This past December, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints published a new resource about homosexuality, suggesting that it was moving away from its harshest condemnations of gay people. The counsel it included acknowledged that same-sex attractions are not chosen, and seemed to embody a “love the sinner, hate the sin” not unlike the Catholic Church’s. However, the so-called Center for Gender Wholeness, founded by Mormon ex-gay therapists, has launched a new resource that reinforces some of the most tired and offensive myths about homosexuality and encourages Mormons to subject their loved ones to the shame-based treatment.

Here’s just a sampling of the many bizarre claims and dangerous tips provided on the site. (Note: All of the resources are geared toward male homosexuality, because “the Center for Gender Wholeness does not have expertise in working with female homosexuality.”)

• Gay people are more likely to have a history of experiencing trauma and emotional and psychological problems.
• Among the supposed “causes” of homosexuality are unhealthy childhood relationships with females, distorted concepts of gender, feeling incongruent with one’s own gender, problems in relationships with other males, sexual conditioning, sexual abuse, certain biological and physical issues, and certain emotional and psychological problems. [Obviously, this approach completely conflates transgender identities, despite gender identity being a completely independent variable from sexual orientation.]
• People trying to help their gay friends should ask about how they have acted on their attractions, but should be careful not to give them ideas of behaviors they haven’t tried.
• Therapy is “necessary” if an individual “reports unsuccessful attempts to diminish their same-sex attractions.”
• Mormons should encourage (opposite-sex) marriage as a solution to same-sex attractions.
• Mormons should recognize “the hope window,” when people with same-sex attractions are most optimistic about change.
• Therapy can help resolve the “issues that underlie unwanted same-sex attraction.”
• Treatment can include an addiction recovery program and medication.
• The therapists apparently use “brainspotting” to determine “where a person is holding trauma or other negative experience in their brain.”

The promotion of this therapy seems to conflict with what the Mormon Church now says about homosexuality, and the small-text disclaimer at the bottom of the screen is telling:

This site was not created by, or with support from, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Center for Gender Wholeness (CGW) is not affiliated with the LDS Church. The contents of this site represent the veiws [sic] of CGW, which is solely responsible for its content.

Still, the site is designed to look like it’s official guidance from LDS, including detailed resources for training Church leaders on ex-gay therapy.

The American Psychological Association has found that ex-gay therapy is not only ineffective, but reinforces stigma and can thus have harmful effects. The proper therapeutic response when people are struggling with being gay is affirmation — which is coincidentally the name of the organization that supports LGBT Mormons.

Earlier this week, the New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens Committee voted to advance a bill that would ban ex-gay therapy for minors. Among the testimony the committee heard was a powerful pronouncement from high school senior Jacob Rudolph, who declared, “I am not broken, I am not confused, and I do not need to be fixed.” Rudolph has been petitioning Gov. Chris Christie (R) to announce his support for the bill, but Christie said after the committee’s vote that he was still undecided about the harmful treatment and wouldn’t make up his mind on the legislation until it arrived at his desk. Now he’s clarified that he opposes ex-gay therapy, according to spokesman Kevin Roberts:

ROBERTS: Gov. Christie does not believe in conversion therapy. There is no mistaking his point of view on this when you look at his own prior statements where he makes clear that people’s sexual orientation is determined at birth.

The statement stops just short of indicating whether he intends to sign the legislation, but it’s a powerful endorsement nevertheless. Christie admitted in 2011 that he believes people are born gay and that homosexuality is thus not a sin. Still, he vetoed marriage equality legislation, so his actions as governor do not quite align with his respectable basic understanding of homosexuality.

The National Organization for Marriage’s Jennifer Roback Morse has been one of the most outspoken opponents of not only marriage equality, but homosexuality itself over the past year. Once again, this week, she used a radio interview to reiterate conservatives’ belief that homosexuality is a behavior, not an identity, and that ex-gay therapy works — all framed around NOM’s tactic about driving a wedge between the black and gay communities:

MORSE: When I was in Illinois a couple weeks ago testifying up there in Springfield about [same-sex marriage], there were quite a few African Americans there who who were speaking  on our side of the issue, and just very clear that this is not a civil right — that it’s a behavioral-based thing. A person can stop acting in a gay way, but they can’t stop being black.

