"Matthew Johnson" <matthew_member@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:KYSPj.6065$kt1.5405@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> In article <GvwPj.3847$wO1.3002@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, RP says...
>>
>>"Matthew Johnson" <matthew_member@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>news:QuaPj.605$Y81.79@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>>>>What are your reasons in believing it's not?
>>>
>>>
>>> That it is not "hard-wired before birth"?
>>>
>>> Three reasons:
>>>
>>> 1) I have seen it change in persons I know
>>>
>>> 2) I have heard others re****t it changed in persons _they_ know
>>> (e.g., http://wday.ru/love/twopeople/relation****p/_article/2496/)
>>>
>>> 3) the Bible itself makes it clear that there exist cases where it
>>> changed
>>> (see,
>>> g.e., Rom 1:18-32.
>>>
>>> These three reasons are reason enough to disbelieve all the many
>>> irresponsible
>>> voices claiming to have evidence for the impossible.
>>
>>
>>Like Einstein said, theory is theory until you have the data to make it
a
>>fact.
>
> And you do not have the data to make it a fact.
>
> We know you do. We knew this several posts ago. You add nothing to the
> discussion by repeating this unproven and unprovable assertion.
Oh there have been studies...and there is data....
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Are 'ex-gay' ministries therapy or spiritual abuse?
Task Force study fuels debate over success rates, personal toll
The study, titled "Youth in the Crosshairs: The Third Wave of Ex-Gay
Activism," documents the high failure rate of conversion therapy. The
study
also contends that ex-gay ministries harm gay people by causing depression
and damaging their relation****ps with family members and friends.
Participants in ex-gay programs also re****ted loneliness and ***ual
dysfunction, the study says.
Do ex-gay groups cause
family rifts?
"Many participants complained that conversion therapy harmed their
relation****ps with family and friends, particularly with their parents,"
the
study says.
"They play this game of blaming the parents," Jason Cianciotto, one of the
study's authors, said in an interview. "Conversion therapy primarily
focuses
on supposed dysfunctional relation****ps with same-*** parents."
Cianciotto said the groups also focus on child abuse and molestation as
alleged causes of homo***uality.
But those theories have been widely rejected by psychological and
psychiatric experts, Cianciotto noted.
Dr. Douglas Haldeman, a clinical psychologist in Seattle, said he has seen
firsthand "the wreckage of the ex-gay ministries." When he first started
his
clinical practice in 1983, Haldeman said he treated a gay Mormon who had
undergone electro-shock therapy to try to change his ***ual orientation.
Since then he said he has treated numerous patients who dropped out of
ex-gay programs.
"All of organized mental health, which is based on science and research,
discredit these conversion therapy theories," Haldeman said.
Haldeman said the ex-gay ministries tend to attract vulnerable people who
may already suffer from low self-esteem.
"When it doesn't work, the shame and stigma are doubly painful," Haldeman
said. "People become depressed and self-loathing. It spikes suicidal
feelings and propensity toward alcoholism and drug abuse."
He noted that both the American Psychological Association and the American
Psychiatric Association have come out against conversion therapy.
Groups that push the theory that a lack of family bonding causes
homo***uality, such as Focus on the Family, whose web pages on
homo***uality
focus almost exclusively on a child's relation****p with his or her
same-***
parent, may actually be creating rifts in families, Cianciotto contended.
He pointed to a study of 202 individuals who had participated in
conversion
therapy. The study, conducted by two psychologists, Dr. Ariel ****dlo and
Dr.
Michael Schroeder, found that only 26 of the participants (13 percent)
re****ted believing that they had successfully changed their ***ual
orientation. But of that 26, only eight re****ted that they were not
experiencing "slips" back into same-*** attraction.
Of the 176 participants in the self-perceived failure group, 155 (or 88
percent) re****ted significant long-term harm, including depression, "some
to
the point of wanting or attempting to commit suicide," Cianciotto said.
'I no longer struggle.
Jesus healed me'
Rev. Jerry Stephenson, a former Baptist minister, was also a client in the
Worthy Creations program and now counts himself among the ex-ex-gay.
Stephenson was a Baptist minister for 15 years and taught at Miami
Christian
College for more than three years. In 1986, he sought Christian counseling
for his homo***ual attractions. When the dean of the college found out
that
he was in Worthy Creations, Stephenson said he was fired.
"I may be the only person to be fired for being ex-gay," Stephenson said.
After he was dismissed from the college in 1990, Stephenson became
associate
pastor of the First Baptist Church in Key West, where he counseled others
on
how to overcome homo***uality.
"I would tell them, 'I no longer struggle. Jesus healed me,'" Stephenson
said. "But inside nothing had changed. You can take an orange and paint it
blue and put a hula skirt on it, but it's still an orange."
Stephenson said he went through a period of severe depression before he
finally reconciled his ***ual orientation and his Christian faith.
