I don’t know what they are proclaiming the truth to be — they like to claim that all the medical organizations are against reparative therapy and that it’s harmful, but the reality is that that isn’t what the organizations have said,” he said. “Instead, they have said that homosexuality is multi-causal and there’s proof-positive over the years that men and women have changed.
This the response Focus on the Family’s Mike Haley gave to Wayne Besen’s new Truth Wins Out organization.
But how does Haley’s claim hold up? Are “the medical organizations” against reparative therapy? Or is Haley right?
A look on the website of the American Psychological Association brings us to a factsheet called Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation & Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators and School Personnel, a joint effort of:
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- American Counseling Association
- American Association of School Administrators
- American Federation of Teachers
- American Psychological Association
- American School Health Association
- Interfaith Alliance Foundation
- National Association of School Psychologists
- National Association of Social Workers
- National Education Association
The most important fact about “reparative therapy,” also sometimes known as “conversion” therapy, is that it is based on an understanding of homosexuality that has been rejected by all the major health and mental health professions.
The factsheet goes further by identifying specific positions of certain organizations:
The American Academy of Pediatrics
Therapy directed specifically at changing sexual orientation is contraindicated, since it can provoke guilt and anxiety while having little or no potential for achieving changes in orientation.
The American Counseling Association
…at its 1999 World Conference, ACA adopted a position opposing the promotion of “reparative therapy” as a “cure” for individuals who are homosexual.
The American Psychiatric Association
The potential risks of “reparative therapy” are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient. Many patients who have undergone “reparative therapy” relate that they were inaccurately told that homosexuals are lonely, unhappy individuals who never achieve acceptance or satisfaction. The possibility that the person might achieve happiness and satisfying interpersonal relationships as a gay man or lesbian is not presented, nor are alternative approaches to dealing with the effects of societal stigmatization discussed.
The American Psychological Association
That the American Psychological Association opposes portrayals of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth and adults as mentally ill due to their sexual orientation and supports the dissemination of accurate information about sexual orientation, and mental health, and appropriate interventions in order to counteract bias that is based in ignorance or unfounded beliefs about sexual orientation.
The National Association of Social Workers
Sexual orientation conversion therapies assume that homosexual orientation is both pathological and freely chosen. No data demonstrate that reparative or conversion therapies are effective, and in fact they may be harmful. NASW believes social workers have the responsibility to clients to explain the prevailing knowledge concerning sexual orientation and the lack of data reporting positive outcomes with reparative therapy. NASW discourages social workers from providing treatments designed to change sexual orientation or from referring practitioners or programs that claim to do so.
And finally in a separate statement of position from the AMA:
Official Statement Concerning Homosexuality from the American Medical Association
Our AMA: … (3) opposes, the use of “reparative” or “conversion” therapy that is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that the patient should change his/her homosexual orientation.
Well, Mike, let’s see how your version of “the truth” holds up: “contraindicated”, “opposing the promotion of”, “potential risks of reparative therapy are great”, “discourages social workers from providing or referring”, “bias that is based in ignorance”, “opposes the use of reparative or conversion therapy”. It sure sound to me like the “medical organizations” are against reparative therapy and have said that it’s harmful.
And that is what Wayne is proclaiming the truth to be.
For a good chronological listing of “the medical organizations” positions see religioustolerance.org.
Sadly, the Exodus representatives have built a house of cards with their support of reparative therapy. There is absolutely no scientific support for it apart from their own one group, which is a religious based pseudo-scientific group of people who begin with the conclusion that being gay is wrong. They don’t even pretend to be objective on the subject.
But they continue to pretend that there is scientific support for their position because they need that veneer of respectability. Also, they have nothing left to fall back on. They threw their cards in with it and they’re stuck with it. So, instead of speaking honestly about it, they just continue spreading half-truths and outright lies.
All in the name of Jesus, of course.
I wonder exactly when FOTF stopped pursuing Christ(the way, the truth and the light) and decided that as long as they were working “for” Christ they could do anything to further what they think of as “His” political agenda.
Let us also remember that there has never been any “scientific” evidence of alleged sexual orientation change that did not rely on self-report of participants. There is copious scientific evidence, including those looking at physical differences, brain functions and genetics, that point to a biological/organic foundation to sexual orientation. Wayne Besen, I believe, has been one who has urged some kind of physical testing (either of sexual reponses or through brain scanning, which is amazingly detailed these days) to demonstrate ANY physical effect of “reparative therapy,” but none have ever been done. Perhaps that is why so many “ex-gay” movements have carefully parsed their statements to no longer promise “change” but rather conscious decisions not to engage in same-sex relationships (e.g., the same thing nearly every closeted person does at one time or another).
I’m sorry CPT, but that is just a load of bull. There isn’t ‘copious’ scientific ‘evidence’ that point to a biological/organic foundation. Any ‘evidence’ falls into the the chicken or the egg theory: did the behaviour cause the differences in the brain as compared to heterosexuals, or vice versa. The research done shows that genes may create a possible pre-disposition to being attracted to the same sex, but it is not in any way determinant.
We don’t work that way here Wil.
Please list the research you are referring to.
And, if you notice Wil, I did not claim that genetics were “determinant” – they are not determinant in most physical characteristics after all (e.g., if you have the gene for “tallness,” but are malnourished as a child and deficient of calcium, you will likely end up shorter than average height). And while you are right that it has technically not been shown that, for instance, the structure of the lesbian ear is somehow changed by lesbian sex and then operates closer to heterosexual males than females (hearing being one of the characteristics, IIRC, that has been shown to “shift” in gay people from their own gender towards the other gender – others include finger length in men and the famous hypothalmus study), however, I can think of no other biological process where behavior changes the operation and/or structure of small areas of the brain or other organs (and it is highly doubtful that finger length, which I believe is set pre-natally, could possibly be linked to homosexual behavior, as nearly all people do not begin sexual activity until they are fully grown).
And let us be clear, the decision to follow your same-sex attractions, to live an open, honest and authentic life, is a choice, but there are few organizations, even in the “ex-gay” movement, who paint the underlying same-sex attractions as any kind of a choice.
Further, Wil, it stretches credibility to suggest that homosexual behavior on the part of a man can in some way impact the single-chromosome deactivation in the cells of a mother.
But maybe your “research” can better explain it.
Revisit the APA’s position on reparative therapy. Clients now (Aug. 2006)have the right to decide such.
I’m not aware of any policy shift at the APA in Aug 2006, certainly not concerning reparative therapy. There was a response by the (then) president of the APA Gerald P. Koocher, to a question by David Blakeslee (who was then a member of NARTH and there during a protest, but has since resigned). This was distorted quite a bit by ex-gay organizations as though it was a policy shift, but that was apparently just hopeful spin on their part. The APA remains quite outspoken against reparative therapy.
This is the official APA statement on reparatative or conversion therapy. It remains unchanged since last updated in May 2000.