Ex-Gay Watch

A feature-length film aims to tell the story of American teenagers sent to an evangelical Christian boarding school, Escuala Caribe, in the Dominican Republic. According to its website, the school is “therapeutic,” with a mission to help the parents of underachieving kids “train their child in the way he or she should go.”

Several past students allege “physical and emotional abuse” at the “boot camp,” however. Among those featured in the upcoming documentary Kidnapped for Christ are a teenager who says he was, essentially, abducted during the night to be taken from his US home to Escuala Caribe:

One morning I woke up. Two guys were at my house. … Both my parents were standing there, saying: “We love you, David. We love you.” … [The men] tied a belt around my waist, dragged me with the belt to their car. … I got sent down here because I am gay, and my parents, they just weren’t okay with that.

Watch the trailer below:

Escuala Caribe is run by New Horizon[s] Youth Ministry, which, according to its website, has recently been taken over by Lifeline Youth and Family Services, Inc.

Here’s a very telling paragraph from the school’s website:

Culture shock is a form of psychological disorientation produced by a sudden and complete change in one’s cultural environment. … [It tends] to make adolescents remarkably more dependent upon our Christian staff for direction and emotional support, while also rendering them more malleable and capable of new perspectives. Culture shock in a highly structured setting greatly enhances meaningful communication, offering young people extraordinary occasions for making enriching discoveries that inspire personal growth.

Hat-tip: Towleroad

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.

During the years from 2005 to 2007, IRS records show Exodus designated over $1 million for “various education programs and publications that explain how to change sexual orientation…”

Exodus International Form 990 for year 2007

This period begins several years into Alan Chambers’ tenure as Exodus President, and covers what might be called their pinnacle.  While those of us who study Exodus may not find this particularly startling, we must remember that they have vehemently denied ever having this as their goal.  To have an official record stating those intentions is important.

Of course, Exodus’ history is littered with evidence of their emphasis on change.  Their motto, Change is Possible, has been plastered on billboards across the country.  They have routinely claimed a 30% to 50% success rate in changing from homosexual to heterosexual (a laughable figure), and even paid $100,000 for a study intended to substantiate that figure.  To this day the Exodus bookstore features books on reparative therapy by Joseph Nicolosi and others which promote pseudo-scientific theories on causation and conversion of homosexuality.

Exodus representatives repeatedly deny the idea that they seek to bring sexual orientation change to anyone.  In a symphony of semantics, they deflect responsibility for most anything they do.  In a particularly sarcastic article written in 2009 when Exodus could still afford professional PR people like Julie Neils, she wrote:

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard the words, “Exodus International” and “religious group that claims to cure gays” in a sentence I’d be rich . . . and in Tahiti right now.

Exodus International Form 990 for year 2006

Exodus also makes a big deal of the claim that they only exist to help those who seek them out — those “400,000 phone calls and emails” we are always hearing about.  Until 2006, Exodus put the following expense claim on the same form to the IRS:

Missions and outreach projects allow Exodus to reach individuals not actively seeking help who may be open to change.

Again, hardly a surprise to those familiar with Exodus but basically we have here evidence of their intent — ironically enough — to recruit those not “actively seeking” their help in the first place.  This directly contradicts their own claims, but Exodus has a way with words that enables them to say one thing and mean another.

Perhaps equally significant is the fact that this verbiage has been removed in years since.  Clearly Exodus still does these things yet they don’t wish to make that fact so obvious as they once did.  What kind of message does all this double-talk send?  Perhaps it is just this kind of mixed-message that sends churches like Willow Creek in the other direction.

Supporting Documents

Exodus Form 990 — 2005

Exodus Form 990 — 2006

Exodus Form 990 — 2007

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 ex-gay LIFE ministry, in New York City, teaches gays and lesbians that their sexual orientation is sinful and must be changed.

Homosexuality is a psychological, emotional and spiritual disorder that can be overcome with prayer, deliverance and counselling, it says. It often comes with demons attached, according to leader Joanne Highley; if you’ve had any form of immoral sex, evil spirits have infected any cavity that has received an ungodly deposit of semen, whether it’s the mouth, the anus or another orifice. Once you’ve confessed the sin of homosexuality, your repentance is a process that ends with complete healing of all your gay desires. The journey involves breaking off all contact with gay friends, as they were never true friends in the first place.

LIFE is not the kind of ministry you get involved with, as a church, without some knowledge of just how extreme its message and its ministry really are.

In the Guardian‘s Comment is free today, I shed light on a major Liverpool church whose ex-gay ministry has its origins in LIFE. Joanne Highley visited the city multiple times to help establish it — and the connection is troubling.

Read: How Liverpool’s Frontline Church ‘Struggles’ with Homosexuality

Influential Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler has defended gay-to-straight conversion therapy by telling readers of his latest column that being gay is in itself “deeply sinful.”

Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, wrote in the context of the controversy over the ex-gay views of therapist Marcus Bachmann, husband of Republican presidential runner Michele Bachmann.

Most conservative Christians are careful to distinguish between orientation and behavior, or at least they keep the language very fuzzy, but Mohler firmly nails his colors to the mast:

Actually, the Bible speaks rather directly to the sinfulness of the homosexual orientation — defined as a pattern of sexual attraction to a person of the same sex. … Paul identifies the sinful sexual passion as a major concern — not just the behavior. … The New Testament reveals that a homosexual sexual orientation, whatever its shape or causation, is essentially wrong, contrary to the Creator’s purpose, and deeply sinful. Everyone, whatever his or her sexual orientation, is a sinner need of redemption. … But those whose sexual orientation is homosexual face the fact that they also need a fundamental reordering of their sexual attractions. About this the Bible is clear. [Emphases mine.]

Mohler’s message to gays is that they are sinning simply by having the desires. They must change.

