NARTH Can No Longer Can Provide Continuing Education in California

One small victory that was lost in all the news on the Norway terror attack and the debt limit debacle in Washington is the development in California that means that the witch doctor like folks at The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality ("NARTH") - a Christianist created and funded faux research center - will no longer be able to provide continuing education to licensed therapists. Actually, NARTH should have been deleted as an education provider long before now, but better late than ever. Anything that undermines NARTH's credibility and cash flow is a victory for LGBT citizens and those who believe in real science. Given NARTH's recent embarrassments - e.g., George Rekers (pictured at right) and his rent boy and Arthur Abba Goldberg's exposure as a convicted felon for a multi-billion dollar bond scam - this will hopefully be one more nail in NARTH's coffin. Here are highlights from the San Francisco Chronicle on this development:
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The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality can no longer provide continuing education to therapists in this state. NARTH, which claims that homosexuals can be "converted" to heterosexuality through various forms of therapy, had been an approved continuing education provider since 1998. But as of mid-July, the group has been taken off the California Board for Behavioral Science's list of such providers.
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The American Psychological Association issued a report in 2009 discrediting the idea that homosexuals could become straight via such so-called "conversion" or "reparative" therapy. The APA even suggested such counseling could be psychologically harmful. That's not the reason NARTH lost its approval though -- they're off the list due to delinquent fees.
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As it stands now, the BBS can't reject a continuing education provider due to its philosophy or even the validity of its scientific claims, executive officer Kim Madsen says, and "that's been a challenge." Instead, as long as the provider "meets the requirements as set forth in current law, we have to accept them."
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At its September meeting, however, the BBS will be reviewing those laws and requirements and having a discusssion about what Madsen describes as "long-identified deficiencies in the continuing education model."

Here in Alameda, a group called "Alameda Concerned Parents," which fought Alameda Unified School District's adoption of anti-gay bullying lessons in elementary schools, supported NARTH's positions. ACP appears to have taken down its website sometime in the last few months.