"I went from teaching at a college to working at a 7-Eleven pu****ng a
broom," he said.
Stephenson came out in a South Florida Sun-Sentinel article in 1992.
Stephenson, who has a master's degree in biblical studies from Miami
Christian College and a doctorate in pastoral psychology from Atlantic
Institute Bible College and Seminar in Panama City, Fla., now runs his own
counseling practice called the Sanctuary. He is an outspoken critic of
ex-gay ministries.
"Not only do these groups destroy the individuals, they also destroy their
families," Stephenson said.
Homo***uality 'wasn't
God's will for my life'
Cordy Campbell, a volunteer leader with Worthy Creations who described
himself as an ex-gay, conceded that conversion therapy "is very hard
work."
But he insisted that people can leave behind being gay and learn to lead
happy hetero***ual lives.
"People want a quick fix, and it's not a quick fix," he said.
According to Campbell, Worthy Creation's drop-in group draws about 30
people
per week. Campbell said that he sees "people quit all the time after just
a
few meetings." But he said some people had been with the group for three
or
four years and "are doing great." He said the group doesn't keep records
on
its retention rate.
Campbell said he was "in the gay lifestyle" from the age of 12 until he
was
45. He said after he became a born-again Christian, "I felt like it wasn't
God's will for my life."
Campbell said he thinks a lack of bonding with his father, who was an
alcoholic, caused him to be gay.
"I didn't bond with him," Campbell said. "He wasn't there, and when he was
there, he was drinking. A dad is supposed to call the child out of mom's
circle into manhood. A lot of dads don't do that. They don't spend time
with
the boy."
Campbell said he also became disillusioned with being gay.
"I saw a lot of tragedy in that lifestyle," he said. "I saw a lot of
depressed people, especially older people. It's a lifestyle for young
people."
Campbell said he got tired of sitting on bar stools and talking to
depressed
older gay men. He said he worked with a man who committed suicide after
his
boyfriend left him.
"The relation****ps don't last," he said.
Campbell, who said he is a recovering alcoholic, now dates women but is
not
currently in a relation****p. He said he wants to be a "man among men."
Campbell said he knew "former drag queens and others who had been in
long-term gay relation****ps" who now regard themselves as ex-gay.
Campbell said he has nothing but empathy for gay people, whether or not
they
choose to overcome their homo***uality.
"I love gay people because I came from that lifestyle," he said. "I
understand why people are gay. They're looking for love. But it's the
result
of brokenness, and we live in a very broken world."
Ex-gay ministries 'not
bulging with members'
Wayne Besen, author of "Anything But Straight," a book that challenges
what
he calls "ex-gay myths," said the ex-gay ministries "are not bulging with
members."
He said ex-gay ministries such as Exodus International exaggerate their
numbers.
"[Exodus president] Allen Chambers pulls numbers out of thin air," Besen
said. "In 2003, he claimed that there were thousands of members. By 2004,
he
said he knew of tens of thousands. Last week, it was hundreds of
thousands.
The ex-gay ministries are apparently the next Starbucks."
Besen said many of the ex-gay ministries are small groups started by a
"charismatic leader with a checkered past."
"They are mini-cults of personality," Besen said. He said the leaders
often
have a history of dysfunctional behavior, such as alcoholism or drug
abuse.
He recalled one ex-gay leader who was a former **** actor.
"They blame homo***uality for their behavioral problems," Besen said.
Florida is an epicenter of ex-gay activity. The state has hosted 10 ex-gay
conferences. It will host another one when Focus on the Family's "Love Won
Out Conference" comes to the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort
Lauderdale May 6. There are also at least 11 ex-gay ministries in the
state,
according to the Task Force's Cianciotto.
Besen said Texas, North Carolina and California are other states with a
lot
of ex-gay activity. ****tland, Ore., has one of the "more active" ex-gay
ministries, he said. There is not much activity in New England.
surprisingly, ex-gay groups do not have much of a presence in deep South
states such as Mississippi and Alabama, Besen said.
'I was born to be gay'
After a year and a half of ex-gay therapy, Justin Flippen said he finally
decided to accept who he is.
Flippen, who now serves on the board of directors and the wor****p ministry
team at the Metropolitan Community Church's Sun****ne Cathedral in Fort
Lauderdale, said he had an epiphany one day while driving down I-95. He
recalled a passage in the Bible in which Jesus is overwhelmed by sorrow
because of the burden of his role on Earth. But he finally accepts it.
"Just as Jesus was born to be the Messiah, I was born to be gay," Flippen
said.
----
[While this posting doesn't include any references, they are
referring to information on the web site http://www.thetaskforce.org,
a pro-gay site. The re****t referred to appears to be
http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/re****ts/re****ts/YouthInTheCrosshairs.pdf
It has the references that this posting doesn't.
--clh]
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