Discussion on Gay Conversion therapy (compiled)

[HendryTan]

Surprised to hear this news on radio and went to search for this article online.

A renowned psychiatist who published an article 11 years ago that reparative therapy can change sexual orientation. That article was cited by Exodus, NARTH and other ex-gay groups as proof that their methods worked.

He finally came around to apologise for the sufferings that flawed article caused the gay community.

-------------------------------------------

Psychiatry Giant Sorry for Backing Gay ‘Cure’

By BENEDICT CAREY Published: May 18, 2012

New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/health/dr-robert-l-spitzer-noted-psychiatrist-apologizes-for-study-on-gay-cure.html

PRINCETON, N.J. — The simple fact was that he had done something wrong, and at the end of a long and revolutionary career it didn’t matter how often he’d been right, how powerful he once was, or what it would mean for his legacy.

Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, considered by some to be the father of modern psychiatry, lay awake at 4 o’clock on a recent morning knowing he had to do the one thing that comes least naturally to him.

He pushed himself up and staggered into the dark. His desk seemed impossibly far away; Dr. Spitzer, who turns 80 next week, suffers from Parkinson’s disease and has trouble walking, sitting, even holding his head upright.

The word he sometimes uses to describe these limitations — pathetic — is the same one that for decades he wielded like an ax to strike down dumb ideas, empty theorizing and junk studies.

Now here he was at his computer, ready to recant a study he had done himself, a poorly conceived 2003 investigation that supported the use of so-called reparative therapy to “cure” homosexuality for people strongly motivated to change.

What to say? The issue of gay marriage was rocking national politics yet again. The California State Legislature was debating a bill to ban the therapy outright as being dangerous. A magazine writer who had been through the therapy as a teenager recently visited his house, to explain how miserably disorienting the experience was.

And he would later learn that a World Health Organization report, released on Thursday, calls the therapy “a serious threat to the health and well-being — even the lives — of affected people.”

Dr. Spitzer’s fingers jerked over the keys, unreliably, as if choking on the words. And then it was done: a short letter to be published this month, in the same journal where the original study appeared.

“I believe,” it concludes, “I owe the gay community an apology.”

Disturber of the Peace

The idea to study reparative therapy at all was pure Spitzer, say those who know him, an effort to stick a finger in the eye of an orthodoxy that he himself had helped establish.

In the late 1990s as today, the psychiatric establishment considered the therapy to be a nonstarter. Few therapists thought of homosexuality as a disorder.

It was not always so. Up into the 1970s, the field’s diagnostic manual classified homosexuality as an illness, calling it a “sociopathic personality disturbance.” Many therapists offered treatment, including Freudian analysts who dominated the field at the time.

Advocates for gay people objected furiously, and in 1970, one year after the landmark Stonewall protests to stop police raids at a New York bar, a team of gay rights protesters heckled a meeting of behavioral therapists in New York to discuss the topic. The meeting broke up, but not before a young Columbia University professor sat down with the protesters to hear their case.

“I’ve always been drawn to controversy, and what I was hearing made sense,” said Dr. Spitzer, in an interview at his Princeton home last week. “And I began to think, well, if it is a mental disorder, then what makes it one?”

He compared homosexuality with other conditions defined as disorders, like depression and alcohol dependence, and saw immediately that the latter caused marked distress or impairment, while homosexuality often did not.

He also saw an opportunity to do something about it. Dr. Spitzer was then a junior member of on an American Psychiatric Association committee helping to rewrite the field’s diagnostic manual, and he promptly organized a symposium to discuss the place of homosexuality.

That kicked off a series of bitter debates, pitting Dr. Spitzer against a pair of influential senior psychiatrists who would not budge. In the end, the psychiatric association in 1973 sided with Dr. Spitzer, deciding to drop homosexuality from its manual and replace it with his alternative, “sexual orientation disturbance,” to identify people whose sexual orientation, gay or straight, caused them distress.

The arcane language notwithstanding, homosexuality was no longer a “disorder.” Dr. Spitzer achieved a civil rights breakthrough in record time.

“I wouldn’t say that Robert Spitzer became a household name among the broader gay movement, but the declassification of homosexuality was widely celebrated as a victory,” said Ronald Bayer of the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health at Columbia. “ ‘Sick No More’ was a headline in some gay newspapers.”

Partly as a result, Dr. Spitzer took charge of the task of updating the diagnostic manual. Together with a colleague, Dr. Janet Williams, now his wife, he set to work. To an extent that is still not widely appreciated, his thinking about this one issue — homosexuality — drove a broader reconsideration of what mental illness is, of where to draw the line between normal and not.

The new manual, a 567-page doorstop released in 1980, became an unlikely best seller, here and abroad. It instantly set the standard for future psychiatry manuals, and elevated its principal architect, then nearing 50, to the pinnacle of his field.

He was the keeper of the book, part headmaster, part ambassador, and part ornery cleric, growling over the phone at scientists, journalists, or policy makers he thought were out of order. He took to the role as if born to it, colleagues say, helping to bring order to a historically chaotic corner of science.

But power was its own kind of confinement. Dr. Spitzer could still disturb the peace, all right, but no longer from the flanks, as a rebel. Now he was the establishment. And in the late 1990s, friends say, he remained restless as ever, eager to challenge common assumptions.

That’s when he ran into another group of protesters, at the psychiatric association’s annual meeting in 1999: self-described ex-gays. Like the homosexual protesters in 1973, they too were outraged that psychiatry was denying their experience — and any therapy that might help.

Reparative Therapy

Reparative therapy, sometimes called “sexual reorientation” or “conversion” therapy, is rooted in Freud’s idea that people are born bisexual and can move along a continuum from one end to the other. Some therapists never let go of the theory, and one of Dr. Spitzer’s main rivals in the 1973 debate, Dr. Charles W. Socarides, founded an organization called the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, or Narth, in Southern California, to promote it.

By 1998, Narth had formed alliances with socially conservative advocacy groups and together they began an aggressive campaign, taking out full-page ads in major newspaper trumpeting success stories.

“People with a shared worldview basically came together and created their own set of experts to offer alternative policy views,” said Dr. Jack Drescher, a psychiatrist in New York and co-editor of “Ex-Gay Research: Analyzing the Spitzer Study and Its Relation to Science, Religion, Politics, and Culture.”

To Dr. Spitzer, the scientific question was at least worth asking: What was the effect of the therapy, if any? Previous studies had been biased and inconclusive. “People at the time did say to me, ‘Bob, you’re messing with your career, don’t do it,’ ” Dr. Spitzer said. “But I just didn’t feel vulnerable.”

He recruited 200 men and women, from the centers that were performing the therapy, including Exodus International, based in Florida, and Narth. He interviewed each in depth over the phone, asking about their sexual urges, feelings and behaviors before and after having the therapy, rating the answers on a scale.

He then compared the scores on this questionnaire, before and after therapy. “The majority of participants gave reports of change from a predominantly or exclusively homosexual orientation before therapy to a predominantly or exclusively heterosexual orientation in the past year,” his paper concluded.

The study — presented at a psychiatry meeting in 2001, before publication — immediately created a sensation, and ex-gay groups seized on it as solid evidence for their case. This was Dr. Spitzer, after all, the man who single-handedly removed homosexuality from the manual of mental disorders. No one could accuse him of bias.

But gay leaders accused him of betrayal, and they had their reasons.

The study had serious problems. It was based on what people remembered feeling years before — an often fuzzy record. It included some ex-gay advocates, who were politically active. And it did not test any particular therapy; only half of the participants engaged with a therapist at all, while the others worked with pastoral counselors, or in independent Bible study.

Several colleagues tried to stop the study in its tracks, and urged him not to publish it, Dr. Spitzer said.

Yet, heavily invested after all the work, he turned to a friend and former collaborator, Dr. Kenneth J. Zucker, psychologist in chief at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto and editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior, another influential journal.

“I knew Bob and the quality of his work, and I agreed to publish it,” Dr. Zucker said in an interview last week. The paper did not go through the usual peer-review process, in which unnamed experts critique a manuscript before publication. “But I told him I would do it only if I also published commentaries” of response from other scientists to accompany the study, Dr. Zucker said.

Those commentaries, with a few exceptions, were merciless. One cited the Nuremberg Code of ethics to denounce the study as not only flawed but morally wrong. “We fear the repercussions of this study, including an increase in suffering, prejudice, and discrimination,” concluded a group of 15 researchers at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, where Dr. Spitzer was affiliated.

Dr. Spitzer in no way implied in the study that being gay was a choice, or that it was possible for anyone who wanted to change to do so in therapy. But that didn’t stop socially conservative groups from citing the paper in support of just those points, according to Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, a nonprofit group that fights antigay bias.

On one occasion, a politician in Finland held up the study in Parliament to argue against civil unions, according to Dr. Drescher.

“It needs to be said that when this study was misused for political purposes to say that gays should be cured — as it was, many times — Bob responded immediately, to correct misperceptions,” said Dr. Drescher, who is gay.

But Dr. Spitzer could not control how his study was interpreted by everyone, and he could not erase the biggest scientific flaw of them all, roundly attacked in many of the commentaries: Simply asking people whether they have changed is no evidence at all of real change. People lie, to themselves and others. They continually change their stories, to suit their needs and moods.

By almost any measure, in short, the study failed the test of scientific rigor that Dr. Spitzer himself was so instrumental in enforcing for so many years.

“As I read these commentaries, I knew this was a problem, a big problem, and one I couldn’t answer,” Dr. Spitzer said. “How do you know someone has really changed?”

Letting Go

It took 11 years for him to admit it publicly.

At first he clung to the idea that the study was exploratory, an attempt to prompt scientists to think twice about dismissing the therapy outright. Then he took refuge in the position that the study was focused less on the effectiveness of the therapy and more on how people engaging in it described changes in sexual orientation.

