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.

Ex-gay therapist Joseph Nicolosi, a plaintiff in this case, encourages parents to reject their children.

The Liberty Counsel has filed its final brief in its challenge of California’s ban on ex-gay therapy (SB 1172) on behalf of NARTH. In it, the group reiterates its claims that encouraging young people to change their sexual orientation is simply a “viewpoint,” and thus protected by the First Amendment. Despite the dearth of evidence supporting its effectiveness and the research that shows not only that it’s ineffective but that it can also be harmful, the conservatives stand by their claim that same-sex attractions (SSA) can be changed:

The APA Report admits SSA is “fluid,” which, no matter the debate over “enduring” change, it is clear that SSA can change. Studies reveal that sexual orientation is “not static.” “Contrary to the theoretical notion that one becomes fixated in childhood, the sexual orientation of the individuals in this study often changed remarkably.”

SB 1172 prohibits any counsel under any circumstance to change SSA. If SSA is fluid, then it is changeable. Given that SSA is capable of change, then why does the law prohibit change therapy? If an unhappy homosexual client engages the counselor because he wants to be bisexual, does the counselor violate SB 1172 by providing counsel that helps the client develop sexual attraction for both sexes? Or does the counselor violate the law only when the counsel offered seeks to change the client to be exclusively heterosexual?

SB 1172 prohibits any counsel to change SSA.  What are Appellant-Counselors to do when clients return  after hearing their opinion that SSA can change and asks the counselor to help them meet their self-determined objective to change their SSA? If the clients seek change, and if the Report admits SSA is fluid, and thus changeable, then why are counselors and clients prohibited from pursuing change? Where is the line drawn? What is permitted and what is not? The licenses of the Appellant-Counselors are on the line. They and thousands of other counselors and clients have no idea how to avoid these landmines.

NARTH and Liberty Counsel are twisting words beyond reproach in an attempt to make their case. There is a difference between the fact that sexual orientation naturally changes over time and the claim that it can be manipulated by therapy. Further, just because an individual has a “self-determined objective” to accomplish any bizarre outcome in therapy doesn’t mean it’s healthy or valid to work toward that objective. Indeed, the reason that professional psychological groups have established that affirming an individual’s sexual orientation is a best practice is because that is what has been determined to help patients regardless of what they’ve been taught to believe about homosexuality.

It’s important to keep in mind the mind-game at work. In the original complaint, these ex-gay therapists argued that the treatment was important for bringing families together. In other words, parents with a bias against homosexuality claim they can only love their child if he rejects his same-sex orientation, but the therapists then blame this situation on the patient — as they are wont to do. The young person is convinced to participate in the treatment to appease his family, implying an ultimatum that he can be gay or he can be loved, but he can’t be both. Thus, the “benefits” of ex-gay therapy are often a sort of Stockholm Syndrome in which young people claim to be happier because they’ve managed to placate their family’s homophobia. This artificial construct is self-serving, caters to parents’ demands instead of children’s well-being, and speaks nothing to the actual validity of ex-gay therapy.

Convincing young people to reject their identities is harmful on its face, and the animus behind defending the practice is not particularly well hidden in these arguments. These counselors can claim that they have an opinion about homosexuality, but they can’t claim to have any truth.

The late psychoanalyst Joyce McDougall believed homosexuality was a perversion.

Joseph Nicolosi, founder of ex-gay group NARTH and trainer of many other ex-gay therapists, is back with another brief article attempting to explain his perspective on the nature of homosexuality. Earlier this month, he explained that his patients can get over their supposed “addiction” to gay porn by simply making friends with more men. This week, he offers a convoluted description of homosexual behavior as an addiction to acting out a fantasy that compensates for a wounded gender identity:

Joyce McDougall has investigated the central role of “theatre and role-playing” in non-typical forms of sexual activity, including homosexuality. She is among the few contemporary psychoanalysts willing to study such forms of sexuality. McDougall understands “sexual theatre” as an acting-out of intrapsychic sexual forces in a symbolic attempt to resolve an identity conflict. In this regard she confirms the classic psychoanalytic understanding of “perverse” (as the term was used in previous years) sexual activity as being rooted in identity confusion. Noting the repetitive-compulsive nature of these role enactments, McDougall found that while her patients complain about the constrained structure of these “erotic theatre pieces,” they could not abstain from their enactments: “…and have to do it again and again and again” (McDougall, 2000, p.182).

What Nicolosi is trying to suggest is that gay people (and “the extreme case of transsexuals”) were somehow sent the wrong messages by their parents about how they are supposed to understand their own gender. This leads to a sense of inner conflict that they then address through compulsively trying to fulfill that “false” identity. Essentially, he thinks that gay people are just actors cast in the wrong role who don’t know how escape the performance because they believe they are trying to fix some kind of “past trauma” by acting it out.