CNN Religion yesterday suggested Mohler was one of “many Christians cool to conversion therapy for gays.”  Well, he is, in a sense, but not in the way CNN portrayed. Mohler admits secular scientists and therapists are almost unanimously against reparative therapy, and he describes in detail just how many scientific and professional organizations have denounced or cautioned against it recently. His hazy response is this:

Christians cannot avoid the debate over reparative therapy, nor can we enter the debate on secular terms.

It is, as my colleague David Roberts just said to me, “the final cop-out.” So what is Mohler’s answer to the sin of same-sex attractions?

We must bring to this conversation everything we know from God’s Word about our sin and God’s provision for sinners in Christ. We will hold no hope for any sinner’s ability to change his or her own heart, and we will hold little hope for any secular therapy to offer more than marginal improvement in a sinner’s life. … We know that something as deeply entrenched as a pattern of sexual attraction is not easily changed, but we know that with Christ all things are possible.

Well, at least Mohler is honest. His answer to the sin of homosexuality is effectively what Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out has said time and again is the essential message of the ex-gay movement: Pray away the gay.

Photo: Timmy Brister

Christian therapist Marcus Bachmann, husband of Republican presidential runner Michele Bachmann, has been caught in a big lie.

Late last month, recordings emerged of a 2010 radio interview with the Bachmann. He said:

We have to understand: Barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined. And just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we’re supposed to go down that road. That’s what’s called a “sinful nature.” And we have a responsibility as parents and as authority figures not to encourage such thoughts and feelings [from] moving into the action steps.

Last week, Bachmann — who has since been shown to be offering gay-to-straight conversion therapy at his Minnesota clinic — denied his comments had anything to do with homosexuality and said the tape had been altered. Now MSNBC’s Hardball has stepped in to clear up the confusion by providing the unedited interview in its original context:

Yes, Bachmann made the offensive and homophobic “barbarians” comment, and no, the recording was not doctored. Bachmann just lied.

Hat-tip: Pam’s House Blend

An excellent piece by Patrick Strudwick in today’s Independent (London) details the author’s strange and disturbing experiences in ex-gay therapy in the UK.

It’s a refreshing article in that it focuses exclusively on reparative therapy, and tends not to dilute it with other aspects of the ex-gay movement. Strudwick begins his undercover investigation by attending a conference by Dr Joseph Nicolosi of NARTH. (We covered that conference here.) There he heard the usual Nicolosi myths, including the oft-repeated claim that “If you don’t hug your son, some other man will.”

Strudwick met two reparative therapists at the conference, and later consulted with them privately. His experience was shocking:

“Any Freemasonry in the family?” No, I say, again asking her to elaborate. “Because that often encourages it as well. It has a spiritual effect on males and it often comes out as SSA [same-sex attraction].”

Next, she looks for self-esteem wounds. “I think you have some unhelpful thoughts about yourself, about who you are,” she says. “What do you think about yourself? In the deepest part of you, in your stomach.”

“I think I’m a good person,” I reply. She wants more. “I think I am a determined person.” Still not enough. “I think I’ve a lot to give.”

“But do you like yourself?” she asks, becoming impatient.

“I think I’m a good person,” I repeat.

“Yes that’s different though from ‘do you like yourself?’ Deep underneath this there’s other stuff we need to get to. I think you must have had quite a lot of bullying.” No, I say. “There was no sexual abuse?” she asks, leaning in and squinting again. No, I repeat. “I think it will be there,” she replies, dropping her voice to a concerned tone. “It does need to come to the surface.”

And so, she prays for me again. “Father, we give you permission to bring to the surface some of the things that have happened over the years. Father, enable your love to pour into that place of isolation in that little boy, whatever age, we give you permission to go there, with your healing power and your light, go into those parts, open all the doors, and access each one with your light.”

She looks up. I ask her again about this abuse. “I think there is something there,” she says. “You’ve allowed things to be done to you.” In the next session I ask if she thinks the abuse would have taken place within my family, because I can’t remember it. “Yes, very likely,” she replies.

This session with an accredited psychotherapist and counsellor is a strange mixture of psychological mumbo-jumbo, Christian fundamentalist myths and a bizarre guessing game bearing more resemblance to a psychic reading than professional therapy.

Strudwick’s next session is with a married ex-gay psychiatrist, a follower of Richard Cohen. He says he can help men to “reach their full heterosexual potential.” Here things become even more bizarre. The psychiatrist admits he hasn’t entirely escaped same-sex attraction, and still experiences “unhealthy patterns of porn and masturbation, if I’m feeling a bit flat.” As therapy, he encourages Strudwick to experience sexual arousal:

I say that when men compliment me on my appearance it triggers sexual feelings. He probes again, asking me how I’m feeling as he talks about my body. Aroused, I repeat. But rather than moving away from this apparent sexual trigger, he asks if we can do an “exercise” around it. I agree.

“Close your eyes and focus on that arousal you’re feeling down in your genitals,” he says. “I want you to hear, as a man, as I look at your body, I see strong shoulders and a strong chest, I see a man who has an attractive body and I want you just to notice the arousal you feel as you hear me talking about that. Imagine an energy and picture that energy as a colour, and make the brightness of the colour relate to the intensity of the sexual feeling, so you might be starting to get a bit of a hard on, you might be starting to feel an erection and that sexual energy, but I want you to just picture that as a coloured light. What colour would it be?”

Red, I say.

“I want you to imagine that red colour, that energy and listen to the affirmations that I see you as a strong, confident man, and I want you to move that red light from your genitals up into your chest to join that feeling of affirmation as a man, and as you breathe in that affirmation do you notice now what happens to the arousal?”

I tell him it’s still there.

The piece is very revealing. It can be read in its entirety here.