“Not a very interesting question,” he said. “But for a long time I thought maybe I wouldn’t have to face the bigger problem, about measuring change.”

After retiring in 2003, he remained active on many fronts, but the reparative study remained a staple of the culture wars and a personal regret that wouldn’t leave him be. The Parkinson’s symptoms have worsened in the past year, exhausting him mentally as well physically, making it still harder to fight back pangs of remorse.

And one day in March, Dr. Spitzer entertained a visitor. Gabriel Arana, a journalist at the magazine The American Prospect, interviewed Dr. Spitzer about the reparative therapy study. This was not just any interview; Mr. Arana went through reparative therapy himself as a teenager, and his therapist had recruited the young man for Dr. Spitzer’s study (Mr. Arana did not participate).

“I asked him about all his critics, and he just came out and said, ‘I think they’re largely correct,’ ” said Mr. Arana, who wrote about his own experience last month. Mr. Arana said that reparative therapy ultimately delayed his self-acceptance as a gay man and induced thoughts of suicide. “But at the time I was recruited for the Spitzer study, I was referred as a success story. I would have said I was making progress.”

That did it. The study that seemed at the time a mere footnote to a large life was growing into a chapter. And it needed a proper ending — a strong correction, directly from its author, not a journalist or colleague.

A draft of the letter has already leaked online and has been reported.

“You know, it’s the only regret I have; the only professional one,” Dr. Spitzer said of the study, near the end of a long interview. “And I think, in the history of psychiatry, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a scientist write a letter saying that the data were all there but were totally misinterpreted. Who admitted that and who apologized to his readers.”

He looked away and back again, his big eyes blurring with emotion. “That’s something, don’t you think?”

[Guest umbrellaboi]

thanks for sharing that. a real eye opener.

[merlinkun]

I always answer back the "gay cure" question that why would I want to change the way I am? Why should I change myself just to fit into society's norm? Nothing is "normal" in this world anyway.

I heard many stories on my Tweeter feed on "gay cure", it usually end up with the gay person mind-scarred for life. Either that or they couldn't take it and commit suicide.

[mili]

I agree with @merlinkun. Isn't it an ironic situation when all the movies and documentary and blah blah blah tells us how important to stay true to who you are. Yet when it comes to one being gay, common thoughts is that you can be "saved" or you need to be treated. A cure for one's preferred sexual orientation a a true testimony to that which the world tell us.

I never chose this path that is lay out for me, believe you me i tried to be treated and the results turned out to be worst that what the end results offer.

In a nutshell (according to myself at least):

I am who I am and the acceptance who I am will set me free and allow me to concentrate and focus on things that can make this world a better place for all."

Apologies ... just me venting. Cheers

[lonely57]

I always answer back the "gay cure" question that why would I want to change the way I am? Why should I change myself just to fit into society's norm? Nothing is "normal" in this world anyway.

I heard many stories on my Tweeter feed on "gay cure", it usually end up with the gay person mind-scarred for life. Either that or they couldn't take it and commit suicide.

this scene kinda reminds me of xmen: the last stand movie.

apparently we seem to be the mutants in this scenario. some will definitely want to get their freakish mutation off of them. but some embrace it. some ppl just want to be accepted in the society.

[merlinkun]

Unsurprisingly, some of the X-men movies were directed by Bryan Singer, who is openly gay, hence the reference like "have you come out as mutant yet?". This is interesting as the mutants' struggle for acceptances mirrors what real life homosexual goes through. I currently have a Tumblr friend (he is just a high school teenager) whom parents are not happy with him being gay, especially his dad, who is just a big jerk. They keep saying how he "choose" this unhealthy life, yet they failed to realise how truly happy he is when he bought his boyfriend to prom.

I believe in love and understanding, yet like mili said, it is pretty ironic that love and understanding is limited if you are gay. We are not the problem, society is.

[Guest Guest]

To quote lady gaga: "No matter gay, straight, or bi, lesbian, transgendered life, I'm on the right track baby I was born to survive."

We should not try to change who we are. Society should learn to accept us.

[briax]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIifMxPcRnI&feature=player_embedded#!

Edited May 31, 2012 by briax

[gstc82]

This just in! Alan chambers finally believes there is NO CURE for for being homosexual!

[merlinkun]

I wish there is a cure for heterosexual, it's so unhealthy, and it is bad for society. lol jk

[gstc82]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9385205/US-Christian-group-renounces-homosexuailty-cure-campaign.html

[GachiMuchi]

US Christian group renounces homosexuailty 'cure' campaign

A controversial American Christian group has renounced its campaigning position that homosexuality can be "cured" through prayer.

Alan Chambers and his wife Leslie Photo: AP

By Nick Allen, Los Angeles

6:10PM BST 08 Jul 2012

Exodus International, which has 260 ministries around the United States and the world, has been vigorously opposed by gay rights activists for decades.

It claims to have helped tens of thousands of people rid themselves of unwanted homosexual inclinations through a process variously known as "conversion," "reparative," or "ex-gay" therapy.

The group used the slogan "Change is possible" and suggested that homosexuality was a choice, an argument used by conservative Christian groups to oppose same-sex marriage.

But the organisation's president Alan Chambers has now abandoned the stance. He said: "I do not believe that 'cure' is a word that is applicable to really any struggle, homosexuality included."

Mr Chambers, who is married to a woman but talks openly about his own sexual attraction to men, added: "For someone to put out a shingle and say 'I can cure homosexuality,' that to me is as bizarre as someone saying they can cure any other common temptation or struggle that anyone faces on Planet Earth."

Edited August 24, 2012 by GachiMuchi

[Guest Guest]

Curing homosexuality already sounds like heresy right from the start.

[krugerboy2002]

What there to cure as in the first place, who defines homosexuality as a disease.

Prayers prayers prayers...i getting sceptical in this.

[merlinkun]

Notice only people who hate gays comes up with stupid ideas like these? If everyone isn't hateful and at the very least indifferent about it, then there is nothing to "cure"/change people they despise.

Frankly I think society needs to change, not gays. But alas changes take time but we are almost there for a more accepting society

[gstc82]

Notice only people who hate gays comes up with stupid ideas like these? If everyone isn't hateful and at the very least indifferent about it, then there is nothing to "cure"/change people they despise.

Frankly I think society needs to change, not gays. But alas changes take time but we are almost there for a more accepting society

some gays need to change as well. Yesterday there was a posting where someone asked for "stories" abt gay army officers, or some idiot who posted can "straight" men be allowed in gay sauna.

[HendryTan]

Exodus International, the ex-gay group that insists that gay can be cured using reparative-therapy. They have announced they will shut down.

Alan Chambers the president of Exodus-International also posted an apology to LGBT people on their website.

http://exodusinternational.org/2013/06/exodus-international-to-shut-down/

The follwoing report from Advocate.com: http://www.advocate.com/politics/religion/2013/06/20/breaking-exodus-international-shuts-down-end-ex-gay-movement

_____________________________________________________________

An Exodus From the 'Ex-Gay' Movement?

The movement, which suffered the latest blow on Wednesday as Exodus International's board voted to shut down, is the subject of a new installment of Our America With Lisa Ling.

BY TRUDY RING JUNE 20 2013 12:50 AM ET

The nation’s most prominent ex-gay group, Exodus International, announced on its website late Wednesday that it will shut down and reemerge as a new ministry.

The group had for most of its existence insisted gay people can be turned straight. Exactly what its newest iteration will become is unclear from the announcement, and a new website called "Reduce Fear" hasn't even been completed.

Decades after leading U.S. mental health organizations agreed that being gay is not a disorder, a small segment of American society, driven largely by religion, has persisted in saying homosexuality is something that can and should be “cured.” While there has always been ample skepticism about the “ex-gay” movement, recent developments indicate the movement is becoming more marginal than ever —it’s not dead, but it’s certainly in critical condition.

Stories are legion of those who’ve gone through so-called reparative therapy, seeking to turn from gay to straight, only to find the therapy is not only ineffective but downright harmful. Mainstream mental health professionals have condemned it. One state has outlawed it, and others are likely to follow. Even the president of Exodus International has renounced such therapy and says Exodus is no longer part of the ex-gay movement.

That man, Alan Chambers, appears Thursday night on Our America With Lisa Ling, on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network, delivering an apology (of sorts) to LGBT people who’ve been harmed by ex-gay efforts. It's timed with a written apology issued this week via the Exodus website. The shift by Chambers and Exodus, however, raises the question of just what the movement is about now — if it doesn’t profess to make gay people straight, is it offering only celibacy or the closet?

A year ago, at Exodus’s annual conference, Chambers announced that the organization was renouncing reparative therapy, saying it offered false hope to those who undergo it and even harms them, while treating homosexuality differently than other “sins.” But he continues to believe that sex should be confined only to monogamous heterosexual marriages.

Recently, Chambers, who had been interviewed for Our America’s “Pray the Gay Away?” episode in 2011, contacted Ling to say he wanted to make a return appearance to issue an apology for the hurt caused by ex-gay therapy. She suggested that people who had left ex-gay groups be present. “I was really surprised that Alan agreed,” she tells The Advocate.

It resulted in a three-hour meeting that “was exhausting emotionally,” Ling says, and that is readily apparent in the portions featured in the new Our America episode, “God and Gays.” Chambers and his wife, Leslie, met with 10 survivors of ex-gay programs, including Michael Bussee, an Exodus founder who eventually left the group and became an out and proud gay man; Jerry, a former pastor who came out of the closet after a 26-year marriage; Catherine, who was a counselor with an ex-gay ministry and calls it “the greatest regret of my life”; Art, who believes his bipolar disorder was brought on by ex-gay therapy; and Christian, whose experience attests to the gender stereotyping and misconceptions about gays that permeate such therapy efforts — he was urged to give up his found-object art projects and pursue more “masculine” activities such as sports and gym workouts. They and the others were enlisted from an online support group run by Bussee.

