A coalition of groups that support ex-gay therapy has launched a new website called “Voices of Change,” chock full of mostly-anonymous testimonials endorsing the fraudulent, harmful treatment. Truth Wins Out noticed one particular video from the infamous therapist Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, co-founder of NARTH and mentor to many other ex-gay proponents, claiming that half of his clients are minors, and that proportion is growing:

NICOLOSI: We are getting more an more teenagers coming to our clinic. Years ago when I did this work, the average age of our clients were late 20′s and early 30′s…Today, I would say that 50-percent of the clients at our clinic, and we have 135 ongoing cases a week. We have seven therapists that only deal with homosexuality. Fifty percent are teenagers.

Watch it:

This is why California’s new ban on ex-gay therapy for minors, as well as those proposed in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, are essential for protecting young people. Nicolosi encourages young people to believe they can change and that they should want to change, neither of which reflects professional therapeutic practices of affirming a client’s sexual orientation, whatever it is. The two lawsuits challenging California’s law provide plenty of insight into the manipulative tactics. According to the suit from the Pacific Justice Institute, therapists don’t even recognize the concept of family rejection, instead claiming it’s parents’ rights to enroll their kids in the harmful therapy. Nicolosi’s own suit, filed along with the Liberty Counsel and several of his NARTH protégés, rests on the pretext that ex-gay therapy is the only way some kids can reconcile their relationships with their parents.

It’s bad enough that anyone would offer or encourage something so self-stigmatizing and money-draining as ex-gay therapy, but these “therapists” also nurture and depend upon family rejection for their income. In no way can any defense of ex-gay therapy be rectified with a concern for the well-being of children.

Joseph Nicolosi Defending Ex-Gay Therapy

Yesterday, ThinkProgress analyzed the many outlandish claims made by the Pacific Justice Institute’s lawsuit challenging California’s new ban on ex-gay therapy for minors. The Liberty Counsel also promised a lawsuit and filed their complaint this week on behalf of NARTH and the infamous reparative therapist Joseph Nicolosi, who uses pornography in his therapy to treat what he considers to be the sinful condition of homosexuality. In fact, almost every plaintiff in this suit is either one of Nicolosi’s current clients or a therapist who learned ex-gay therapy from him, including David Pickup, who claimed on CNN this week that homosexuality is “caused” by sexual trauma (which he reiterates in the suit).

While the Liberty Counsel suit makes many of the same empty claims about patients’ right to “choose” therapies that don’t work and therapists’ rights to freedom of speech and religion, it also paints a more vivid picture of why the law is necessary to protect children. Among the plaintiffs are two families getting ex-gay treatment for their sons, and the lawsuit claims that continuing this therapy is important, because only by denying their homosexuality can these boys repair their relationships with their parents:

SB 1172 directly interferes with John Doe 1’s and John DOE 2’s rights to self-determination, and the right of their parents to determine the upbringing and education of their minor children, including the well-being of their spiritual needs. [...]

Because of Dr. Nicolosi’s SOCE counseling, the DOE 2 family has become closer and exhibited a greater degree of family unity. [...] Dr. Nicolosi’s SOCE counseling with Doe 2 has had an important impact on John Doe 2 and his parents and has substantially helped their relationship. [...] Dr. Nicolosi believes that if he is prohibited from continuing his SOCE counseling with Doe 2, then Doe 2 will suffer an immediate regression in his understanding of his same-sex attractions and will suffer difficulty in continuing the development and healing of Doe 2’s relationship with his parents.

In other words, if this kid doesn’t keep participating in this quackery to repress his orientation, his parents will go back to rejecting him. That’s exactly what happened to Ryan Kendall, a former patient of Nicolosi’s who testified against Proposition 8 and in favor of this new law:

KENDALL: As a young teen, the anti-gay practice of so-called conversion therapy destroyed my life and tore apart my family. In order to stop the therapy that misled my parents into believing that I could somehow be made straight, I was forced to run away from home, surrender myself to the local department of human services, and legally separate myself from my family. At the age of 16, I had lost everything. My family and my faith had rejected me, and the damaging messages of conversion therapy, coupled with this rejection, drove me to the brink of suicide.

