Why Is the New York Times Promoting "Ex-Gay" Therapy?

I nearly spit up my morning coffee this morning when I saw a ridiculous piece in the New York Times that on its face is supportive of the psychologically tortured and disturbed "ex-gay" crowd and even makes the statement that "thousands of men across the country, often known as “ex-gay,” who believe they have changed their most basic sexual desires through some combination of therapy and prayer." Yes, and I think I am Queen Victoria and that my partner is Prince Albert.  That claim would have the same legitimacy as the claims of the "ex-gay" crowd.  Perhaps the biggest lie in the piece is that it regurgitaes the claim that thousands believe they have "changed" their orientation even though time and time again NONE of the proponents of the witch doctor like "ex-gay" programs have EVER produced names to back up the claims.  That's right, NEVER.  Fortunately, the story does include some coverage of the positions of legitimate medical and mental health experts who say claims of "change" are at best self-delusion.  My advice to the "ex-gays" is to find a different denomination that doesn't embrace ignorance and bigotry and which accepts modern knowledge and stop torturing themselves.  Remaining in an anti-gay religious tradition is nothing more than than a form of self-flagellation and masochism.  Here are some article highlights that look at the truth about these bogus claims:

Ex-gay men are often closeted, fearing ridicule from gay advocates who accuse them of self-deception and, at the same time, fearing rejection by their church communities as tainted oddities. Here in California, their sense of siege grew more intense in September when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law banning use of widely discredited sexual “conversion therapies” for minors — an assault on their own validity, some ex-gay men feel. 

Signing the measure, Governor Brown repeated the view of the psychiatric establishment and medical groups, saying, “This bill bans nonscientific ‘therapies’ that have driven young people to depression and suicide,” adding that the practices “will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery.”

Major mental health associations say teenagers who are pushed into therapy by conservative parents may feel guilt and despair when their inner impulses do not change. 

Reparative therapy suffered two other major setbacks this year. In April, a prominent psychiatrist, Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, publicly repudiated as invalid his own 2001 study suggesting that some people could change their sexual orientation; the study had been widely cited by defenders of the therapy.

Then this summer, the ex-gay world was convulsed when Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus International, the largest Christian ministry for people fighting same-sex attraction, said he did not believe anyone could be rid of homosexual desires. 

Critics like Wayne Besen, the executive director of Truth Wins Out, which fights antigay bias, liken such therapy to faith healing, with apparent effects that later fade away.   They also point out that the failures of such therapy are seldom reported. 

S. Marc Breedlove, a neuroscientist and psychologist at Michigan State University, said there was overwhelming evidence that sexual orientation is affected by both biology and environment. Clearly, he said, reparative therapy helps some people alter sexual behavior. But that is far different, he noted, from transforming instinctive sexual desires, something never proved in scientific studies.

Religion has damaged so many lives.  It is sad that these want to be "ex-gays" cannot see that they are being sold a false bill of goods and that they might just as well consult a voodoo practitioner as to enroll in an "ex-gay" program.  In view, proponents of reparative therapy make snake oil merchants look reputable and make Mitt Romney look like an honest person.