They gathered in the basement of Hollywood Lutheran Church in Los Angeles, a congregation affiliated with the LGBT-affirming Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The ex-gay movement is largely a phenomenon of fundamentalist Christianity, with mainline Protestant Christian denominations accepting gay people as they are. There is also at least one Jewish ex-gay group, and the Roman Catholic Church has a ministry that seeks to help gay people lead celibate lives.

Chambers says of Exodus, “Today we cease to be an ex-gay organization.” He apologizes for the hurt it has caused by promoting efforts to change sexual orientation, and he tells the survivors of ex-gay therapy, “You haven’t ever been my enemy, and I’m sorry I’ve been yours.” He says he recognizes the right of LGBT people to campaign for equality. But he also says he will not apologize for his beliefs about biblical constraints on sexual behavior.

The others in the room confront him about just what Exodus is. “My cynical side would say it’s the recloseting ministry,” says Jerry. He sees Exodus’s new message as “We cannot change you, we cannot give you a happy life, but we can help you get back into the closet more comfortably.”

“No matter what you change, you’re still selling that lie [about changing sexual orientation], and you know it, that’s the worst thing,” says another, Sean, who had been told he was demon-possessed and contemplated suicide because of the pain caused by ex-gay therapy. “You know, deep down inside, Alan, that it is still a bald-faced lie.”

[Guest Guest]

Better late than never. Hopefully fewer LGBTs will get harmed by such bogus "treatments" in future.

[Guest hermanita]

LOL. Hendry , you beat ALEX AW  our local gay activist to the line in publishing this article,

 

usually this Alex will slay and flay the ex Gay group to the smitherines , he is known to speak up and paint fault with any ex gay therapy treatments.

 

Where did you find the article ??

 

Guess i have to email the old bird Alex , his hearing , eye sight might be rapidly failing.

-----------

No lah. Alex Au writes original articles.

My above post was cut from advocate.com, you missed the source URL I put.

Copy/paste vs writing original articles is alot of difference.

Hendry Tan

Admin cum Mod

[Guest NTChrist]

The ex-gay movement may be revived by the powerful and rich Thio family here.

 

I am always very curious and perplexed by gay christians as how they reconcile their sexual practice with their faith.

[retri]

The ex-gay movement may be revived by the powerful and rich Thio family here.

 

I am always very curious and perplexed by gay christians as how they reconcile their sexual practice with their faith.

 

well. for some of my Christian friends, they simply said that it is simply a relationship between him and Christ. =)

 

I guess that's how they do it.

[MadMan]

well. for some of my Christian friends, they simply said that it is simply a relationship between him and Christ. =)

 

I guess that's how they do it.

 

Sounds exactly like what abused wives said of their relationships with their wacko masochistic husbands...

[Guest Guest]

The Lisa Ling series is very well done. I like how Michael Bussee had an affair with another leader, lol !  If your Youtube is blocked, use a VPN to get around it. I watched but couldn't download it to share with others.

[HendryTan]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/djpeisner/the-man-behind-the-historic-implosion-of-the-ex-gay-movement

 

The Man Behind The Historic Implosion Of The Ex-Gay Movement

Alan Chambers wasn’t just the leader of Exodus International, he was also a member. When he shut down the ministry network this summer, foes and allies alike debated whether this was a tipping point for conservative Christians’ acceptance of homosexuality or merely a symptom of his own inability to practice what he preached.

posted on August 22, 2013 at 10:35pm EDT

David PeisnerBuzzFeed Contributor

 

Photographs by Edward Linsmier for BuzzFeed

It’s mid-afternoon on a Monday in July and the offices that once housed Exodus International are quiet. Exodus, which for 37 years was more or less synonymous with the ex-gay movement and at its peak employed 24 people in this office, closed down in June. Since then, a skeleton crew of three people has rattled around the largely empty workspace overseeing the dismantling of an association that once included more than 150 Christian ministries in 17 countries, all devoted to the idea that homosexual feelings need not lead to eternal damnation. They could be managed, ignored, overcome, repented for, and perhaps even transformed into something more biblically acceptable. Just as long as they weren’t acted upon. Its mission statement: “Mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality.”

 

The building — a fading white, multistory rectangular block situated on a side street in an area of Orlando well-stocked with dreary strip malls and office parks — is wholly unremarkable, the kind of place you’d drive by a thousand times without taking a second glance. Exodus bought it five years ago, but it hasn’t been a great investment, and in light of the organization’s demise, the property is now up for sale.

Despite recent upheaval, Alan Chambers looks pretty comfortable ensconced in his large corner office on the second floor. Chambers, 41 — who after living as a gay man in his younger years now has a wife and two children — led Exodus for its final 12 years. He’s long been a poster boy for the Christian right’s belief that it was possible to “pray the gay away.” Chambers disputes the notion that he ever promoted Exodus as the “gay cure” ministry, though there is plenty of evidence to the contrary, not the least of which is the book he wrote in 2009 called Leaving Homosexuality: A Practical Guide for Men and Women Looking for a Way Out. He maintains that his overarching goal was always to provide homosexuals with the comfort, fellowship, and love they’d been denied by traditional churches. And yet, for example, in a 2005 Exodus newsletter, he wrote, “One of the many evils this world has to offer is the sin of homosexuality. Satan, the enemy, is using people to further his agenda to destroy the Kingdom of God and as many souls as he can.”

The following year, he and his deputy at Exodus, Randy Thomas, visited the White House at George W. Bush’s invitation as Bush announced his push for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Chambers was also a prominent supporter of Proposition 8 in California. In 2009, an Exodus board member — not Chambers — traveled to Uganda and spoke at a conference on the evils of homosexuality that helped build the hysteria there that led to the country’s infamous 2009 “Kill the Gays” bill, which prescribed a potential death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” or life imprisonment for “the offence of homosexuality.” (It has never been voted on but was reintroduced last year.) It took Chambers nearly a year to publicly disavow his organization’s involvement.

And yet this June, Chambers not only closed Exodus in sudden and dramatic fashion, but acknowledged the ineffectiveness of gay-to-straight reparative therapy and offered a remarkable mea culpa that apologized for his organization’s many missteps. He’s now founding a new organization focused on bringing Christians and homosexuals together, called Speak. Love. Many in the LGBT community hailed Exodus’ demise as a victory in the culture wars but were disappointed Chambers hadn’t gone further in his support of gay rights or his renouncement of the religious underpinnings of the ex-gay theology. To many evangelicals, the man who had not only been a leader of the ex-gay movement but also a living example of its successes was now a lost sheep, or worse, a heretic.

“There are times when I feel like I don’t have a country,” Chambers says, not far from a wall of photos that include shots of him with his wife, with his kids, and with Mike Huckabee. “There are people who have been invested in this fight for years on both sides. It’s the vocal minority on either side that gets the microphone. What I believe is there are far more people in the middle.”

It’s this middle group that he’s hoping to represent and talk to. The question is, will he have the chance? At the moment, he’s working on defining specific plans for the new organization and raising money to keep the lights on. But in order to succeed, he’ll need to convince people that his divisive past has indeed passed, and that his own personal struggle won’t get in the way of his public mission.

 

Photograph by Edward Linsmier for BuzzFeed

 

Alan Chambers is not gay, although this kind of depends on what your definition of “is” is. To hear him recount his personal history, it sounds very much like the familiar story of a young man coming to terms with his sexuality.

I meet Chambers for lunch in the posh Orlando suburb of Winter Park, where he grew up. I get there before him, look around, and wonder if his choice of locale — a sleek sports bar with 30 flat-screen TVs assaulting diners with reruns of SportsCenter — is a way of nakedly proclaiming his embrace of traditional gender roles, but the truth is, the place he really wanted to meet, an upscale Italian bistro down the street, is closed on Mondays. He arrives apologizing for being a few minutes late, dressed in a blue blazer, striped button-down shirt, blue bow tie, and jeans cuffed fashionably at his ankles, along with tan loafers, no socks. He sits down and immediately makes a joke about ordering an appetizer called “bleu balls.” He’s definitely not trying to butch it up.

Chambers is bald with a neatly trimmed gray beard framing his face. He comes from a big family, the youngest of six kids. As in most families in central Florida, sports were a big deal, and Chambers’ lack of ability or interest in anything athletic immediately made him stand out. His parents persisted for a while in trying to get him to play baseball, but he couldn’t hit, he couldn’t throw, it was hot outside, and he was bored.

“I hated it,” he says. “Maybe if the uniform was cool enough I could’ve liked it. But most of my friends were girls, so I gravitated toward the things they gravitated toward.” He dressed up in his sisters’ clothes and often pretended to be a girl. “People thought I was a girl. I had beautiful curly brown hair, these big eyes, and eyelashes for days. People would say, ‘Your little sister is so cute!’ All this just reinforced my feeling that I was not like other boys.” Still, it took time for him to understand what all these things really meant. “It was puberty when I realized all the boys in my class liked girls and I liked all the boys.”

This revelation horrified Chambers. He’d been raised Southern Baptist in a heavily religious family with a father who was ex-military. He had no experience or knowledge of what it meant to be gay, other than believing it was bad. He didn’t know anyone who was openly gay, and growing up in the ’80s, there were few, if any, gay role models. As he got older, he was teased and bullied. He remembers being afraid to change in front of other boys before gym class, and having them bang on the stall where he would get dressed, hollering “fag” and “queer” at him through the walls.

“That’s probably when I realized, I’ve got to do something about this,” he says. “Then the prayers started every night: ‘God, fix me. Cure me. Heal me. Whatever I’ve done to become this dirty, rotten sinner, fix this.’”

As his high school years waned and he started attending a local community college, Chambers was in the midst of a full-on struggle with his sexuality.