Despite Kendall’s experiences and those of countless other survivors of ex-gay therapy, the lawsuit claims that “many of Dr. Nicolosi’s clients that decide to remain in the homosexual lifestyle have reported that they experienced no harm as a result of SOCE counseling” — a blatant lie.

These lawsuits, along with the support from the most influential anti-gay groups, demonstrate the harmful propaganda still widely promoted against the lives of people who are gay, lesbian, and bisexual. Indeed, Truth Wins Out is “elated” that these lawsuits are helping raise awareness about the myths of homosexuality that have been debunked by science for nearly half a century. The complaints demonstrate that these groups and therapists are so opposed to homosexuality that they would cruelly pit kids’ identities against the love of their own parents and call it “help.”

The conservative Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) has joined the Liberty Counsel in calling for a lawsuit challenging California’s new ban on ex-gay therapy for minors. PJI helped the ex-gay professional network NARTH oppose the bill, so it’s no surprise that PJI president Brad Dacus parroted NARTH’s claim that sexual abuse can cause homosexuality:

DACUS: Of all the freedom-killing bills we have seen in our legislature the last several years, this is among the worst. This outrageous bill makes no exceptions for young victims of sexual abuse who are plagued with unwanted same-sex attraction, nor does it respect the consciences of mental health professionals who work in a church. We are filing suit to defend families, children, and religious freedom. This unprecedented bill is outrageously unconstitutional.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights’ Executive Director Kate Kendell released the following statement countering the proposed lawsuits:

KENDELL: This lawsuit is a desperate, last ditch effort to defend the indefensible. The plain fact is that every mainstream medical and mental health association in the country has warned that these practices are ineffective and dangerous. The state has a clear duty to protect minors from harm, and that is exactly what this law does. NCLR is committed to doing all we can to defend this law while, at the same time, we work to pass similar laws in other states. We will not rest until this “quackery,” as Governor Brown has called this practice, is illegal throughout our nation.

It’s also misleading for Dacus to claim that “mental health professionals who work in a church” will be impacted. Only licensed or credentialed counselors fall under the jurisdiction of the law, so individuals who offer ex-gay therapy in the context of an unlicensed ministry will be unaffected.

California’s new law banning ex-gay therapy for minors is raising new media conversations about the validity of ex-gay therapy — of which there is none. CNN’s Brooke Baldwin and Elizabeth Cohen invited ex-gay therapist David Pickup on the air to discuss the treatment he and others at NARTH offer, as well as the fact the ex-gay professional organization plans to challenge the law. Pickup spewed many dangerous lies, in particular that homosexuality can be “caused” by life events like sexual trauma:

PICKUP: The parent asks for, first of all, what fits for the child? The parent says that the child is distressed, usually because he’s had something happen in his life that has caused his homosexual feelings. And the child, who is the client, most importantly, confirms that, and says he needs help because he’s distressed over homosexual feelings. [...]

There many thousands of people all over the world, probably multiple of thousands, who believe for them, there is a cause-and-effect nature of homosexuality, and usually it happens because of a severe gender identity inferiority, lack of emotional unmet needs from the time one is a child — from usually the same-sex parent, and there’s a lot of inner wounds we discover in therapy. The short version is: when those wounds get healed, the homosexual feelings — we don’t force them away, they naturally, spontaneously dissipate.

Watch it:

The level of psychological manipulation taking place with this approach is insidious. A victim of sexual abuse or neglect is particularly vulnerable, and if that young person might happen to have same-sex attractions, it’s true that a lot of associated trauma anxiety might be par for the course. But this harmful, stigmatizing therapy takes advantage of that vulnerability by reinforcing “distress over homosexual feelings,” creating a connection where there is none and offering a solution that only further stigmatizes.

