Prof. Warren Throckmorton, an advocate for ex-gay politics, admits he didn’t see Law and Order: SVU last week. (Original XGW entry on L&O:SVU).
But then Throckmorton proceeds to get the plot wrong — and then he blasts the show for not portraying positive examples of ex-gays — even though it did include some good ex-gays.
For the record, the plot was about a doctor whose career and family resemble that of Charles Socarides. (Google search.) The doctor found an ex-ex-gay man in bed with the doctor’s closeted, gay, young-adult son. The doctor then murdered the man and severely beat his son in a fit of rage and humiliation.
Parental beatings of their gay children are a reality. So is parental hostility and repression that traps same-sex-attracted children between a rock and a hard place, leading to despair. And so is the practice by some doctors of mischaracterizing and massaging scientific data to serve political goals. But judging from the reactions of Throckmorton and Exodus International, the ex-gay movement seems unwilling to talk about these problems — or see these problems presented in TV shows.
The L&O:SVU episode was a bit overwrought and moralistic, and it contained TV’s typical stock characters. Nevertheless, it demonstrated that some happy ex-gays exist — and that there are numerous family, scientific, and criminal matters that the movement is reluctant to address. Throckmorton’s diatribe may unwittingly substantiate a key point of the episode’s writers.
An aside:
The tagline on Throckmorton’s weekly self-published columns states, “[Throckmorton’s] research ‘Initial Empirical and Clinical Findings Concerning the Change Process for Ex-Gays,’ was published in the June 2002 issue of the American Psychological Association’s publication Professional Psychology: Research and Practice.”
XGW participant Michael Hamar now asks about Throckmorton: “When is someone going to get the APA to go after this liar? His own June 2002 APA Journal article is NOT consistent with his columns. His APA article most certainly is not consistent with the claims made by his buddies in the ‘Christian’ Right on a daily basis.”
Hamar commented in greater detail on Throckmorton’s APA article a few weeks ago.
I love how so many Religious Wrongists criticize works of art that they themselves have not seen.
Michael Hamar rocks.
I am not familiar with Socarides’ family. Does (did) he have a gay child?
I know the guy behind the anti-gay initiatives in California has a son who is gay. Guess they should focus on their own families and leave ours alone.
Yes, Socarides has a gay son.
And he is allegedly a mental health worker? I don’t want to judge, but you’d think that he’d be aware that he gives the appearance of trying to “save” his son by proxy. It won’t work; it’s called being stuck in the grieving process: at the Denial stage. This is so sad.
The son, Richard Socarides, is a former adviser to President Clinton on gay issues.
I still need to build a comprehensive profile page for Charles.
Socarides is not just a mental health worker. He is one of the last of the classical Freudian psycho-analysts. The one HMO’s won’t pay for anymore as the course of treatment runs for decades. Martin Dubermann’s book ‘Cures’ recounts the experience of a gay man going thru this ordeal. Interesting how ‘treating’ gay men used to be the province of highly educated, cultured Viennese intellectuals. Now it is almost exclusively the domain of Southern white evangelicals.
Worth noting: Charles Socarides is the former president of NARTH and a strong proponent of absent father/overbearing mother theories. From NARTH:
And another summary from a NARTH paper:
Hi I’m looking for the story about the gay Bishop from Me, that was on the ch,5 news shiwing him on the front page of the cover of the Advocate,but I can’t find it in the store’s or if it come’s out in next month’s issue? can you tell me when it will be out/ thanks.
Billy