Friends of a gay medical student from Arkansas are anxious amid claims that he has been forced into a Florida ex-gay program.
Bryce Faulkner, 23, has not been in touch with boyfriend Travis Swanson since 15 July. Swanson says their last phone call was an emotional exchange in which Faulkner tearfully related how he had been told “hateful” things about his homosexuality.
According to friends, Faulkner had planned to come out to his parents before moving to Wisconsin to be closer to Swanson. He is now believed to be in a 14-month [edit: earliest reports say 14 weeks] Exodus program in Florida, possibly Pensacola.
Friend and sympathizers have set up a website and a Facebook group to draw attention to the story, which is now gaining the ear of media far beyond the blogosphere. Bryce’s parents are furious with the allegations, however, and have threatened legal action if the website and its claims are not removed.
Although the situation invites comparison with the story of Zach Stark, the Memphis teenager forced into Love in Action in 2005, Bryce Faulkner is of course an adult. His parents deny he was forced into therapy, saying he “begged” them to help him. Friends claim that he was effectively given an ultimatum, however, under threat of being disowned by his family, on whom he relies both emotionally and financially.
It seems there is at least enough concern to warrant authorities to investigate the situation.
Update: As this article was being written, the Facebook page was removed. Another group exists here.
It’s an extremely sad and distressing situation, but I’m not sure what the law could do here. His parents aren’t legally obliged to be giving him financial — and certainly not emotional — support, so they can take it away if they want to. It’s a wretched thing to give him a dilemma like that, but unfortunately, the law can’t always keep horrible people from being horrible.
The law can shut down sham “therapy” programs though so no one has to be put in that situation anymore. The law may not be able to stop religious officials from attempting this “therapy,” but it can make them stop calling it therapy or disclose to its “patients” that it is not run by licensed psychologists (and if any of these people are licensed, the state can unlicense them).
This has to stop, and it has to stop now.
We should keep in mind that there are almost no facts to go on in this story. It’s almost impossible to even discuss the situation intelligently without that. We have noted what is being tossed around, but that’s about it.
This is true. However, the reason there are no facts is because no one has heard from Bryce in over a month. If he would even come out and make a statement, not through his family, but personally, then we might have some facts. His family claims he wanted help and went willingly to wherever he is right now. Perhaps the demand that he fly to meet his boyfriend and talk privately with him one-on-one would be too much to ask if Bryce indeed did decide he doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore and really does want to attempt to change his sexuality. However, showing his face and saying as much himself would at least calm down the hysteria that has developed over this case. Perhaps some still wouldn’t be convinced because they would see even a statement from Bryce to be coerced, but the problem is that right now we don’t even know if he has seen all the attention he’s getting! If we know he knows about all of this support from people all over the world, and he is still susceptible to his parents’ coercion, then perhaps there is nothing else we can do but let his decision take its course and take him where it will. But, we need to know that he knows about us, and that means hearing from him directly.
A note about my earlier post about psychology licenses: It is my understanding that clients pay these people hefty fees for this “therapy.” Seems to me that takes it out of the religious freedom realm and into the practice of psychology realm. If we had pastors employed by churches to minister to people generally who were taking part in this, or if church donations were used to pay these “specialists,” that would be one thing. But when families are being charged thousands of dollars personally for this therapy, it seems that would be in violation of the law unless these therapists were licensed to conduct such therapy. If they are allowed to be licensed for this, then the licensing authority should be the first place we go to shut them down, and if that doesn’t work, then state legislatures.
It just occurred to me that there are people many times smarter than I already hard at work on this for years, at least I hope so… But, I’m not hearing anything in the news over the last two years that I’ve been paying attention about any real large-scale attempts to shut these places down. Anyone want to full me in?