There is no scientific evidence to back up any of the spurious claims Pickup makes about homosexuality, and quite a bit to rebut it. Baldwin and Cohen did their best to push back against his quackery, but the better choice would have been not to give him or any ex-gay therapist airtime at all. As the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple responded yesterday, “The public has heard enough of their garbage.”

Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel

California Gov. Jerry Brown just signed into law a ban on ex-gay therapy for people under the age of 18, and conservative groups are already threatening to sue on behalf of the harmful treatment. Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel claimed today that the suit is necessary because he believes the law will harm children:

STAVER: The California governor and legislature are putting their own preconceived notions and political ideology ahead of children and their rights to get access to counseling that meets their needs. A number of minors who have struggled with same-sex attraction have been able to reduce or eliminate the stress and conflicts in their lives by receiving counseling of their choice which best meets their needs and religious convictions. This bill will harm children, stress families, and place counselors in a catch-22, because they will be forced to violate their licensing ethical codes.

Not only is there no research to support his claim that children benefit from ex-gay therapy, which actually adds to the stigma LGBT youth experience, but there is an epidemic of homeless youth because of family rejection, which the false promise of conversion therapy reinforces. Christopher Rosik, president of the ex-gay professional network NARTH, has promised the organization will support the legal challenge:

ROSIK: NARTH is saddened but not surprised by this unprecedented legislative intrusion and will lend its full support to the legal efforts to overturn it. [...] We fully anticipate that activist groups like Equality California will be back next year to see what further erosions of parental rights and professional judgment politicians and mental health associations will authorize in California and other states. Counselors adhering to traditional values cannot be blamed for wondering what other practices disliked by these activists are going to be targeted as “unprofessional conduct” in the future, particularly in states that have legalized same-sex marriage.

Incidentally and unsurprisingly, Staver is the featured speaker at NARTH’s convention next month. Contrary to NARTH’s delusions, offering ex-gay therapy is already “unprofessional conduct” according to psychotherapy professionals. Parents are not entitled to the right to subject their children to harmful, stigmatizing treatments; California lawmakers have made the right decision to protect young people.

Cartoon via SlapUpsideTheHead.com.

The National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), the professional organization for ex-gay therapists, sang the praises yesterday of Mark Regenrus’ completely flawed study that claimed to evaluate same-sex parenting. Rather than acknowledge that the paper provided a negligible amount of data about committed same-sex couples with planned families, NARTH suggested it was the most accurate study on same-sex parenting ever:

In a historic study of children raised by homosexual parents, sociologist Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas at Austin has overturned the conventional academic wisdom that such children suffer no disadvantages when compared to children raised by their married mother and father. Just published in the journal Social Science Research, the most careful, rigorous, and methodologically sound study ever conducted on this issue found numerous and significant differences between these groups–with the outcomes for children of homosexuals rated “suboptimal” (Regnerus’ word) in almost every category.

If that weren’t enough, NARTH then linked to analyses from the following four sources:

• The Family Research Council, an anti-gay hate group.
• Dr. Mark Yarhouse of Regent University, whose own pro-ex-gay research found that ex-gay therapy and behavior does nothing to change sexual orientation.
• Townhall columnist Jeff Jacoby, who regularly attacks the LGBT community and who has said that same-sex marriage “interferes with the core elements of wedlock.”
• The Alliance Defense Fund, an anti-gay hate group.

There’s never been any doubt about NARTH’s motives, but this clearly shows that ex-gay therapists align with hate groups to distort science for the sake of demonizing gays. It’s because of the antipathy these groups inject into society that anybody’s same-sex attractions are “unwanted” to begin with, demonstrating the artificial cycle of internalized homophobia they all depend upon.

Cartoon via SlapUpsideTheHead.com.

