It’s a non-sequential? The video above is from the upcoming movie Chasing the Devil: Inside the Ex-Gay Movement by Bill Hussung and Mishara Canino-Hussing. Ex-Gay guru and all around bizarre guy Richard Cohen seems only too happy to participate, bringing back memories of pillows and tennis rackets. Listen carefully, there are some interesting comments. One that I didn’t quite get is in the beginning, he’s says he has been married for “2300 23,000 years”? Is that just a joke or is it a Moonie thing? (I honestly don’t know)
Dr. Jack Drescher brings us a brief period of sanity, perhaps laced with bemusement at what he is seeing — yet again. Meanwhile,Cohen has a new web site and is training “coaches” or whatever, having apparently mended fences with Exodus International. One has to wonder, when will someone on that side of the aisle deal with Cohen in a public way? Or is this Prop 8 where the ends justify the means and keeping ex-gay pseudo-science going — even this most bizarre of chapters — is justifiable?
Think about that as they put on happy faces and spin, spin, spin at the ongoing Exodus Leadership conference.
I was present in a New Orleans courtroom back in the 1990s when Richard Cohen testified (or rather performed) as a witness for the State in defending their sodomy laws.
At that time he told his life story of being unhappy with his homosexual life. “And then I fell in love with Jesus,” he said, to explain his conversion.
So my guess is that the “married for 2300 years” refers to his considering himself married to Jesus, whose time on earth is generally thought to have been about 2300 years ago.
After watching the clip, I see that Cohen said he had been married for 23,000 years, not 2,300. So my first thought, that he was referring to being married to Jesus, doesn’t seem to apply.
Analogies can be used to illustrate a point, but they can’t be used to prove it, or even to provide evidence for it.
Hasn’t this pillock noticed that people aren’t magnets?
I don’t even know what to say.
That guy freaks me out… there’s a little bit fo CRAZY there. For sure.
this is certifiably insane
Ah, the tell-tale signs of a self-appointed “expert” who basically tells us that he knows he’s full of crap:
1) refusing to take questions
2) thinking that an honest examination of his own research equates to promoting an agenda
And still, I know several Christians who would swear by Cohen’s books!
InterVarsity Press, a respected (at least it was) publishing house for Christian based literature, published a reprint of Cohen’s Gay Children, Straight Parents last year. I realize that a lot of people would not be surprised about this, but having spent a long time in church related circles, I was stunned — on many levels.
David,
I’m sure that’s the same edition my mom has on her nightstand right now! It’s truly amazing and sad. I share videos like this with my parents, who are both conservative Christians, and they just disregard them as gay activists’ attempt to misrepresent Cohen and belittle his work. But what they don’t understand is that these videos show Cohen acting like as he normally does! Seeing a grown man seriously try to explain human sexuality with a bunch of giant magnets and suggest that gay guys need to hug MORE men to get “better” should be enough of a reason to have this wacko committed.
I just don’t understand it.
Ralph, was his testimony taken seriously? because that can’t help but come off as kinda kinky and homoerotic. Were the laws struck down?
See, I took that “23,000 years” comment to be something akin to spouses playfully calling each other “the ol’ ball and chain” and things like that. It came across as Cohen’s not-so-subtle attempt to sell his marriage, to convince us that he’s just an average joe with a wife and not a closeted gay man who needs to lie to himself in order to feel accepted.
yeah that’s how i took it too
Emily, Cohen’s performance in the Louisiana courtroom was a circus. He was introduced as an expert witness, despite the fact that he was not licensed to practice in any state, that his highest degree is a master’s degree in counselling, and that he refused to give his address, claiming that he practices our of his home in Maryland, and he feared for the safety of his family if he gave out his address.
In his testimony, he claimed to have worked with “hundreds and hundreds” of gay men (accompanied by wild flapping of his arms). He also said that, of those who stuck with the program, “100% were healed.” But he wouldn’t talk about how many actually stuck with the program; he said he didn’t have time to keep records. At the end of his testimony, his claque of supporters in the courtroom audience applauded wildly — which just isn’t done in a courtroom. On the other hand, rather than testifying as an expert professional, his tone was more that of a motivational speaker at a big rally.
There was absolutely nothing that could be considered scientific by this “expert” witness. Yet he was the only witness the State called.
The decision was still winding its way through the appeals courts when the U.S.Supreme Court overturned all sodomy laws and made the case moot.
I’m so glad Cohen is still around. It almost makes for not having Bush to make fun of anymore.
