Christianists and "Ex-Gay" Myth Promoters Ignore New APA Report - Part Two

EDITOR COMMENT: I generally do not post anonymous comments since I have little respect for those who are too cowardly and gutless to identify themselves. In this case I published a comment on this post since it shows the negative impact that the bogus ex-gay ministries and self-proclaimed "ex-gays" have on the mindset of the general public.

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"Happily married" as described by the author of the comment is a subjective matter and ONLY the supposed "formerly gay" married individuals know in their hearts whether or not they had any true change in orientation. I am sure some of them want to convince themselves that they did. I know all too well how religious based guilt and family disapproval can cause one to delude themselves and go into deep denial for years or a lifetime. I did it for 37 years and I have 3 children. Did that ever make me not gay? No, not one bit. In deep denial and plagued by extreme unspoken self-hate yes. Not gay, NO!

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Yesterday morning I wrote about Christianists and religiously and monetarily motivated psychologists who continue to put forth the bogus myth that sexual orientation can be changed - both for political reasons - i.e., if change is possible then public policy can be punitive to gay persons - and financial reasons since there's money to be made preying on parents of gays and religiously conflicted LGBT individuals. Either motivation is sick and unChristian in my opinion, but all to typical of this crowd and the Baptist Press which is trumpeting the Jones and Yarhouse "study" in an attempt to counter the APA's condemnation of all change therapies. This morning, Tim Kincaid at Box Turtle Bulletin posted a lengthy over view of the Jones and Yarhouse work that demonstrates once again that when it comes to basically lying and deliberately distorting information, self-proclaimed Christians have few rivals. When closely examined, even the Jones and Yarhouse work shows that only a small percentage (assuming one believes the anecdotal statements of the study participants) experienced "change." Here are a few highlights from Tim's piece (I strongly recommend that you read the full post):

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What the 2007 Jones and Yarhouse book revealed, and what this update further confirms, is that the “change” which NARTH and Exodus loudly proclaim is not a change in sexual orientation at all and, in fact, may be nothing more that a change in identity or recollection.

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In other words, on average, after six to seven years of participation, those who went through Exodus ministries reported over the period of their involvement no change in sexual orientation at all.

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As I am less interested in adherence to religious identities and more interested in sexual orientation change, I’ll group the failure and the middle two together. After time T6, J&Y report:
Success: Conversion - 14 (23%) Success: Chastity - 18 (30%) Non-Success - 29 (48%). This does not, however, present an accurate story of the study participants. It does not account for those who dropped out of participation and thus overstates the success rates.

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Considering drop-outs as their own category, a more accurate reporting of the self-identified placement into categories would look like this:

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Success: Conversion - 14 (14%)

Success: Chastity - 18 (18%)

Non-Success - 29 (30%)

Drop-Outs - 37 (38%)

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And considering just the Phase 1 participants, the results are:

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Success: Conversion - 5 (9%)

Success: Chastity - 6 (11%)

Non-Success - 18 (32%)

Drop-Outs - 28 (49%)

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When looking at these numbers, we should consider two things about the “conversion” category shown above. First, much of Exodus’ efforts go into changing identity. They view a “gay identity” as sinful and contrary to a “Christian identity”. So this change in identity may not be related to an actual change in orientation.

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And second, this report differs from the book in that the qualifiers are removed. The book provided discussion of the non-traditional definitions of “heterosexual” used in the study and how those who were so identified also experienced wandering eyes, erotic dreams, and other situations that are most often associated with a homosexual orientation.

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The authors [Jones and Yarhouse] have a moral responsibility to discourage those who will make false statements or who will falsely claim that this study justifies their ex-gay or anti-gay endeavors. And they have a moral obligation not to allow their wishes about the mutability of sexual orientation cloud the results of their study and give false hope to those who believe Exodus’ slogan that “change is possible”.