“The majority of the encounters I had were shameful, anonymous encounters,” he says. “I don’t know that tons of people feel good about that stuff anyway.” Even when he coupled with men he had gotten to know a little bit, he was filled with self-loathing. “Because it wasn’t about a relationship, it was about sex. That was difficult, especially for a typical Christian kid who was afraid he was going to go to hell at every turn.” After confiding in a counselor at a Christian youth retreat about his homosexual urges when he was 19, he was turned on to a local ministry in Winter Park called Eleutheros that was affiliated with Exodus.

At the time, Exodus had been around for over 20 years; it was started by a group of men in the 1970s who were struggling with the same tension between their sexual attractions and their devout belief that homosexuality was a biblical sin.

Most of their programs closely mirrored Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12-step program, with open groups where people could talk about their struggles, and “accountability partners” who worked much like AA sponsors to be on call to help a member deal with daily temptations. In addition, many of the ministries offered mental health counseling — some done by licensed professionals, but plenty also by lay or faith-based counselors — for those working out deep-seated issues such as childhood sexual abuse. Many of the ministries also had connections to reparative therapists who engage in the controversial practice of trying to change the sexual orientation of their clients through a mix of psychoanalysis of past traumas, behavior modification, engagement in traditional “gender-appropriate” activities and other processes such as “holding therapy,” in which a man would hug another man at length with the goal of symbolically repairing the non-sexual male bond that may have never successfully formed between the man and his father. (The scientific theories behind reparative therapy have been debunked and the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, andAmerican Psychological Association have all been critical of the practice. In 2001, United States Surgeon General David Satcher issued a report stating, “There is no valid evidence that sexual orientation can be changed.” New Jersey this week became the second state, after California, to outlaw the practice for minors. Similar bills have be introduced to state legislatures in New York and Massachusetts.)

Chambers has often said that his introduction to Exodus saved his life. Coming from a sheltered childhood, it was the first time he’d been around other people wrestling with the same issues he was. Somewhat ironically, though, his early days at Exodus also coincided with his deepening identification as a gay man. “I went to Exodus when I was 19, and that’s when my eyes were opened to the whole gay world around me,” he says. “So in the midst of being involved with the local Exodus group, I also got involved with the gay community. I wouldn’t say I was out and proud with everybody I knew, but there were certain people that knew, people I worked with at a restaurant.”

His goal at Exodus though was clear: He wanted to become straight. “I went in and told the guy the first time I met with him, ‘I want to be here six months, then I want to be done with this.’”

Chambers told his parents of his struggles with what he calls “same-sex attractions,” and they surprised him by being extremely supportive, particularly of his efforts to change. Chambers attended an open group, sharing his experiences and praying for himself and his fellow strugglers. He worked with an accountability partner and had sessions with a counselor to talk about being molested by an older teenage boy when he was 10.

“He was an actual licensed mental health counselor that I would meet with once a week and we’d talk through all these things,” he says. “No hocus-pocus, just talking. It was amazing and helped me deal with a lot of wounds I had. But I never went through reparative therapy.”

Despite the work he was doing, he eventually realized his original goal — to walk out in six months as a happy, well-adjusted heterosexual — was unrealistic. “I hoped the gay stuff would go away and I wouldn’t feel that way anymore,” he says. “It never did happen.”

 

Photograph by Edward Linsmier for BuzzFeed

 

The next morning I meet Chambers and his wife, Leslie, at a Starbucks. She’s got brown hair and a warm face dotted with a few freckles, and she’s wearing a pink-and-white blouse with a blue jean skirt. She’s not the timid and retiring minister’s wife of popular cliché, but rather sharp, funny, and down-to-earth. She tells me the first time she ever saw Alan was on TV, in the mid-’90s.

“He and a friend of his were sharing their stories,” she says. “So I knew that part of him first. The next time I saw him, he walked into church with that same guy and I was like, ‘There’s those two gay guys.’”

Chambers says he was attracted to Leslie the first time he saw her. He’d been mildly attracted to women before, and had a few girlfriends back in high school, but he’d never felt anything like this in the past. At the time, Leslie was working as a nanny for the family of then-Major League pitcher Orel Hershiser, and she got Chambers a job as Hershiser’s personal assistant. A few months later, Alan told her he wanted to be more than just friends.

“I told him it’s never going to happen,” she says. Over the course of the next few months, though, her feelings began to change. In March 1997, they went on their first date, and the following January they were married.

“I was 30 years old and hadn’t found anybody yet,” says Leslie. “But I had only two things I wanted in a guy: I wanted somebody who liked me first. I wanted to be pursued. And I wanted somebody who could tell me no, because I was a fairly strong person.”

Chambers laughs. “Was.”

Leslie continues. “Those were the only two things. Well, and he was a Christian, which was important and non-negotiable, so that wasn’t even on my list. Over those months that we were friends, he absolutely became that person. He pursued me first, and I didn’t doubt him in his pursuit of me. I felt very validated and secure in his attractions for me.”

After getting married, Chambers grew more invested in Exodus. He’d first begun working part-time at Eleutheros when he dropped out of college in 1992. He’d gone full-time at Eleutheros in 1994 but then quit two years later to work with the Hershisers. In early 1999, he started his own local Exodus ministry, focusing on youths and teenagers grappling with homosexuality. The next year, he was named to Exodus’ board of directors, and the year after that, he was elected president. From the beginning, his goal was to grow Exodus into an aggressive, dynamic, influential organization. And as a charismatic speaker with a personal testimony of his own transformation from unhappy gay man to happily married heterosexual, he was a walking advertisement for the group’s then-motto: “Change Is Possible.”

Of course, the truth was a bit more complicated. Chambers has admitted many times that his attraction to men has never fully receded but maintains that the person in the world he is most attracted to is his wife. The couple have two children, a boy and a girl, both 8 years old, both adopted. Before I can even ask why they chose to adopt, Chambers tells me.

“We were infertile,” he says. “Both of us. We tried for seven years to have kids and to no avail. We got the two best things we could’ve ever asked or prayed for.” When I bring up the subject of their sex life, Chambers answers like someone used to fielding the question.

“Sex is a huge part of our marriage,” he says. “It has been and it’s great and I love it. I’m attracted to my wife and I don’t think of anything but my wife when I’m having sex with her. I have never in almost 16 years of marriage ever felt a temptation to be unfaithful to her. But sex isn’t the pinnacle of our life together, nor should it be. There are a bunch of things more important than my sexual impulses, whether they’re toward men or toward women, and I have both.”
 

Photograph by Edward Linsmier for BuzzFeed

 

Exodus was always more of an umbrella that loosely connected separate ministries; it got funding from members and also raised money from churches and donors. Chambers and his team would issue policies and guidelines from their office in Orlando, but they never felt like they were completely in control of the group’s many tentacles.

“I hoped that eventually the entire organization would be on the same page,” he says. “You walk into a Starbucks and you get the same latte in New York City as you do in Kentucky. I longed for that with Exodus. There was always tension.” Over the last few years, his personal views on homosexuality began to become more moderate. As early as 2008, in various speeches and interviews, Chambers flirted with the notion that homosexuality might not be a mortal sin that would endanger a Christian’s salvation, which caused considerable grumbling among Exodus’ rank-and-file membership. He subsequently found that he was doing a lot of apologizing or explaining on behalf of Exodus’ member ministries, which he didn’t always agree with.

In January of last year at Exodus’ annual leadership retreat, Chambers felt that the organization had reached a crossroads, so he laid out four possible paths for the future: 1) stay the same; 2) simply re-brand; 3) modify and change everything but continue on; 4) shut down. The original plan coming out of that meeting was a combination of options 2 and 3. Around this same time, he publicly admitted that the reparative therapy that Exodus had been promoting for years didn’t work for “99.9%” of people. He also began saying unequivocally that gay Christians need not repent for their homosexuality in order to get into heaven. These two bombshells caused Exodus International to splinter, with many of the member ministries peeling off to form the Restored Hope Network.

In April, he taped an appearance on Our America with Lisa Ling on the Oprah Winfrey Network, in which he sat in a church basement in a circle of folding chairs with some Exodus “survivors” — most of whom had since accepted their own homosexuality and felt emotionally damaged by their experiences with the ministry. He opened by reading an apology. In it, he said:

“I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn’t change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents. I am sorry that there were times I didn’t stand up to people publicly ‘on my side’ who called you names like sodomite — or worse. I am sorry that I, knowing some of you so well, failed to share publicly that the gay and lesbian people I know were every bit as capable of being amazing parents as the straight people I know. … More than anything, I am sorry that so many have interpreted this religious rejection by Christians as God’s rejection. I am profoundly sorry that many have walked away from their faith and that some have chosen to end their lives.”

He went on to say that he could not apologize for his “deeply held beliefs about the boundaries [he] sees in scripture surrounding sex,” but wouldn’t try to impose those views on anyone else anymore. Then, he sat mostly silent, like a “deer in headlights,” according to one attendee, as the Exodus “survivors” battered him with their tales of personal woe for three and a half hours. Many of them did not accept his apology.

“No matter what you do, no matter what you change, you’re still selling that lie, and you know it,” one former congregant said. “That’s the worst thing. You know deep down inside Alan, that it is still a bald-faced lie.”

On June 19, the day before the segment aired, he posted a longer version of the apology on Exodus’ website — it’s worth reading in full if for no other reason than that it’s rare to see public contrition that seems like a sincere expression of regret rather than pro forma damage control performed by someone recently caught with his pants down — and announced Exodus’ shuttering.

I ask him about the line in the apology acknowledging that some former Exodus clients have been driven to suicide. Does he feel personally responsible for that?
He falls silent for a moment before answering.

“There are people who say I’ve ruined their life,” he says. “There are certainly things I’ve said that caused people shame. Do I think I’ve caused people to kill themselves?” He takes a deep breath and pauses for another moment. “I don’t think so. But we deal with very, very vulnerable people. Those are things that haunt me. But I can’t live my life there because I’d never get anything else done. All I can do is say I’m sorry and do something different.”