She went on to highlight the testimony of Linda Jernigan, who not only claims to be ex-gay, but believes that homosexuality is “rooted in Satan.” Listen to it (via Equality Matters):

It’s important to note that Morse has no business speaking on behalf of African Americans; a poll earlier this week found that people of color support marriage equality at even higher rates than whites (61 percent and 57 percent respectively). Morse, more than almost any other anti-equality talking head, embodies the reality that theirs is a campaign not against marriage, but against homosexuality itself.

Jacob Rudolph (Photo Credit: Thomas P. Costello)

In January, Jacob Rudolph came out as an LGBT teen to his fellow seniors at Parisppany High School in New Jersey and received a standing ovation in a video that quickly went viral. He has since launched a petition urging Gov. Chris Christie (R) to support a proposed ban to ex-gay therapy for minors. On Monday, Jacob testified on behalf of this bill before the Senate Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens Committee, which voted to advance it. Powerfully declaring his identity as a bi teen, he told the panel about some of the responses he received to his viral coming out video:

RUDOLPH: Like every other LGBT person, I am not broken, I am not confused, and I do not need to be fixed. I did not choose my sexual orientation, but what I did choose was to pretend to be somebody that I was not. I came to terms with myself that I was bisexual when I was in the 9th grade, but I was truly afraid to share with anyone else who I really was. High school is challenging enough for teens who are straight, but it is even more challenging for LGBT teens, because they have to risk alienating their friends, being subjected to taunts and physical violence, and having their families reject them. [...]

The video of my speech was posted online and has since received nearly 2 million hits. Of all the responses I have received, however, the ones that meant the most to me were those that were sent by five teenagers from various locations across the United States. Each of those five teenagers had something in common: they had made preparations to commit suicide before watching my video, yet after watching my video they all decided against it. Some of these teens had been rejected by their families, who’d believed they had chosen to be gay, and these families refused to accept them for who they are.

It is beyond baffling to me that anyone might actually believe that sexual orientation is a “lifestyle choice” that can be altered if desired. Even more disturbing, however, is that there are organizations whose sole mission is to “cure” LGBT individuals of their orientation through the truculent practices that have been deemed dangerously harmful and ineffective by the American Psychological Association and other meritable groups.

Watch his full testimony:

Those advocating for ex-gay therapy claim there is no evidence that it doesn’t work. Unfortunately for them, there is no evidence that it does work, and there is evidence that it’s harmful.

Christopher Doyle

Advocates of so-called ex-gay therapy (often referred to as sexual orientation change efforts, or SOCE) are not pleased that the New Jersey legislature is seriously considering a ban on the treatment for minors. The increasingly vocal Christopher Doyle, who works with the infamously disavowed therapist Richard Cohen, penned a reaction for Christian Post asking, “Where is the tolerance” for people who are ex-gay? But his post actually helps outline many of the reasons nobody humors ex-gay therapy.

For example, he reiterated the canard that sexual abuse causes people to be gay:

That’s right, even if your child was sexually abused by a pedophile such as Jerry Sandusky and develops homosexual inclinations as a consequence, he/she may not be able to receive Sexual Orientation Change Effort (SOCE) therapy from a highly educated and skilled professional counselor, social worker, or psychologist. Why, you ask? According to the office of Massachusetts State Representative Carl Sciortino (D), because SOCE is an “archaic vestige of homophobia” and should be banned.

This argument is actually just an inverse of conservatives’ tired claim that gay men are more likely to be pedophiles. Because boys are often the victim of abuse in high-visibility institutions like the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts of America, or athletic teams and their abusers are male, conservatives conclude that the perpetrator must be gay, even though pedophilia has nothing to do with sexual orientation. Likewise, ex-gay advocates claim that any boy who was once abused by a man and later realizes he is gay must have somehow been swayed or corrupted by the abuse itself. There is nothing to reinforce this conclusion, however, except conservatives’ ability to prey on the vulnerability of these traumatized young people.

Doyle goes on to claim that there is no research available about the outcomes of ex-gay therapy for adolescents:

The problem with this conspiracy is this: There is NOT ONE scientific study that contains any hard data on the outcomes of SOCE for adolescents. Not one!

So when I contacted the offices proposing a ban on SOCE therapies and asked them to cite studies that show “harmful” outcomes for adolescents, they could only point me to position statements from liberal trade organizations, which are known for their one-hand clapping viewpoint, strictly pro-gay and anti-ex-gay. If these organizations were made up of objective scientists that looked at all the evidence, such legislation would not be allowed anywhere.

