After careful review of the “Love In Action” website, it appears there are only TWO, count em TWO staff members listed who even have college degrees in a counseling related field. See for yourself.
L
After careful review of the “Love In Action” website, it appears there are only TWO, count em TWO staff members listed who even have college degrees in a counseling related field. See for yourself.
What part of Tenn. licensing are they’re chartering this program out of? I just did a quick search for state regulations regarding psychological treatment. They state
We all know LIA isn’t qualified, but anyone know if this “Refuse” program is licensed?
Hi JodyI think we’ll probably find that LIA claims that any thing they call conseling will be done by those two staff that have qualifications (as Dan mentioned above) if that was a Tennessee law.Beyond that and we’ll probably also find that LIA claims immunity from regulation because they are religiously-inspired ( “It’s not us that heals people, it’s the Power of Jesus Christ”) and not a true professional group. An awful lots of sins get protected by that clause.However, being qualified or registered is still no guarantee that the “threatment” isn’t abusive or delivered in a coercive manner; particulalrly if the client is under-age and the parents are pushing for it. A young gay man or woman has little to protect them in such cases unless there was to be criminal assault (and I haven’t heard anything of the sort being mentioned about LIA).All we can hope is that this particular young man holds his dignity together, and gets through this. What I’d love to see is a local benefactor come forward and offer the kid a home and support into employment or further education for the next few years.
A small town gay kid is really fair game. I wonder to what TN location for PFLAG he’s closest to?
LIA is based in Memphis, where I live. There are around a million people in the metro area- it’s relatively a small city, but by no means is it a small town with no resources.
There is a chapter of PFLAG here as well as several other support organizations for gay youth and their families, IF they choose to use those resources. It’s just that the minors who are being forced to go to Christian “straight camp” by their parents probably wouldn’t have permission to attend any function where being gay is accepted.
Ironic, isn’t it.
The anti-gay crowd accuses the gay community of recruiting.
And yet here we have a clear case example of the “straight community” trying to recruit a gay kid. If it weren’t so sad, I’d laugh.