 

Photograph by Edward Linsmier for BuzzFeed

Chambers is good company — even those who disagree with him usually acknowledge this — and you get the feeling that much of his success within Exodus grew from this fact. He has no formal religious training or education, something he takes pride in and says has always irked a certain segment of the Exodus’ membership.

“That just drives them craaazy,” he says. We’re driving to his office in his minivan, a gray Honda Odyssey. On the radio, NPR is reporting on comments Pope Francis made aboard his airplane recently, on a flight from Brazil to Rome.

“If someone is gay and searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Francis said, indicating a sharp break in tone, if not in policy, for the Catholic Church. Chambers is not a Catholic, but is buoyed a little by the comments. I mention that Francis seems a lot looser than his predecessor, Benedict.

“My wife and I were in Rome in 2007 and did a private tour of the Vatican,” he says. “Our tour guide said that Pope Benedict was gay and it was well-known within private circles. One of her best friends was part of the Swiss Guard. She said it was very well-known that his personal assistant was his lover and they shared a bed and quarters.” When Benedict stepped down as pope, he says, he wondered if all that had anything to do with it. Of course plenty have similar theories about Chambers himself.

 

“Really, what you see is Alan Chambers projecting his own issues onto everyone else,” says Christopher Doyle, an ex-gay psychotherapist who is president of Voice of the Voiceless, an organization that argues for ex-gay rights. “You have to realize, Alan never went through therapy. He came to a point where he said, ‘My same-sex attractions didn’t go away. Therefore it didn’t work for anybody.’ That’s not true.” He sees Exodus’ closure as a huge setback for his cause and calls Exodus “an organization that has given hope to thousands of people for 35 years.”

Doyle says Chambers and the rest of the Exodus leadership focused on the ministry side of it — which, he grants, is also an important component — but that they never embraced or even understood reparative therapy, which he insists he’s personally seen help “hundreds” of people.

“Alan Chambers does not have an understanding of what sexuality and sexual orientation really is,” he says. “He’s not educated. You have an unqualified person leading this organization who does not have the answers, and therefore he’s throwing his hands up in the air, saying, ‘I don’t know what to do next!’ He should have just resigned and let someone else that’s a more effective leader come in rather than selfishly and narcissistically burying it.”

Doyle further cautions against reading Exodus’ demise as some sort of cultural bellwether. That said, it’s worth mentioning that he also does not believe that the extremely low turnout at his organization’s Ex-Gay Pride Rally on Capitol Hill on July 30 — 10 people showed up — was a sign of the movement’s decline, but rather a product of the fear of retaliation from the forces of what he calls “homofascism.” He doesn’t think the recent shifts in society at large — notably, the Supreme Court’s rejection of the Defense of Marriage Act and “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage — are indicative of a similar shift in attitudes within the ex-gay movement.

In some sense, Doyle is right. The practical effects of Exodus’ demise are minor in comparison to the symbolic ones: Many of the former member ministries have carried on with the same programs they had before, just not under the Exodus banner anymore. Doyle points to the Restored Hope Network and other ex-gay ministries as evidence of many who haven’t given up the fight.

“You can’t let this man speak for all these people around the country. There is still a widespread belief among the ex-gay community, a predominant belief, that people can and do change.”

 

Photograph by Edward Linsmier for BuzzFeed

 

It’s an odd fact that those who’d disagree with the very core of Doyle’s point might not entirely dispute his assessment of Chambers’ motivations.

Michael Bussee was one of the founders of Exodus in the ’70s, but he left the group a few years later after he and another founder named Gary Cooper fell in love and pursued a relationship together. (Cooper died of an AIDS-related illness in 1991.) Over the last decade and a half, Bussee has been one of Exodus’ most strident opponents and has been urging Chambers to close the organization down for years. He runs a Facebook group for over 400 “survivors” of Exodus and organized the group that appeared with Chambers on Our America. Despite their opposing stances, he says he’s usually gotten along quite well with Chambers on a personal level.

“I don’t see him as an evil or mean-spirited person,” he says. “He’s not an overt hatemonger. He’s sincere, really loves his wife, loves his family, and is very troubled by what he calls his own same-sex attractions.” He views Chambers as a man undergoing a personal and public evolution — much like the one he himself did roughly 30 years ago. “I think he really believed, like I believed, that if you had enough faith, eventually the change would happen,” he says. “I think, like me, he was also concerned that the church was being very cruel to gay people and what they really needed was help, not condemnation. We thought that was what we were doing by offering them freedom from homosexuality. So it was motivated by internalized homophobia and good intentions, and a denial of the truth about ourselves. I think it got to the point for him this last year that he just couldn’t ignore that any longer.”
 

Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper at their wedding. Courtesy of Michael Bussee via TruthWinsOut.org

Bussee points out that the history of Exodus and the entire ex-gay movement is riddled with leaders who have undergone this same transformation. In 2011, John Smid, former director of the Memphis-based ex-gay ministry Love in Action,came out as gay and said he had “never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual.” John Paulk, a former chairman of Exodus’ board of directors and founder of Love Won Out, an ex-gay conference affiliated with James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, has come out of the closet, left his wife, and just this year denounced reparative therapy andissued an apology. (He now owns a catering company in Portland, Oregon.)

 

Bussee thinks Chambers is likely on a similar trajectory. “He may be going through the same thing that a lot of former leaders go through just before they abandon the whole thing, and [decide] maybe it’s OK to be gay and maybe gay relationships can be blessed by God,” he says. “He’s in the middle somewhere, still trying to figure out where to land. He’s not quite there yet.”

Wayne Besen, a former staffer at the Human Rights Campaign whose current organization,Truth Wins Out, has long been a chronicler and harsh critic of the ex-gay movement, calls Chambers’ recent moves bold, if incomplete, but essentially agrees with Bussee that it’s just a matter of time before the other shoe drops in Chambers’ personal life.

“People have a strong motivation and desire to be their real selves,” he says. “Alan is no exception. He’s on a journey. Maybe he never gets there, but very rarely do people go their entire life without experiencing intimacy and love at their very core.”

Alan and Leslie Chambers have gotten used to living under a microscope and having their marriage dissected by countless prying amateur (and occasionally professional) psychologists. Leslie is completely aware that many bystanders are just waiting expectantly for the day that her husband runs off with another man. But she isn’t.

“Those people don’t understand that our marriage is real, our commitment is real, our attractions for each other are real,” she says. “There’s a difference between an attraction and a temptation, and an attraction and an action. For him to say on national television that there are lingering same-sex attractions doesn’t send me into a tailspin, because I am completely confident and secure in his commitment to me, our family, and God.”

Chambers says that his choosing to be faithful to his wife by not sleeping with men is no different than any other married man upholding his marital vows. “I am happy,” he says. “I’m not denying myself anything. I don’t want anything else. I am living my true self. For anybody to think otherwise is inserting themselves into a situation that is not theirs to insert themselves.

“People can think whatever they want to think,” he continues. “I don’t really give a crap these days. If you think I’m on a journey that’s going to journey me out of my marriage and into something else, there’s never been a thought of that. I don’t want that. You don’t know me. You can keep your opinion to yourself. I am married to the person I am in love with.”

In person, Chambers and his wife certainly have the chemistry and casual affection of a couple that has been together for a long time. They share a lot of the same interests — shopping, home décor — and seem to see eye-to-eye when it comes to parenting their two children. Is it possible he is exaggerating or outright lying about his sex life? Sure. Might his and Leslie’s relationship be something closer to best friends or even siblings? Certainly. And how exactly would this make them different from countless other couples that have been married for 16 years?

I ask them if the relentless judgments about their relationship from people who don’t know them has caused the couple to reexamine their own thoughts on same-sex marriages. Chambers pauses before answering.

“Maybe to the extent that I can’t judge someone and say their love isn’t real or their life isn’t important,” he says. But actually supporting same-sex marriage at the moment is a bridge too far. “The whole promoting and lobbying for the passage of the federal marriage amendment, which I was very much a part of with Congress and the White House, I’ve been sorry about that for five years. I don’t have a desire to fight people on those things anymore, but I’m not going to be their champion either. People don’t need me to be marching in a gay pride parade in support of gay marriage. They may want me to, that might be a great symbol, but I don’t want to do that.”

That said, he does regret some of his other past political stances, and while he hopes to take a step back from public policy in general with the new organization Speak. Love., there may be points where he feels he has something to contribute.

“The whole notion of gay adoption — I would work to make sure kids have a home, whether there’s a straight home, a single home, or a gay home,” he says. “I feel passionate about us doing something about the issue of bullying. I feel passionate about kids that are being kicked out of their homes as teenagers because they come out as gay or lesbian. I feel passionate about undoing any damage that we did in Uganda or other countries.”

Besen, of Truth Wins Out, sees an opportunity for Chambers to take up the LGBT cause and really atone for his past.

“I was just in Trenton, New Jersey, testifying on a panel about banning reparative therapy for minors,” Besen says. “I would love to have been sitting next to Alan Chambers on that panel. He could’ve stated that reparative therapy doesn’t work and it shouldn’t be subjected to people against their will. So he can do a lot more. When he gets to the point where he’s ready, we’ll have a gigantic red carpet waiting for him. He could be a hero.”

It’s not clear Chambers is ready for this. At the moment, Speak. Love. is a work in progress. Chambers describes it with a lot of well-meaning phrases, like “a conversation about faith and sexuality,” “modeling civility and respect,” and “transforming churches into places that welcome all people,” but what that will look like in practice remains to be seen. Plenty are skeptical.