Doyle unsurprisingly demonstrates a complete ineptness for understanding scientific rigor. His claim is not entirely wrong: there is not one scientific study that contains any hard data on the outcomes of SOCE for anybody. That’s because all of the studies on ex-gay therapy have found that it doesn’t have any effective outcomes — even studies done by researchers who are trying to advocate for the practice.

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The New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens Committee just voted 7-1 with 2 abstentions to advance a bill (A3371) that would prohibit licensed therapists from offering ex-gay therapy to minors. Several hours of heated testimony preceded the vote, with proponents telling sharing stories of how ex-gay therapy harmed them and opponents testifying that ex-gay therapy works. The American Psychological Association has determined that efforts to manipulate a person’s sexual orientation are not effective — no study has ever found that such efforts achieve their intended outcomes — and that it may be harmful as well.

California passed a similar bill last year, but a court injunction has prevented it from taking effect. Lawsuits were filed by several ex-gay therapists to block the bill, including the organization NARTH, which claims to be a professional network for ex-gay therapists. The case is awaiting a hearing scheduled for April 17.

As Chick-fil-A’s corporate foundation came under heavy criticism last year for its long record of anti-LGBT behavior, the company attempted to distance itself from its political record, claiming it intedend “to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.”

But despite suggestions by some that the company’s WinShape Foundation had already scaled back its anti-LGBT giving before that point, its newly released annual IRS filings for 2011 indicate nothing of the sort.

Most of the WinShape’s anti-LGBT giving in previous years went to groups like the Marriage & Family Foundation ($1,188,380 in 2010), the Fellowship Of Christian Athletes ($480,000 in 2010), and the National Christian Foundation ($247,500). Additionally, the group made small donations to the “ex-gay” group Exodus International ($1,000) and the hate group Family Research Council ($1,000).

In 2011, the group actually gave even more to anti-LGBT causes. Its contribution to the Marriage & Family Foundation jumped to $2,896,438 and it gave the same amount to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and National Christian Foundation as it had in 2010. In total, the anti-LGBT spending exceeded $3.6 million — almost double the $1.9 million from the year before.

While the group gave nothing directly to Exodus International or FRC, a large amount of Chick-fil-A/WinShape money still made its way to those groups. The National Christian Foundation (aka the National Christian Charitable Foundation) gave $4,100 to Exodus International and a stunning $1,260,040 to FRC. This was possible, in part, because of the $247,500 it received directly from WinShape and because the WinShape-backed Marriage & Family Foundation also transferred $870,834 to the group — the self-described “largest Christian grant-making foundation in the world.”

In essence, Chick-fil-A’s “charitable” contributions in 2011 were no less hateful than in 2010 — just less transparent.

Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen and his wife, Emily

Debate on same-sex marriage will resume  today in Minnesota as both the House Civil Law Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee host hearings on a proposed equality bill. The legislation already has enough support to pass out of both committees and receive floor votes. Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen (R), a staunch opponent of marriage equality, got a headstart on the debate Monday with a particularly awkward use of a “point of personal privilege”:

GRUENHAGEN: I have a close friend here — the last couple years — his name is Kevin Petersen. Kevin, why don’t you stand up and say hi? The interesting thing about Kevin is he was active in the gay lifestyle for about 10 years, and then he left it, got married, and he now has three children. Thank you.

Watch it:

Gruenhagen and Petersen worked together to try to pass November’s amendment to ban same-sex marriage, but were not successful. Last month, Gruenhagen explained his anti-gay positions by describing homosexuality as “an unhealthy, sexual addiction” and decrying any claim that it’s an immutable characteristic as “an unscientific lie.” Petersen believes that gay activists recruit “sexually confused people” by convincing them “that they can’t possibly change and gay is good.” He attributes his conversion to the ex-gay group Exodus and the Catholic celibacy group Courage.

Speaker Paul Thissen (DFL) made it clear after Gruenhagen’s comments that “points of personal privilege” will no longer be allowed for recognizing groups, family, or friends.

Focus on the Family President Jim Daly

On Friday, the New York Times ran a puff piece about Focus on the Family, claiming that under the leadership of its president Jim Daly, the organization is softening by becoming one that “invites civil dialogue” and “turns down the rhetorical temperature on the debate.” It goes on to claim that Daly is “attesting to the divine love and grace that he firmly believes saved his life.”