Stepping back from that gobbledygook, it’s actually easy to make sense of how these perpetrators of fraud arrive at such nonsense. The obvious explanation for why there are gay people who don’t want to be gay is because they exist in a society that condemns homosexuality; they are taught from a young age that being gay is wrong and something to be ashamed of. Mainstream social science recognizes this reality, which is why the recommended professional practice is to affirm same-sex orientations to help resolve the inner conflict.

Ex-gay therapists take the opposite approach. They assume same-sex attractions are a defect by default. Thus, they need to invent other explanations for why people feel conflicted about having them. And like most aspects of ex-gay therapy, the easy solution is to blame the patient. Nicolosi’s gibberish is a means of doing just that. It’s a gay person’s fault he’s gay, it’s a gay person’s fault he feels bad about being gay, and only by accepting that shame and blame can that gay person attempt to find recovery. That’s the insidious message behind ex-gay therapy.

There was much in-fighting within the ex-gay movement last year after Exodus International, a religious umbrella group for ex-gay ministries, said it would no longer try to “cure” homosexuality. A revelation as a result of that “rift” was evidence that Joseph Nicolosi, founder of NARTH, uses pornography in his “therapy” to supposedly help clients “imagine” having different attractions, despite his claims to the contrary. Last week, NARTH posted an article by Nicolosi about “overcoming gay pornography” that reveals just how warped the organization’s understanding of pornography and sexuality truly is.

According to Nicolosi, gay men are drawn to gay porn because it fulfills three “emotional needs” that result from the compromised masculinity he believes is causing them to be gay. The first is apparently body envy, in which the client feels inadequate in comparison to the porn actors’ “muscularity, body hair, large build, and the archetypal image of masculinity, a large penis.”  The second is assertive attitude, in which men are drawn to the “directness, non-inhibition, and bold aggression” of the porn actors. Lastly, Nicolosi identifies “vulnerable sharing,” in which clients are attracted to the “open sharing of emotions” portrayed when two men are together.

In other words, Nicolosi believes gay men are weak, body-conscious cowards who are desperate for loving attention from other men. And his solution? Make some friends:

As the client comes to identify how he projects onto the porn image his unmet needs and more importantly, as he fulfills those needs in real male friendships, the compelling power of the porn image diminishes. Clinical reports tell us that the client may eventually find such images not only uninteresting and non-arousing, but repulsive and disgusting in the same way that such images are experienced by heterosexual men.

Whether or not Nicolosi uses gay or straight porn in his therapy doesn’t change how distorted his understanding of how it intersects with sexuality. Straight men don’t generally look at women in porn because they have body envy, so it’s bogus to draw such conclusions about gay men. Maybe gay men look at gay porn because they’re sexually attracted to what they see and want to experience the same kind of affection with other men. No “friendship” is going to replace the desire for intimacy almost everybody shares, let alone diminish the attractions anybody has.

Last week, NARTH, a professional organization for ex-gay profiteers, released new “Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Unwanted Same-Sex Attractions and Behavior.” This document strives to legitimize ex-gay therapy by downplaying research that shows the efforts to be ineffective and potentially harmful and emphasizing myths about what may “cause” homosexuality, like the impact of sexual abuse. According to the guidelines, clinicians who seek to affirm homosexuality — that is, the preponderance of mainstream therapists — are actually engaging in bias against clients’ religion when they deny the possibility of sexual reorientation:

Furthermore, clinicians with a strong gay-affirming position may tend to emphasize clinical literature that describes examples of harm — such as disappointment in not achieving complete sexual reorientation — in the course of change-oriented therapy and may decide that conducting such therapy is clearly unethical and harmful. They may maintain this view even when clients explicitly say they want to change their unwanted same-sex attractions and/or behavior. These clinicians may believe that clients cannot establish realistic therapeutic goals for themselves nor make a truly voluntary decision to develop their heterosexual potential, assuming that clients want to change only because they have been oppressed and discriminated against by society.

They may discount the reality that many clients who want to explore the possibility of change experience significant conflict between their religious beliefs and their same-sex attraction and that religious affiliation may be the most stable aspect of a client’s identity. Some clinicians have even equated agreeing to help someone develop their heterosexual potential as analogous to agreeing to help an anorexic lose weight. They may tend to espouse the immutability of sexual orientation, basing this conclusion on unsubstantiated biological research — a conclusion that remains premature.

This perspective demonstrates the naivete inherent in bias toward ex-gay treatments. First, ex-gay proponents take advantage of clients’ desire to change their sexual orientation by reinforcing it, essentially sacrificing professional perspective in the process by giving clients’ desired outcomes priority over reality. Then, they place sexual orientation and religious beliefs on a false equal footing, suggesting that sexual orientation might be easier to change if the client’s religious affiliation is more “stable.” This ignores that research has repeatedly demonstrated there is an enduring biological component to sexual orientation, whereas religious beliefs are simply ideas that many people change throughout their lives.