Bussee, the former Exodus founder, is concerned that it is just a rebranding. “They may tone down the anti-gay rhetoric, they may get out of anti-gay politics, but their basic views about homosexuality have not changed,” he says. “Who is going to want to support an organization that is really vague about what they’re even about? He was attractive as long as they were promising orientation change and engaged in anti-gay politics. Conservative Christians loved that. But now what’s he selling? Where is the donor base? Are moderate churches really going to want to give money to somebody who is preaching — what? That celibacy is possible?”

For this reason he thinks it’d be best if Chambers stepped out of the spotlight, at least for a while. “It’s like, ‘Alan, just lay off. Go put your life together, get out of this whole ministry thing. Get a real job. Enjoy your family. Just leave us alone and deal with this personal struggle you’re having privately.’” Bussee admits that scenario isn’t particularly likely. “What else is he going to do? He doesn’t have a college education. He doesn’t have any marketable skill. These people feel like they’re called by God into ministry but now they’re not welcomed by conservative Christians anymore, and they’re not welcomed by the gay community. How is he going to support his wife and children? One former ex-gay leader I know is now working part-time in the lumber department at Home Depot.”

Besen says Exodus’ inherent pitch that unhappy homosexuals could change their orientation — while tragically misguided — had an obvious customer base, but Speak. Love., not so much. “With Exodus, people were promised a miracle, and that was very seductive,” he says. “Right now, he’s selling misery loves company, where you get to sit around and talk to people who are just as lonely and sexually frustrated. There’s just not a big market for that.”

Chambers believes most of his critics are so caught up in the culture wars that they are fighting him almost out of habit. While it’s true that he will need to raise money from donors to fund both his new organization and pay himself, he wants to keep Speak. Love. small and manageable. He isn’t looking to rebuild a network of member ministries and doesn’t want to be in a position of pushing his opinions and beliefs on other people.

He says that despite the financial uncertainty that comes with founding this new organization, he’s not panicked.

“Making a living is important, but money has never been a determining factor for any of the things that we did at Exodus. I’m not here to profit off of something. I’m here to do something I believe is right. With the apology and the closing of Exodus, that was the right thing to do. I feel really passionate that we do have a voice going forward and there are people who are listening.”

He smiles and seems to relax.

“It’s a leap of faith.”

And if it doesn’t work out, what then?

“I’ve begged God for years to let me be a decorator,” he says, laughing. “If somebody offered me a job tomorrow, I’d be tempted.”

Photograph by Edward Linsmier for BuzzFeed

[BlowWindBlow]

Anyone can help to translate?

[iamziz]

After yesterday's posting about a therapy for those liking same sex. The said person received a few messages through WhatApp from a few people under Ustaz D (as described yesterday)

 

As yesterday's story, it is really true. Nothing additional, maybe a bit but a little, from the name and school location the said Ustaz. This is to protect the privacy of the said individual. 

 

About those contacting the said person, they really want to change but have no avenue to share the problem. If shared many would jump to conclusion; jin disturbance. This matter will not end and might become more depressing.

 

To everyone wanting to change and repent, you are invited to make appointment for therapy session and consultation. Can directly WhatsApp.

 

Confidentiality assured.

 

9 hours ago, BlowWindBlow said:

Anyone can help to translate?

 

[Carpenter]

Basically selling their gay conversion service to gays who wants to be 'cured'.

They will prob ask to be paid first.

[Guest Location]

Is that in singapore or malaysia? Oh what difference does that makes? Hohoho

[AskMeNot]

 

The annual Pride in London Parade takes place on Saturday, July 7.

London (CNN)The British government is planning to outlaw so-called gay conversion therapy as part of an effort to counter intolerance and discrimination.

The £4.5 million initiative follows a survey of LGBT people that found 2% of the 108,000 respondents had undergone conversion therapy while 5% had been offered it.

The survey also cast a light on the discrimination faced by lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgendered people, with more than two-thirds of participants recording they avoid holding hands with a same-sex partner in public out of fear people will react negatively.

 

In a statement, British Prime Minister Theresa May said she had been "struck by just how many respondents said they cannot be open about their sexual orientation or avoid holding hands with their partner in public for fear of a negative reaction."

"No one should ever have to hide who they are or who they love," she said. "This LGBT action plan will set out concrete steps to deliver real and lasting change across society, from health and education to tackling discrimination and addressing the burning injustices that LGBT people face."

 

 

People take part in the annual Pride in London parade on June 27, 2015.

 

The announcement of the new initiative, which coincides with Pride Week in London, will consider "legislative and non-legislative options to prohibit promoting, offering or conducting conversion therapy."

Gay conversion "therapies" are based on the premise that being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender is a mental illness that can be "cured." But there is no evidence that they work, and the techniques are largely discredited. Members of UK professional bodies for counseling and psychotherapy are prohibited from using such techniques.

The World Health Organization declassified homosexuality a mental condition in 1992.

Ruth Hunt, chief executive of the British LGBT rights group Stonewall, greeted the government's pledge as "an important first step" but added that it needs to lead to "tangible change."

"Some people will be shocked by the findings. But for anyone who is LGBT, or has a family member or friend who is, these results will be sadly recognizable," she said in a statement.

"Laws have improved and attitudes have changed but our society still treats LGBT people like second-class citizens."

 

According to the government's survey, 40% of those who responded had experienced hate incidents, with nine out of 10 going unreported.

The survey also uncovered discrimination in the workplace, with 23% of respondents reporting that they had received negative reactions from colleagues.

 

London will host its annual Gay Pride parade on Saturday.

 

The results also showed that 70% of respondents who identified as having a minority sexual orientation said they had avoided being open because they feared how others might react.

In addition, 67% of transgender respondents said they had avoided being open about their gender identity.

"Everyone in this country should feel safe and happy to be who they are, and to love who they love, without judgment or fear," Minister for Women and Equalities Penny Mordaunt said.

"I am incredibly proud of the UK's global leadership on LGBT equality and the fact that this is the largest survey of its kind, but many of the results are very disturbing.

"It's unacceptable that people feel they cannot hold hands with their partner in public, and that they are unable to walk down the street without fear of abuse. It is also deeply worrying that LGBT people experience difficulty accessing public services such as health care, and that so many are being offered the abhorrent practice of conversion therapy."

[Guest Blank]

If so easy to change sexual orientation, would there be gays and lesbians in this world? Took them so long to understand.... 

[Guest Politics]

Did USA ban this therapy too? Asia should ban it too!

[Cube3]

[GachiMuchi]

Prominent LGBT activist shares his experience with conversion therapy in Church

Kathleen.F 2018-11-05 Current Affairs

The LGBT community in this part of the world is still a long way from being completely accepted by society at large – owing mostly to the staunch and stubborn belief in the ‘traditional’ way of life that most people in Asia still cling to.

This is a reality that prominent Malaysian activist Pang Khee Teik knows only too well. Pang has been a vocal supporter of LGBT rights for years and writes regularly for Queer platform Queer Lapis about issues surrounding the LGBT community in Malaysia and abroad.

This time, he took to Facebook to share his experience with the Church as a young gay man. Prefacing his long post, Pang says “All these years, when I talked about my 12 years as a Christian trying to go straight, I have always framed it as, oh, I didn't have it as bad as others…But yesterday, I was invited to speak with a small group of Christian leaders from different continents who are forming guidelines for the Anglican denomination. Yesterday, for the first time, I acknowledged the pain and trauma of my conversion therapy experience.”

Pang went on to talk about becoming a Christian while studying in Singapore, only 14 at the time. He mentioned the shame of being gay and the isolation and loneliness that came with that. He was told that God could heal him.

The Church offered him hope, he says. “When I was 18, I read in the papers about a Christian ministry in Singapore that was for helping people like me, to recover from our sexual brokenness, as they put it. I met them and I was so euphoric that finally I had some hope -- to be healed, be straight, be normal.” He continued, “But at these meetings, I was told I'm gay because I'm incomplete”.

Pang continued this heart-wrenching account about the trauma of conversion therapy by the Church and effect that had on his relationships and own self-worth.

After 12 years, Pang eventually decided to leave the Church and undertake the long journey of recovery. “It was the church who made me incomplete. But when I finally found my voice and could tell my story I realise, it was my story that made me whole,” he wrote.

 

Facebook article
That's a picture of me as a young Christian trying to find the straight path.

All these years, when I talked about my 12 years as a Christian trying to go straight, I have always framed it as, oh, I didn't have it as bad as others. My experiences were not as traumatic, dramatic, or physically abusive as what others have gone through. I'm ok, you know. I'm strong, I'm lucky, unlike those who are still going through it.

But yesterday, I was invited to speak with a small group of Christian leaders from different continents who are forming guidelines for the Anglican denomination. Yesterday, for the first time, I acknowledged the pain and trauma of my conversion therapy experience. I admitted to them that what I went through was indeed terrible because I was stuck in it for over a decade. And it prevented me from living my life fully until I was in my 30s.

I became Christian at 14, while studying in Singapore. My experiences consisted of a lot of mundane small group meetings, hugging, church camps, confessions to my pastors and youth leaders, endless prayers, often ending up being prayed for, and often ending up in tears, begging God to make me a good person, to make me straight. Every week I would leave with renewed faith and hope, but as the week progressed, my flesh would be weak, and I would give in to my lust, and I would return with shame. I would keep this shame mostly to myself. It made me feel so utterly lonely and isolated. Which made me do things that then filled me with more shame.

When I was 18, I read in the papers about a Christian ministry in Singapore that was for helping people like me, to recover from our sexual brokenness, as they put it. I met them and I was so euphoric that finally I had some hope -- to be healed, be straight, be normal. I was so happy I told my best friend, I'm going to be OK, in five years time. Then, I got to meet a support group of gay Christians who were like me, who understood me, and like me, wanted the same goals. For the first time, I could tell my story to someone and be heard.

But at these meetings, I was told I'm gay because I'm incomplete, that I'm stunted in my relationship with my father, with God, with other men, and this manifested as lust for men, when what I really want is wholeness in God. I was young, and already filled with shame, so I believed them.

