH is a professional organization and not at all anti-gay.

At the end, Hamilton does what she accused yours truly of, she flatters Collins with her own brand of adulation and praise:

I hope you receive this letter with the sincerity with which it was written.  Your book, The Language of God, has brought joy to many religious professionals, demonstrating that science and faith tradition are not inherently incompatible.  As an evangelical Christian, I testify to God’s love, and it is His love that many of us who provide professional care to those who are distressed by unwanted homosexual attractions find central to our motivation to help.

It should be noted that our FOIA request parameters were broad and yet no reply from Collins to NARTH was included.  In other words, while Collins responded not once but three times to our requests, he did not reply to NARTH’s one and only letter.  That says a lot.

Letter from NARTH to Dr. Francis Collins (PDF)

Although the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality promotes itself as a professional organization, mental health professionals make up a mere quarter of its 1,000-strong membership.

Dr Warren Throckmorton, a conservative Christian and psychology professor who has become increasingly skeptical of ex-gay “science,” obtained the figures directly from a senior NARTH official:

Actually, according to NARTH’s operations director, David Pruden, only about 250 of NARTH’s approximately 1000 members are mental health professionals. Furthermore, some of those 250 members who have mental health degrees are academics who write about sexuality but do not provide sexual reorientation therapy. Thus, the lion’s share of NARTH’s members consist of lay people, ministers, and activists who have an interest in the materials provided by NARTH but are not scientists or therapists.

Throckmorton observes the sharp contrast with the claims of the Family Research Council (FRC), who last month said NARTH was

primarily composed of psychiatrists, psychologists, and other professional therapists and counselors who offer ‘sexual reorientation therapy’ to help people overcome unwanted same-sex attractions.

Exodus International has relaunched its online bookstore at Exodusbooks.org, but some key titles are missing from the shelves.

In particular, there appear to be no books by the notorious Dr Joseph Nicolosi, the father of ex-gay reparative therapy and former president of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality.

Nicolosi’s seminal work Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality (1992), in which he articulated his view that distant fathers and overbearing mothers cause homosexuality, is no longer listed. Also missing are Nicolosi’s A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality and NARTH’s Handbook of Therapy for Unwanted Homosexual Attractions, although I can’t confirm if those two were previously in the catalogue.

So is it an oversight, or has Exodus made a conscious decision to disassociate from NARTH and its promise of a gay cure through psychiatry? If the latter, I can’t help but note that Exodus chief Alan Chambers has harsh words for apostates who try to distance themselves from his own organization.

Anyone notice any other glaring omissions from Exodus’s new bookstore?

Anti-gay activist Dr Michael L Brown will be a guest speaker at NARTH’s conference in Arizona this fall.

Brown, who recently self-published a massive diatribe against the “gay agenda” titled A Queer Thing Happened to America, will appear at a plenary session on November 4.

We’ve already documented extensively Brown’s anti-gay rhetoric and his hostile, inflammatory stance towards gays and lesbians. To this history of homophobia, he recently added a skewed interpretation of the death of Lawrence King, the California teen shot dead by classmate Brandon McInerney. Writing on OneNewsNow.com, Brown placed the blame for Larry’s death on gay activism:

And how can I claim that gay activists are complicit in Larry’s death? To start, there are plenty of unstable children in our schools today, just like Larry and Brandon, yet gay activists are encouraging kids to come out at young and younger ages. This is downright irresponsible.

After all, it is gay activists who constantly remind us that LGBT kids are bullied and even beaten up at school. They tell us how dangerous the school environment is for kids who identify as LGBT, and yet at the same time, they praise kids like Larry for coming out at 10. They even want more Gay Straight Alliances in our middle schools, where pre-teens can declare their gay identity to their peers and faculty advisors without their parents’ knowledge. Why? So they can become targets of hatred and potential violence? If our schools really are so “homophobic” and dangerous, why not encourage these kids to keep their sexual orientation to themselves until they’re in a safer environment?

More of my review of A Queer Thing Happened to America  is forthcoming, as promised — when I have the stomach to pick it up again. Alas, discovering Brown had written seven pages comparing my arguments to those of NAMBLA left me literally feeling nauseated.

Hat-tip: Dr Warren Throckmorton.

A conference on gay-to-straight therapy has been forced to seek a new venue after a Polish university withdrew its support.

The event, featuring notorious NARTH therapist Joseph Nicolosi, was due to take place on September 16 at the Medical School Foundation in Poznan, Poland. The institution cancelled the event before the contract was signed, however, following criticism by the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. A front-page story pointed to the American Psychological Association (APA) resolution stating there was a lack of evidence to support the claims of reparative therapists to reverse or cure homosexuality.