Therapy is not like consumer economics where “the customer is always right.” Rather than help clients work through the conflict they’re experiencing because of their sexual orientation, ex-gay profiteers attempt to milk that conflict by reinforcing it and promising change that will never actually be accomplished. That they defend this strategy by claiming to be less biased by research shows that they care more about profiting off their assumptions than actually helping clients achieve wellness.

Judge Kimberly Mueller

Monday, a judge ruled that the ex-gay therapists aligned with the Pacific Justice Institute challenging California’s new law (SB 1172) banning the treatment for minors could continue their practice while their lawsuit proceeded. Today, in contrast, a different federal judge, Obama appointee Kimberly J. Mueller, rejected the Liberty Counsel and NARTH’s similar request for an injunction. In her decision, Mueller argued that the ex-gay therapists were not likely to demonstrate that the law infringes on their Constitutional rights to discuss sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE):

Here, plaintiffs have not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that SB 1172 will subject mental health professionals to discipline if they merely recommend SOCE to minor patients, or discuss it with them, or even present them with literature about SOCE… [I]n contrast, the state’s insistence that the statute bars treatment only, and not the mention of SOCE or a referral to a religious counselor or out-of-state practitioner, is consistent with a fair reading of the statute itself. [...]

Courts reaching the question have found that the provision of healthcare and other forms of treatment is not expressive conduct. Given the weight of the authority on the question and the nature of the record before the court, plaintiff therapists have not shown they are likely to succeed in bearing their burden of showing that the First Amendment applies to SOCE treatment; they have not shown that the treatment, the end product of which is a change of behavior, is expressive conduct entitled to First Amendment protection.

As SOCE therapy is subject to the state’s legitimate control over the professions, SB 1172′s restrictions on therapy do not implicate fundamental rights and are not properly evaluated under strict scrutiny review, but rather under the rational basis test. SB 1172 passes the rational basis test.

Mueller pointed out that a First Amendment claim is no more applicable for minors than it is for practitioners, as they are not impeded from receiving information about SOCE, only the therapy itself. She also found that parents do not have a fundamental or privacy right to choose mental health treatments deemed harmful to minors, noting that SB 1172 does not impose criminal penalties on parents nor prevent them from accessing ex-gay therapy from unlicensed providers. Unlike Judge Shubb, Mueller was more convinced by mainstream medical professionals than the fringe ex-gay therapists:

The findings, recommended practices, and opinions of ten professional associations of mental health experts is no small quantum of information.  Even if all of the studies and reports upon which the California Legislature relied were inconclusive or flawed, SB 1172 still would be a valid legislative enactment… The court need not engage in an exercise of legislative mind reading to find the California Legislature and the state’s Governor could have had a legitimate reason for enacting SB 1172.

The two cases have already diverged and could well be steering toward different conclusions. At the foundation of both is the understanding that shame-based ex-gay therapies and family rejection harms young people. At least one of the judges hearing these cases seems to acknowledge that reality.

NARTH's Dr. Julie Hamilton was introduced as an "expert."

Dr. Drew was not the only television doctor talking about ex-gay therapy on Wednesday. Dr. Oz dedicated his entire show to the “controversy,” providing ample time to those who profit from the harmful therapy to promote their quackery unchallenged. Representatives from NARTH and People Can Change were presented as “experts” who were offering one side of a debate that the medical community has already settled.

GLAAD, GLSEN, and PFLAG all condemned the episode, explaining how thoroughly the practice of ex-gay therapy had been debunked. GLSEN Executive Director Dr. Eliza Byard participated in the show, but explained that she and other LGBT advocates were not informed NARTH would be represented — let alone featured. During his final thought, Dr. Oz argued that he believed the sides needed to talk to each other, then followed up on his blog that only after the show did he have the epiphany that therapists should affirm gay identities:

Some guests argued that they have been changed thru these treatments, but I was overwhelmed by the pain of individuals hurt by the experience.  After listening to both sides of the issue and after reviewing the available medical data, I agree with the established medical consensus.  I have not found enough published data supporting positive results with gay reparative therapy and I have concerns about the potentially dangerous effects when the therapy fails, especially when minors are forced into treatments.

My biggest epiphany occurred after hearing where the opposing groups found some common ground. The guests who appeared on my show on either side of this debate agreed that entering into any therapy with guilt and self-hate is a major error. Trying to change who you are instead of loving who you are leads to broken spirits and broken hearts. Encouraging self-acceptance is the only way to help alleviate the shame experienced by those who are struggling with their sexuality – and help them reach a place where who they are matches who they want to be.