After that, I was subjected to weekly chipping away of my sense of self, dignity, and wholeness. I was convinced that as I was incomplete, I was therefore lustful, shameful, irresponsible, lacking in self control. Why couldn't I control these terrible dirty thoughts? I thought I was a monster, a vampire. For ten years, every time I would feel love for another man, I stabbed my heart with the cross to kill it. Until I could not feel anymore. Yesterday I realised that yes I did stab my own heart. But the church handed me the stake and guided my hand to it. Every week. For 12 years.

It also killed my sense of self. And my ability to speak for myself. And my ability to fight.

Up till today I'm still trying to heal from these deep wounds. It was not my homosexuality that stunted my growth and my relationships, it was the church. It taught me some very unhealthy ways of relating to myself and others.

It was perhaps due to the fact that it wasn't terribly traumatic that I didn't leave sooner. It was only when I found out my pastor had been advising my close male friends in church not to get too close to me. It was when my church leaders asked me to write the Easter musicals, and then excised the epiphanies, after I wrote myself into the struggles of the Biblical characters. It was after I realised the church didn't want my story, that I eventually left.

When I was done sharing, one of these church leaders told me that when I said my happiest moment consisted of being told I was incomplete and needed to be straight, that it broke her heart, that the church had reduced me to that. This to her was evidence of the harm the church did to me, that I became someone who would be happy for being told he's not enough.

Then another man in the group thanked me for sharing my story and said that my story was sacred. He said, if we're all made in God's image then all our personal stories are sacred texts. I just said wow. I said, I'm going to reflect on that later and cry. I'm tearing up while writing this down.

Even though I'm no longer Christian, this meeting meant a lot to me. To finally be heard. To be able to work now in solidarity to bring more justice and equality to the world.

When the church told my younger self what to believe about myself, it took away my right to narrate. The story of shame I told myself then kept me isolated from others. It was the church who made me incomplete. But when I finally found my voice and could tell my story I realise, it was my story that made me whole. My sacred text fills my heart with love and life again.

Thank you to all who listen and who hold all stories as sacred. Thank you to those who are trying to make the church whole again with all the broken pieces of our stories.

 

[LeanMature]

12 good youthful years wasted.  

[Steve5380]

On 11/7/2018 at 11:05 PM, LeanMature said:

12 good youthful years wasted.  

 

Why should they be wasted unless sex is the only important thing in life?

 

What I wonder is how after his experience he still is trying to make his church "whole" again.

One could hear:  "because he realizes that the church is run by fallible humans".

Well!  In this case why not accept that the church is human, is a human INVENTION?

 

But I think I understand.  It is religiousness that is so strong in some people

to the point of overriding the safeguards of reason.

[kingbitch]

2 hours ago, Steve5380 said:

 

Why should they be wasted unless sex is the only important thing in life?

 

What I wonder is how after his experience he still is trying to make his church "whole" again.

One could hear:  "because he realizes that the church is run by fallible humans".

Well!  In this case why not accept that the church is human, is a human INVENTION?

 

But I think I understand.  It is religiousness that is so strong in some people

to the point of overriding the safeguards of reason.

 

I still don't understand why people readily accept other humans telling them what is right or wrong.

[Guest Heya]

I’m so fortunate that today’s society is not as homophobic as last time and much more resources are available to closeted gays. It can’t be helped that many lgbt people are having emotional struggles and usually the first group of people to reach out to them are Christians... so it’s no wonder so many of them went through the church conversion process. Some of my nicest friends are Christians and they will always hold the belief that my sexual inclination is a choice, despite what i told them... just because they believe wholeheartedly what a book has written. It’s sad that there’s almost no progressive church in Singapore, all extremely fundamentalist.

[Steve5380]

2 hours ago, kingbitch said:

 

I still don't understand why people readily accept other humans telling them what is right or wrong.

 

I agree.  People should welcome to be made aware of what is right and wrong. 

Made aware means that they get the chance to reflect on the information and accept it or reject it.

 

1 hour ago, Guest Heya said:

I’m so fortunate that today’s society is not as homophobic as last time and much more resources are available to closeted gays. It can’t be helped that many lgbt people are having emotional struggles and usually the first group of people to reach out to them are Christians... so it’s no wonder so many of them went through the church conversion process. Some of my nicest friends are Christians and they will always hold the belief that my sexual inclination is a choice, despite what i told them... just because they believe wholeheartedly what a book has written. It’s sad that there’s almost no progressive church in Singapore, all extremely fundamentalist.

 

We are all fortunate that we live today and not one hundred years ago, for many reasons.  Your nice friends may be held captive by the gregariousness and feelings of belonging to the group that takes pride in holding wholeheartedly the beliefs of their religion.  So they give in to these feelings instead of using their inborn gift of reason.  The issue of sexual orientation may be irrelevant to them since they have the orientation that is blessed, at least in appearance.  Since it is no issue for them, should it be an issue for you what they believe?  Is a progressive church in Singapore needed?  How about giving up the interest in churches?  In many progressive countries people don't flock to progressive churches but renounce to organized religion all together.  After all,  a "progressive church" is often a regular church with all its old dogmas, minus the condemnation of homosexuality.

[Guest giuest]

On 11/8/2018 at 1:05 PM, LeanMature said:

12 good youthful years wasted.  

 

12 years of good ,forceful , virile sexual energy, and not to mention,  how many dirty old men it would have fed mouthfuls of cum.

 

Wasted, huh

[Steve5380]

7 minutes ago, Guest giuest said:

 

12 years of good ,forceful , virile sexual energy, and not to mention,  how many dirty old men it would have fed mouthfuls of cum.

 

Wasted, huh

 

Wasted or...  saved your mouth from all that cum with possible infectious diseases?

[Guest Lel]

14 minutes ago, Steve5380 said:

 

I agree.  People should welcome to be made aware of what is right and wrong. 

Made aware means that they get the chance to reflect on the information and accept it or reject it.

 

 

We are all fortunate that we live today and not one hundred years ago, for many reasons.  Your nice friends may be held captive by the gregariousness and feelings of belonging to the group that takes pride in holding wholeheartedly the beliefs of their religion.  So they give in to these feelings instead of using their inborn gift of reason.  The issue of sexual orientation may be irrelevant to them since they have the orientation that is blessed, at least in appearance.  Since it is no issue for them, should it be an issue for you what they believe?  Is a progressive church in Singapore needed?  How about giving up the interest in churches?  In many progressive countries people don't flock to progressive churches but renounce to organized religion all together.  After all,  a "progressive church" is often a regular church with all its old dogmas, minus the condemnation of homosexuality.

Well, most human kinda need a religion, for all sorts of reasons. It might not purely for rational reasons. Rather than having traditional ones I’ll prefer progressive ones instead. Of cuz we can give up on Churches but something better or worse will fill that void eventually. 

[fab]

Orientation is not a choice.

 

Being gay is different but not wrong.

[Guest InBangkok]

When you look back through the millennia of history, the various religions have a lot to answer for. How many wars have been fought in the name of religion? Catholics against Protestants? Catholics against Orthodox? Christians against Jews? Muslims against Christians? Sunni Muslims against Shi'a Muslims? Hindus against Muslims? Billions have been killed over that time in the name of "God".

 

Then take into account the monstrous massacres resulting from religious efforts to convert native tribes people to "God"? Hundreds of millions wiped out - the Incas in Peru, the Aztecs in Mexico, the Native Americans in North America, the native Australians in that continent. And on and on and on.

 

The problem with religion is that its converts are dogmatically certain that they are in the right! The missionaries that flooded the decaying Qing Empire did so after the British had forced it to accept opium for its exports instead of silver. And they agreed with the opium policy because it enabled them to "save souls!" Kill them off so we can fill up the Kingdom of God! What a pathetic and ghastly belief!

 

And all this is because of texts and interpretations of those texts often made hundreds of years after the religion was first established. 

 

I can understand that religion provides a basic code for living together in a society and it brings comfort to some people. But societies and conditions in which we who now live in societies have changed unbelievably over the millennia. The religious rules adopted to ensure the continuation of a small tribe roaming the desserts has precious little relevance to today's world. At least that is my view.

 

Thus my view that for any Church to tell me who I can love and with whom I can have sex is ridiculous - subject, naturally, to both parties being of legal age. That said, I have several friends who do find a comfort in also belonging to a Church and have no conflict whatever about being gay and enjoying gay sex. For those who become Church members either because they are forced to by their parents or of their own volition, I hope you realise you have no obligation to accept any crazy view on your sexuality. You can be gay and Christian/Muslim/Hindu/whatever. 

 

For any religion to tell anyone that they are "incomplete", that they are "not normal", that continues to  belittle and continuously chips away at that individual's self-belief makes it no better in my eyes than those missionaries who conspired with the British in the forcing of opium on the people of China. Worship the God of your choice in your own way. Be aware, though, that no religion holds a monopoly on truth.

[kingbitch]

9 minutes ago, Guest InBangkok said:

When you look back through the millennia of history, the various religions have a lot to answer for. How many wars have been fought in the name of religion? Catholics against Protestants? Catholics against Orthodox? Christians against Jews? Muslims against Christians? Sunni Muslims against Shi'a Muslims? Hindus against Muslims? Billions have been killed over that time in the name of "God".

 

Then take into account the monstrous massacres resulting from religious efforts to convert native tribes people to "God"? Hundreds of millions wiped out - the Incas in Peru, the Aztecs in Mexico, the Native Americans in North America, the native Australians in that continent. And on and on and on.

 

The problem with religion is that its converts are dogmatically certain that they are in the right! The missionaries that flooded the decaying Qing Empire did so after the British had forced it to accept opium for its exports instead of silver. And they agreed with the opium policy because it enabled them to "save souls!" Kill them off so we can fill up the Kingdom of God! What a pathetic and ghastly belief!