Ralph,
When did the Supreme Courts do that? You see I live in Texas and never heard about that. The Sodomy Law here was shot down by a vote, and people keep talking about bringing it back. It would be great to hold up a supreme court verdict.
Piper, the Texas law on sodomy was not overturned in a vote, but by the US Supreme Court in the Lawrence vs. Texas decision. Wikipedia has a very thorough discussion of the decision:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas
Nick,
I can’t believe I forgot that! I feel like such a dufus forgetting that court case and putting in my brain a vote instead. Thanks. Yeah, I knew about the court case. I was in High School at the time. Again, thanks for reminding me, and the Wiki article is a pretty good one thanks.
What a blithering buffoon. “Opposites Attract and Same-same “Ugh!” ?
Obviously we need to get out there and help all the delusional people stuck in same-same relationships like:
Same-Race
Same-Religion
Same-Politics
Same-Height
Same-hair color
Same-Language
Same-Education
Same-Parents… oh wait… inbreeding can cause certain traits to manifest.
Of course, you could probably say the same about offspring from any other same-same relationship. Perhaps delusional zealots SHOULDN’T be allowed to mate with each other after all.
Piper, I hadn’t seen your question until today; but my reply was going to be the same as NickS. As you read in Wikipedia, Lawrence v Texas was an important 6 to 3 decision that not only overturned that case and all other such laws, but Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion also specifically said that Bowers v Hardwick was wrongly decided in 1986 and was specifically overturned.
Hardwick was a similar case in Georgia (my state), where police had come to arrest Hardwick on a traffic violation and found him in bed with another man having consensual sex in the (supposed) privacy of his own bedroom. They were arrested on sodomy charges, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which in 1986 upheld that Georgia law.
A sidelight to that case: the Bowers in the case title was the Attorney General at the time. Some years later, he made headlines again when a top Emory Law School graduate had been hired for his staff, only to be fired, before she even began, when he learned that she was about to have a commitment ceremony with her lesbian partner. His reasoning was that this was against GA law, and he couldn’t have attorneys on his staff who were flouting the law.
A few years later, Bowers himself was revealed to have been having an affair with a woman on his staff, causing a bit of stir — because adultery was also against the law in GA at the time.
Those heterosexual bigots are such hypocrits.
Hmm, I know this is from a while back but I was thinking about something today regarding Cohen’s magnet analogy.
What he demonstrates here is an example of the electromagnetic force at work. However, what he doesn’t seem to realize is that there are other forces in the world, particularly the “strong force”, which attracts protons, of like charge, to each other. This force is just as fundamental as the electromagnet force, because without it all of our atoms would be flying apart..
Anyways I realize the magnet thing is so silly it doesn’t deserve much in depth analysis, but honestly if you’re going to use forces and particle attractions to show why people should be heterosexual then you should know what you’re talking about.
And there’s the plain old fact that people just aren’t magnets.
What a pity the interviewer didn’t get to have Cohen give demo of his “licking” therapy (this is when he or the patient’s mother or father “lick” the patient’s face, including the lips, like a dog would lick her pups. And of course there is his version of bioenergetics (you can pound the shit out of your demons with a tennis racquet and out goes the gay!) and then the cuddling and frotage is just way over the top. NARTH has alot of credibility problems already and should have expelled him years ago like ACA did and they really ought to be ashamed of even having their name associated with Cohen, as well as JONAH, EXODUS and others. How could any professional organization or professional person take him seriously with being a VERY RARE occasion that a therapist is PERMANENTALY EXPELLED from the American Couseling Association? Cohen was for multipe violations of the ethical codes. And he has the chupspah to offer certification of Sexual reorientation specialist at IHF as if her were an academic institution. Exactly what are his qualifications? He has NEVER been trained in any of this, has no academic credentials and he can’t even get it straight about comparing magnets< sex and people. COHEN IS NOTHING BUT A COMPLETE FRAUD! Anyone can publish a book about anything and call themselves an expert. Cohen is an expert at selling snake oil. Publishing a book does NOT necessarily qualify a person for anything.
Responding to William’s remark, on 1/27 who said: “Hasn’t this pillock noticed that people aren’t magnets?” The ignorant notion that men and women, male and female, masculine and feminine are “opposites” makes even the analogy outrageous. Since when are men and women “opposites”? This kind of rhetoric was used to justify the most outrageous dehumanization, infantilization and domination of more than half our species (women) for centuries. Granted, men and women have differences, but north pole, south pole? Simplistic thinking like this reveals something about the speaker and is demeaning of the audience.