The National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is rabidly fundraising in an attempt to block a California bill that would limit how ex-gay therapy could be offered in the state. The bill, SB 1172, would prevent minors from receiving ex-gay therapy and require all interested adults to sign an informed consent form that describes how the therapy is harmful and ineffective. NARTH’s latest email today features a list of legal “concerns” from the anti-gay Pacific Justice Institute that are incredibly easy to debunk:

‘CONCERN’: This bill strictly bans counselors from telling young people that it is possible to overcome same-sex attractions and feelings–even if the minor or their parents seek out this type of counseling.

REALITY: Given that it’s not possible to “overcome same-sex attractions and feelings,” the bill simply requires that counselors not lie to clients in order to sell them a bill of goods.

‘CONCERN’: It mandates a new government form that adults must be given before a counselor or therapist can talk to them about “changing” their sexual orientation. The form would strongly discourage anyone from attempting such a change.

REALITY: Discouraging people from harmful therapy by accurately informing them about it is a good thing.

‘CONCERN’: It imposes an absurd government orthodoxy that insists it is possible to change one’s gender, be bisexual, or go from straight to gay, but it is dangerous and not really possible for an LGBT person to become straight.

REALITY: That “absurd government orthodoxy” happens to also be reality. People who are trans don’t “change” their gender — they actualize it, bisexuality exists, and nobody has ever posited the idea that sexual orientation can change in other directions. People just come out.
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The National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) issued a statement last week on “Sexual Orientation Change” that attempts to downplay the poor success rates and negative PR surrounding ex-gay therapy — not to mention the harmful impact it has on clients. Without any empirical research to support its conclusions, NARTH advocates redefining the very standard of “change” from an absolute category to a client-defined goalpost on a supposed continuum of change:

NARTH affirms that some individuals who seek care for unwanted same-sex attractions do report categorical change of sexual orientation. Moreover, NARTH acknowledges that others have reported no change. However, the experience of NARTH clinicians suggests that the majority of individuals who report unwanted same-sex attractions and pursue psychological care will be best served by conceptualizing change as occurring on a continuum, with many being able to achieve sustained shifts in the direction and intensity of their sexual attractions, fantasy, and arousal that they consider to be satisfying and meaningful. NARTH believes that a profound disservice is done to those with unwanted same-sex attractions by characterizing such shifts in sexual attractions as a denial of their authentic (and gay) personhood or a change in identity labeling alone.

In other words, NARTH wants to claim that clients have successfully changed their sexual orientation so long as they believe that they are actually changing. NARTH tries to distinguish itself as a psychological organization that stands apart from religious ex-gay ministries, but here it is literally admitting that it should be applauded for creating a placebo effect — that clients should be encouraged to pursue ex-gay therapy in spite of the expected lack of results.

The language of “change” is at the heart of NARTH’s work and messaging. Its mission statement acknowledges a “right of all individuals to choose their own destiny.” In position statements, NARTH suggests “the right to seek therapy to change one’s sexual adaptation should be considered self-evident and inalienable,” encourages schools to allow “discussion about those who have chosen to change their orientation,” and boasts that there are “numerous examples exist of people who have successfully modified their sexual behavior, identity, and arousal or fantasies.” NARTH also offers that change is a “worthy” goal and that “significant numbers” have experienced “substantial healing.” In 2004, Robert Perloff, a former president of the American Psychological Association, addressed the annual NARTH conference, proclaiming, “The individual has the right to choose whether he or she wishes to become straight. It is his or her choice, not that of an ideologically driven interest group.” The implied standard has always been that a person can change from one sexual orientation to another.

Like all proponents of ex-gay therapy, NARTH thinks it’s more important to defend those who have unwanted same-sex attractions than to challenge the internalized homophobia that troubles its members’ potential clients. And like almost all proponents of ex-gay therapy, NARTH continues to profit so long as individuals are susceptible to anti-gay stigma and the hope of changing their sexual orientation. By lowering its standard of “change” to whatever clients are willing to believe is “change,” this group of “psychologists” has admitted that the service they offer produces no results whatsoever.