 

And all this is because of texts and interpretations of those texts often made hundreds of years after the religion was first established. 

 

I can understand that religion provides a basic code for living together in a society and it brings comfort to some people. But societies and conditions in which we who now live in societies have changed unbelievably over the millennia. The religious rules adopted to ensure the continuation of a small tribe roaming the desserts has precious little relevance to today's world. At least that is my view.

 

Thus my view that for any Church to tell me who I can love and with whom I can have sex is ridiculous - subject, naturally, to both parties being of legal age. That said, I have several friends who do find a comfort in also belonging to a Church and have no conflict whatever about being gay and enjoying gay sex. For those who become Church members either because they are forced to by their parents or of their own volition, I hope you realise you have no obligation to accept any crazy view on your sexuality. You can be gay and Christian/Muslim/Hindu/whatever. 

 

For any religion to tell anyone that they are "incomplete", that they are "not normal", that continues to  belittle and continuously chips away at that individual's self-belief makes it no better in my eyes than those missionaries who conspired with the British in the forcing of opium on the people of China. Worship the God of your choice in your own way. Be aware, though, that no religion holds a monopoly on truth.

 

I sometimes get asked. How could I tell right from wrong without divine guidance? 

 

Easy... empathy and consent. 

[GachiMuchi]

'Gay conversion' therapist who claims he can 'cure' homosexuality admits soliciting hook-ups with men under the pseudonym 'hotnhairy'

• Norman Goldwasser, 46, offered therapy to cure gayness at his clinic in Miami
• But the therapist was secretly using gay apps to meet homosexual men for sex 
• He used the name 'hotnhairy72' and uploaded naked pictures of himself online 

By CONNOR BOYD FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 16:06 GMT, 8 November 2018 | UPDATED: 16:10 GMT, 8 November 2018

A Florida therapist who claimed he could cure homosexuals has secretly been soliciting sex with men on gay dating apps.

Norman Goldwasser, clinical director of Horizon Psychological Services in Miami Beach, compared homosexuality to OCD and claimed his services could change clients' sexual orientation.

But the 46-year-old was revealed to be gay himself after he was found using Manhunt and Gay Bear Nation to hookup with other men. 

He used the pseudonym 'hotnhairy72' and uploaded naked pictures to his profile to attract other gay men.  

He listed a number of interests including 'dating', 'kissing', 'married men', 'massage' as well as a series of explicit sexual activities.

The profile was unearthed by a man claiming to be one of Goldwasser's former 'gay conversion therapy' patients. 

 

+4

•  

But he was secretly using gay app Manhunt under the name 'hotnhairy' to hookup with other gay men (pictured)

The ex-patient then contacted Truth Wins Out - a LBGT non-profit - which set up a fake profile with the name 'Brandon' to lure the therapist into meeting in a sting operation.

Goldwasser allegedly agreed to meet Brandon at a Fort Lauderdale motel room before he was confronted by Truth Wins Out founder Wayne Besen.   

Besen said Goldwasser initially tried to deny it was him on the apps.

'I promptly texted the Manhunt screenshot. He then called me and confessed, begging for mercy,' Besen told NBC News. 

Goldwasser released a statement Tuesday morning via an email to the news outlet.

In it, he said: 'The fact that this story and others have been brought to the public is incredibly painful but will become a catalyst for me seeking the right help for myself.

 

+4

•  

He uploaded naked pictures to his profile and listed ' dating', 'kissing', 'married men' (as well as a list of explicit sexual activities) as his preferences

 

 

'It is sad that despite the fact that I have been able to help many people over the years who have suffered from the effects of child sexual abuse and sexual addiction, I obviously was unable to help myself. 

'There is no justification for my personal behavior and I deeply regret the pain I have caused people in my personal life.' 

Truth Wins Out is staunchly against 'gay curing' therapies and said Goldwasser was committing fraud by 'misleading clients and adversely affecting their mental health'.   

 

 

 

[Guest Dumb Blonde]

With all these busted quacks, one wonders why so many educated professionals in Singapore still believe in such therapies.

 

The wonders of religion. It bleaches your brains and hair to become blonde enough to believe in such "miracles".

 

If one can believe in a man Jesus resurrected from the dead, it isn't a stretch to believe in zombies, mermaids, fairies and even conversion therapies too.

 

There are frighteningly too many blondes these days.

[Guest winx fairy]

i wish i'm a winx fairy...

[Steve5380]

9 hours ago, kingbitch said:

 

I sometimes get asked. How could I tell right from wrong without divine guidance? 

 

Easy... empathy and consent. 

 

Good answer.  And also should be said:

 

Rather than the divine being a guidance,  natural moral rules are impounded by the creators of religions to make believable and commercialize their "divine".

An example are the Ten Commandments.  The first four are nothing but propaganda for the religion.  The others,  honor parents, don't kill, don't be adulterous, don't steal, don't lie, don't covet.... WE DON'T NEED A GOD to tell us that.  They surge from our inborn sense of empathy and our experience throughout life. 

[Steve5380]

9 hours ago, Guest InBangkok said:

 

I can understand that religion provides a basic code for living together in a society and it brings comfort to some people. But societies and conditions in which we who now live in societies have changed ....

---

Thus my view that for any Church to tell me who I can love and with whom I can have sex is ridiculous - subject, naturally, to both parties being of legal age. That said, I have several friends who do find a comfort in also belonging to a Church and have no conflict whatever about being gay and enjoying gay sex. For those who become Church members either because they are forced to by their parents or of their own volition, I hope you realise you have no obligation to accept any crazy view on your sexuality. You can be gay and Christian/Muslim/Hindu/whatever. 

 

 

Religion is not necessary for the existence of a code for living together in society.  Most of the writers of the US constitution in the 18th century were not religious but agnostics.

 

Your friends who find comfort belonging to a church that accepts gays,  may be there because they support a gay cause and because a church appeals to their feelings of religiousness. This does not mean that they have reached the conclusion that the dogmas of such church are the truth.  If we restrict attention to the people who believe in the dogmas of their church after their reason tells them that they are true,  we would have a much smaller fraction of church goers.  So the number of followers of a religion does not necessarily reflect how much trust the religion deserves.

[Steve5380]

12 hours ago, GachiMuchi said:

 

Norman Goldwasser, clinical director of Horizon Psychological Services in Miami Beach, compared homosexuality to OCD and claimed his services could change clients' sexual orientation.

Goldwasser released a statement Tuesday morning via an email to the news outlet.

In it, he said: 'The fact that this story and others have been brought to the public is incredibly painful but will become a catalyst for me seeking the right help for myself.

'It is sad that despite the fact that I have been able to help many people over the years who have suffered from the effects of child sexual abuse and sexual addiction, I obviously was unable to help myself. 

'There is no justification for my personal behavior and I deeply regret the pain I have caused people in my personal life.' 

 

 

Very contrite the guy.  Hopefully he also pleads guilty to the criminal charges he should be facing.

It is interesting how prestigious he appears on his personal website  http://www.norman-goldwasser.com/

quoted here:

 

"As a licensed psychologist and clinical director of Horizon Psychological Services, Dr. Norman Goldwasser oversees a team of professionals in providing a broad range of mental health services, including individual and group psychotherapy, psychiatric support, and psychological evaluations. In addition to guiding the practice's clinical services, he also has an active business consulting practice that includes team development, executive coaching, and personnel development and support. 

In his personal clinical practice, Dr. Goldwasser’s primary focus is on the healing of trauma, He helps patients to understand and process the ways in which painful or frightening events continue to impact present functioning. Dr. Goldwasser works with individuals whose trauma histories have led to addictions, anxiety, and mood disorders, as well as difficulties in relationships. He stands out as an experienced practitioner of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), an innovative psychotherapeutic treatment methodology designed to relieve continuing psychological distress from trauma. With well over 20 years of clinical experience utilizing EMDR, Dr. Goldwasser incorporates this technique into a holistic approach, routinely collaborating with a team of other alternative healing professionals and clinical specialists to ensure comprehensive care.

Dr Goldwasser is also an assertive, solution-focused marital therapist, who has been trained in the Gottman method, as well as Imago therapy. He also has extensive experience in the treatment of obsessive compulsive disorders, adult and adolescent ADHD, sex addiction and substance abuse, sexual issues, personality disorders, especially narcissism, and depression.

Known worldwide for his work with trauma, Dr. Goldwasser has spoken at professional and public events across the world. He has been an invited speaker in Australia, South Africa, Hong Kong and Israel, and throughout North America, where he has presented on a wide range of topics, especially on child sexual abuse and long term effects of this type of trauma. 

Dr. Goldwasser has offices in Miami Beach and Boca Raton, Florida, and works remotely with patients from around the world."

 

 

IMPRESSIVE, isn't it?   Worldwide famous !!!  Who could challenge his "knowledge" of restoration therapy?

 

As a young man I I fell into an emotional crisis where I didn't want to live any longer.  My family  (bless them!) sent me to a serious psychoanalyst.   I had weekly sessions with this professional for several months.  Result: the crisis passed and I came out alive.    In these sessions sexual orientation was never ever mentioned.  And I would never reveal to anyone my homosexuality.  We talked about tons of absurdities which I don't even remember, so abstruse I found his "treatment".  Maybe that stuff made so little sense that I forgot about my problems.  

 

Looking back I realize that I was a troubled young gay who could not deal with his social and sexual needs.  With a little guidance of the right kind I would have been fine in no time.  But... this was half a century ago and this "psychoanalysis" still inspired some trust while homosexuality did not exist.  This psychoanalyst was practicing pure quackery, although he might have believed in it, when today we have a simple and honest answer: accept homosexuality and make it respectable.  Hopefully the episode in this thread will increase awareness of the bullshit being practiced still today in the name of mental health,  and be a precedent to unmask the deceivers and send them to jail.   It should not be enough that they are "remorseful".