It should not require an open, unchallenged airing of harmful lies to agree with the established medical consensus. There is no way for self-acceptance and ex-gay therapy to coexist; NARTH and others rely upon shame. Their business depends upon clients having “unwanted sexual attractions” and believing the faulty promise that the attractions can be treated. Because of the visibility of his show and the expertise entrusted in him by his viewers, Dr. Oz performed a massive disservice by treating the issue of ex-gay therapy as an open question.

Clips of the entire episode, as well as post-show reflections from the guests, are available online.

Many are familiar with Ryan Kendall’s story because of his testimony during the Proposition 8 trial. When his parents found out he was gay, they sent the teen to shame-driven ex-gay therapy, constantly rejecting him by telling him he’d burn in hell, that he was disgusting, and that he was hated. The “therapy,” performed by NARTH founder Joseph Nicolosi, drove him “to the brink of suicide,” leading to a decade of struggles with depression, homelessness, and drug abuse after he declared independence from his unaccepting family.

Kendall has since become an outspoken advocate against ex-gay therapy. When he agreed to discuss the topic with Dr. Drew on his HLN show yesterday, it was on the condition that he not have to appear with David Pickup, a NARTH spokesperson who claims homosexuality is caused by sexual abuse and who is part of a suit to overturn California’s ban on ex-gay therapy for minors (SB 1172). Unfortunately, Dr. Drew put them on together anyway, and Kendall in turn held no punches in decrying Pickup’s harmful distortions of reality:

KENDALL: Mr. Pickup is clearly lying, right? I mean, I did an interview on CBC radio where Mr. Pickup followed me and he said that homosexuality is caused by an emotional trauma… He’s also saying, “I’m not saying you can cure this, I’m not saying that it’s a mental illness,” but he’s framing it in that language. Something else I should point out: by saying that, as Mr. Pickup does, that this bill, SB 1172, will prevent the victims of pedophiles like those of Jerry Sandusky — which is exactly the words you’ve used sir — from getting appropriate mental health treatment, that goes back to a long line of LGBT people as a threat to children that has its roots in Anita Bryant and the Briggs Initiative.

Watch the first part of the segment:

During the second segment, Pickup claimed there is “credible evidence” that people have successfully changed their orientation, but his only citation was an ex-gay website with testimonies, not research.

Dr. Drew’s segment is problematic in numerous ways. First, it was inappropriate to invite Kendall onto a segment under circumstances that were then betrayed. Second, there is no justifiable reason to provide Pickup with unfettered airtime when the entire medical community has disavowed his methods as ineffective, his beliefs as unscientific, and his intentions as harmful. If that weren’t enough, Dr. Drew then treated the issue of ex-gay therapy as if it is still controversial, describing it as “something that science does not yet substantiate,” implying there someday may be a way to change a person’s orientation. This is journalistic malpractice — particularly for a television personality who identifies as a doctor with expertise — on par with inviting practitioners of blood-letting to discuss health policy.

Kendall should be applauded for creating visibility for ex-gay survivors, even when forced into situations of “false balance” on a question that isn’t up for debate.

Chaim Levin, ex-gay survivor and plaintiff.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against ex-gay group JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing), accusing it of consumer fraud for peddling a “cure” for homosexuality. The complaint features four young men and two of their parents as plaintiffs, including Chaim Levin, who has been very vocal about how the Orthodox Jewish community has mistreated him for being gay. The men and their families argue that JONAH lured them into paying for counseling with deceptive practices. JONAH relies on ex-gay professional group NARTH, specifically the repudiated techniques of Joseph Nicolosi.

The complaint outlines some of the bizarre treatment the men were subjected to in sessions with JONAH counselor Alan Downing and others:

• remove all clothing during both individual and group therapy sessions including an instruction to Levin to hold his penis in front of Defendant Downing,
• cuddle and intimately hold others of the same-sex including between young clients and older counselors,
• violently beat an effigy of the client’s mother with a tennis racket,
• go to the gym more as well as bath houses in order to be nude with father figures, and
• be subjected to ridicule as “faggots” and “homos” in mock locker room and gym class scenarios.

The men were also encouraged to replicate personal trauma, such as reenacting scenes of childhood sexual abuse. Another JONAH counselor instructed one of the men to snap himself on the wrist with a rubber band every time he felt attracted to a man. JONAH claimed that “gay people are all generally lonely, suicidal, and have or will contract HIV/AIDS.”

The suit seeks a revocation of JONAH’s business license and a permanent injunction against all JONAH staff from further offering ex-gay therapy through a trial by jury. In addition to achieving justice for these young men, this suit will hopefully help other ex-gay survivors step forward to challenge the harmful ministries plaguing young people across the country.