The university said hosting the conference “identifies [reparative therapy] with its organization.”

Source: LifeSiteNews.com

The National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality has congratulated gay-to-straight conversion therapist Marcus Bachmann for “sticking to the science.”

Bachmann, husband of Republican presidential runner Michele Bachmann, runs a clinic in Minnesota offering ex-gay therapy. His description of gays as “barbarians [that] need to be educated [and] disciplined” made headlines, prompting his embarrassing attempt to deny ever having made the remarks, claiming the recordings were doctored. (They weren’t.)

Defending Bachmann in its July 26 bulletin, NARTH said that

change therapies have been offered for the past century and have been found to be successful. In fact, over the past 125 years, change of sexual orientation has been documented via case studies, clinical reports, and research studies (NARTH, 2009). It is clear that change of both behavior and attractions is indeed possible.

This is false. For an idea just how poor some of these case studies have been, familiarize yourself with the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, aka “Kraig,” the subject of experiments by disgraced change therapist Dr George Rekers, who claimed to have cured him of his “sissy boy” tendencies.

More recent studies, such as those by Robert Spitzer, and Jones and Yarhouse have fared badly in proving the ex-gay mantra that “change is possible.” Dr Jack Drescher recently summed up the reality of orientation change by likening success to a winning lottery ticket: “Planning your financial future on a lottery ticket is like planning your sexual future on a conversion therapy.”

Undeterred by the absence of scientific evidence, NARTH continues to manipulate the data to support its belief that sexual orientation can be made to change through psychiatric therapy. Unfortunately for NARTH, at a time when such claims are under increasing scrutiny, its support is dwindling rapidly, as its message regarding Bachmann acknowledges:

Those candidates in the public spotlight, and it will get far more intense as we get closer to election-day, are to be congratulated for sticking to the science and supporting client rights no matter how politically incorrect it is to defend truth and freedom regarding homosexuality.

Knowing it’s an uphill battle, however, NARTH makes sure to trumpet its most pressing concern loud and clear before getting to its defense of Bachmann: Money.

Screenshot from NARTH

The National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexual is no longer offering continuing education to therapists in the state of California, according to SFGate blogger Susan Davis.

Although some activists had tried to have NARTH‘s rights to provide continuing education revoked on the basis of its homophobic, pseudoscientific beliefs and practices, Davis reports the actual reason is unpaid fees to the California Board for Behavioral Science. In the article, she reveals, surprisingly, that the CBBS doesn’t have the ability to remove an organization from membership for erroneous scientific claims:

As it stands now, the BBS can’t reject a continuing education provider due to its philosophy or even the validity of its scientific claims, executive officer Kim Madsen says, and “that’s been a challenge.” Instead, as long as the provider “meets the requirements as set forth in current law, we have to accept them.” (Those requirements include providing direct or indirect patient care, having qualified instructors and submitting the appropriate applications and fees.)

At its September meeting, however, the BBS will be reviewing those laws and requirements and having a discussion about what Madsen describes as “long-identified deficiencies in the continuing education model.”

The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is once again attacking the veracity of noted geneticist Dr. Francis S. Collins.  For a review of the history of this issue, please see the summary and links in our previous post.  The original NARTH article that started this is “Homosexuality Is Not Hardwired,” Concludes Dr. Francis S. Collins, Head Of The Human Genome Project” from 2007.

This latest effort comes in the form of an article identified as submitted to the NARTH website by David C. Pruden, NARTH’s Vice-President of Operations.  We will assume from here on out that Pruden is the author unless or until we receive information to the contrary (see below).  In it, this writer is painted as having wooed Dr. Collins into making statements favorable to a pro-gay position by “misinforming” him about NARTH.  Supposedly, by not telling him what a good and wholesome organization it is (cough), we hoodwinked Dr. Collins into perverting the science in our favor.

In the US, all correspondence to and from government agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) where Dr. Collins worked (and is now Director), is archived and can be obtained by making a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.  Apparently, four years after the fact, someone at NARTH got the idea to request copies of my email exchange with Dr. Collins.  While they did not quote from them, they did strategically paraphrase and then claim that I had misinformed Dr. Collins.

While all very cloak and dagger, they could have saved some effort and a stamp by simply reading the three year old post here.  We made that exchange public in its entirety, email headers and all, back in 2008.  As noted then, the original emails were not written with public consumption in mind, so they are a bit personal but nonetheless sincere and honest.

So what about the latest article? Read more…