Jeremy Hooper and David Badash have already penned extensive retorts, outlining the many odious anti-LGBT positions that Focus on the Family still holds. As a simple test of whether Focus on the Family and its political arm CitizenLink are engaging in more “civil dialogue,” here’s a look at some of the rhetoric they’ve put out over just the past six months:

• Marriage equality will “shut down businesses” and is actually about “silencing Christian voices in the public square.”
• Marriage equality is a “pernicious lie of Satan.”
• Gender and sexuality are determined by procreation, not anybody’s own sense of their identities.
• Homosexuality isn’t a “super sin,” but it’s still a sin, just like adultery, lying, cheating, and gossiping.
• There’s no such thing as being gay; it’s just a “political statement.”
• Marriage equality passed in November because voters are “unchurched” and care more about themselves than about children.
• Transgender identities are unhealthy disorders that result from childhood trauma.
• Trans people should pursue ex-trans therapy to rectify their “confusion” with their “God given gender identity and destiny.”
• Gay people are in “pain” and at battle with God.
• Heterosexuality is society’s ideal because affirming homosexuality would be “normalizing brokenness.”
• “Satan roams the earth like a lion, using sexual and relational brokenness to destroy individuals, families, churches, groups, businesses.”
• Parents should be able to prevent their children from learning that gay people exist.
• There are “a variety of roads into homosexuality” including molestation, parents’ divorce, and trouble conforming to gender roles.

And that was just the rhetoric that ThinkProgress happened to cover since last September. Of course, Focus on the Family also sponsors the annual “Day of Dialogue,” which encourages Christian students to condemn their gay peers — a counterprotest to the “Day of Silence,” which is designed to bring visibility to that very kind of bullying.

The New York Times should better clarify that not a single position has changed at Focus on the Family. As the article inadvertently demonstrates, the organization has simply achieved better PR when individuals aren’t paying attention to what they actually believe.

Several fringe conservative groups have filed amicus briefs in the case challenging California’s ban on ex-gay therapy for minors. These groups rely solely on their own subjective research to defend individual’s right to try to change their sexual orientation if they wish to, conveniently disregarding that the anti-gay stigma they promote is the only reason anybody has negative feelings about their sexual orientation in the first place. Among the amici is the so-called American College of Pediatricians (ACP), an impostor organization of social conservatives that won’t even admit how few members it has. Unlike the LGBT-supporting 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatricians they hope to be mistaken for, the College peddles junk science to defend ex-gay therapy, including that homosexuality is caused directly by trauma. Here’s how they explain it in their brief:

These children need therapy for the trauma, not affirmation of a “gay identity.” Trauma (as an objective, measurable external event) lends itself to quantitative research and has been studied relative to homosexuality. One example of this is the disproportionate extent of sexual abuse during the childhoods of adult homosexuals. Another example is the increased association of homosexuality and gender identity disorder with parental separation at critical developmental stages.

There are also two forms of psychological trauma commonly associated with homosexuality. The first is the trauma caused by the child’s subjective experience of the same-sex parent’s lack of availability, rejection, or even harsh verbal, physical, or sexual attack. This may lead to an intense longing for love from the same-sex parent that is eventually sexualized by the child. Similarly, psychological trauma may also be caused by the child’s subjective experience of the opposite-sex parent’s lack of availability, rejection, or even harsh verbal, physical, or sexual attack. This may lead to an intense fear of and aversion toward opposite-sex relationships. In both situations, by objective standards, the parent may or may not be described in these terms.

While these traumas are unusually common in the childhoods of same-sex attracted persons, they are not universal, and in many cases, other, less typical traumas may be present. This reflects the inherent complexity of the interaction between one’s biologically influenced temperament, various environmental factors and the free-will choices individuals make.

The primary citation for most of these bogus claims is not even a scientific research paper, but a book called Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, which was written by Orthodox Jewish psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover and published by evangelical Christian publisher Baker Books. Satinover compares homosexuality to alcoholism and pedophilia, describing it as a compulsion instead of an identity.

Another impostor group, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays And Gays (PFOX), also filed a brief that primarily highlighted four testimonials from people who claimed to be ex-gay. One of them isn’t even alive anymore, but unsurprisingly, all four of them started organizations that profit off of promoting and offering ex-gay therapy. This includes the infamous ex-gay therapist Richard Cohen, who was expelled from the American Counseling Association for six violations of its ethics code.

Though these groups represent a fringe mentality on sexuality, many still believe their ideas have merit. Not only do they not, but these ideas are harmful, which is specifically what the law banning ex-gay therapy was meant to address. Their objection to it does not change this reality. (HT: Kathleen Perrin.)