Campaigners in Northern Ireland today are protesting a visit from American ex-gay leader Reverend Mario Bergner.
The protest is led by journalist Patrick Strudwick, who earlier this month wrote an exposé of the “bizarre world of gay-straight conversion” for The Independent (London). He followed it up with a strong article in The Guardian (London) calling for an all-out “war” on reparative therapy, and announcing the formation of the Stop Conversion Therapy Taskforce (SCOTT).
Of this weekend’s campaign, Strudwick told The Independent:
Love needs no cure. We want to remind the young people in the conference in the midst of so-called treatment that they are healthy, normal, valuable people; they are perfect how they are; they don’t need to try to change something unchangeable and they can be happy being who they really are.
Anglican priest Bergner, of Redeemed Lives, is speaking as part of a conference organized by CORE Issues at Ballynahinch Baptist Church, near Belfast. His most controversial claim is that as a gay man he was healed of the “symptoms” of AIDS through an encounter with Jesus Christ in a hospital room.
This phrase alone shows that Strudwick isn’t really interested in understanding the Christian mindset.
Joe: You’re assuming that Strudwick doesn’t already understand the Christian mindset and just happens to disagree with it.
Jarred, I’m just being cautious. All “noble cause” articles make me wonder how much the story has been crafted to fit the assumptions of the journalist.
Strudwick has now reported an “exgay” therapist to the General Medical Council but his own account of the “abuse” he experienced in the therapy session is, at best, ambiguous (possibly for libel reasons). The therapist stands to lose his job – and perhaps have his whole life ruined.
Some people might think that’s “fair play” in a war on evil exgay therapists. I don’t.
If he wants to help people in the exgay subculture, I still think he should get to know them – rather than disrupting their conferences.
Joe, that particular therapist holds “therapy sessions” over Skype (a dubious practice at best) and encourages arousal during those “therapy sessions.” He deserves to lose his job.
I’ll also note that Strudwick shared the actual transcripts of those “therapy sessions” with another professional, who had some pretty strong comments o the matter. And when confronted by Strudwick with that information, the “therapist” in question simply said he was “providing a service to people who wanted it.” Apparently, “providing a service to people who want it” is justification for throwing out any sense of ethics in some ex-gay circles. Personally, I find it indefensible.
Joe, when it comes to people having their lives ruined, ex-gay therapists are themselves people who help to ruin other people’s lives.
Some years ago the BBC did an investigation into psychic and astrological telephone help lines, which, of course, charge an astronomical (or should it be astrological?) rate per minute. Only one of the owners of these telephone lines would consent to be interviewed by the investigation team. When asked whether he believed in what he was doing, he replied, “Do I believe in it? I really don’t think that’s a question for discussion. I’m first and foremost a business person, and I’m providing a service.”
Providing a service can never be an acceptable excuse for either fraud or malpractice. Even when charlatans actually believe in what they’re doing – and some genuinely do – that is no reason why their hocus-pocus should not be exposed. Indeed, I would say that such exposure is providing a service to those who need it.
Jarred, where is the evidence that the therapist (now outed as PM) encouraged arousal. Strudwick reports that PM didn’t discourage arousal but tried to ‘deflect’ the arousal with therapeutic exercises (the effectiveness or ‘science’ of which is a whole different topic).
I haven’t actually made my mind up on what really happened in the two Skype sessions – because I wasn’t there. I’m commenting on Strudwick’s reports – which sound like activist spin to me.
Check out Strudwick’s other articles for the Guardian newspaper. There’s one where he goes looking for “hate” in a poor and culturally conservative part of London only to find the locals
I’m not arguing it’s OK for hate crime to exist anywhere in the world – I’m just cautious about his journalism.
As for the Skype transcripts – it would interesting to see them. Can he claim they are ‘personal’ if he was faking the whole ex-gay thing?
So to test the waters, Patrick Strudwick walked around various parts of London holding hands with another guy, and was relieved to be able to report that, despite some recent, appalling hate crimes, it appeared that most ordinary, sensible people couldn’t care less. What’s your problem with that?
William, my problem (well it isn’t actually a problem – more a form of scepticism) is with his style of journalism.
Nobody has lodged a professional misconduct complaint against the therapist – except Strudwick – who appears to have “created” the story he was looking for.
Joe, I don’t see how you can meaningfully say that Patrick “created” (with or without the quotation marks) the story. He investigated the methods being used to “treat” homosexuality and reported what he came up with. The fact that no-one else had lodged a complaint against the therapist is neither here nor there. People who are misguided enough to believe that their natural sexuality is an illness, disease, disorder or defect and to seek “therapy” for it are unlikely to complain. That’s the sad thing about it: people with this mistaken belief are also likely to feel that being gay makes them somehow inferior and therefore to submit uncomplainingly to treatment that a normal, self-accepting person, straight or gay, would not accept for a moment.
Joe S brings up an article that Strudwick wrote which clearly undermines Joe’s arguement that Studwick is somehow unreliable in his account. In the article exploring bias against gays in certain parts of London, Strudwick’s investigation didn’t turn up much of anything—and he reported that. It only stands to reason, based on his previous reporting, that if the therapists that Strudwick investigated acted professionally, he would have reported those facts.
Based on Studwick’s track record that Joe S has called our attention to, there is no reason to discoiunt or dismiss Strudwick’s account of the behavior of this therapist.
John,
The social context of Strudwick’s ex-gay campaign is different. Dissing evangelical Christians is an acceptable prejudice in the UK.
In the hate crime article he names the district but doesn’t identify the social ‘demographic’ of the people living there. Only Londoners will know that the social conservatism found in that part of London derives primarily from 1st generation immigrant groups. The white people there are all Guardian reading liberals.
It’s the same sort of journalistic exercise – but it’s written up very differently – because racism, quite rightly, is an unacceptable prejudice. Some of the comments posted on his Facebook group would be deleted immediately if the target of all the bile was any group other than Christians. I certainly don’t believe if he “didn’t turn up much of anything” in the context of his ex-gay investigation, he would write it up quite the same way.
Again, I’m commenting on his reporting style(s) not what actually happened – because I wasn’t there.
Joe S
Perhaps it has much less to do with the writer’s style and far more to do with the reader’s style.
We’ll see. Hopefully he will publish the full transcripts of the so-called “therapy sessions”.