"Ex-Gay" Therapy is Not Just "Sticks and Stones"

One of the most hideous and vile things that the "godly Christian" folks do to LGBT individuals outside of actual physical violence is their effort to keep alive the myth that sexual orientation is a "choice" and that gays can "change" if they but want to do so.   As one who tried for 37 years to "change" without success, I know only too well how the inability to change can ultimately translate into a feeling that only death is a solution to one's "secret."  One only needs to read some of the stories of gay teen suicides to see the toxic results of the "ex-gay" myth.  Now, New Jersey is poised to follow California in enacting a law that would bar therapists - quacks might be a better name - from subjecting minors to "ex-gay" therapy.  Needless to say, the "godly Christian" folk are in an uproar over the potential bar to their inflicting their poison on children and minors.  In response to the  shrieks and screams of the Christofascists, Jack Drescher, a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College, has an op-ed in the Star Ledger urging the New Jersey legislature and Governor Chris Christie to pass the act that would protect minors from the dangerous, witch doctor like therapy.  Here are column highlights:

The Star-Ledger’s March 22 editorial, “Don’t overreach on gay conversion therapy,” opposes a bill (A3371) before the New Jersey Assembly banning “gay conversion therapy” for minors.

As a psychiatric expert critical of sexual conversion “therapies,” I understand the editorial board’s concerns. I even shared similar views with a Star-Ledger reporter last fall after California passed its own ban. I was skeptical about legislation as the best way to deal with this issue, because state laws would not affect the majority of conversion therapy practitioners, who are mostly unlicensed. 

Since that time, however, my thinking has evolved. Following a court challenge to California’s law, in February 2013, I submitted an amicus brief in its support.

What changed my mind? Initially I believed a law, by itself, is not the most efficient means of protecting the public from scientifically unproven “treatments.” Simply passing laws might create the erroneous impression that everything that needs to be done has been done and distract from needed efforts to educate oversight bodies. Licensing boards, regulatory agencies and ethics committees of professional organizations are often woefully unfamiliar with the harm caused by conversion therapies.

I now believe legal bans can serve an additional purpose. They communicate to the general public the disdain in which a state holds these practices, whether performed by licensed or unlicensed individuals. They also strengthen the hand of plaintiffs in consumer fraud lawsuits against conversion “therapists,” such as the high-profile case in New Jersey that names unlicensed individuals among the defendants.

Consequently, I no longer see legislation and education as an either/or proposition. A combination approach can best protect the public in general, and minors in particular.

I disagree with the editorial’s assertion that parents have a right to “raise a child according to crackpot ideas.” If “crackpot ideas” harm children, states have seen fit to intervene. When parents, for religious reasons, try to withhold blood transfusions or needed medications from their children, the child’s best interests trump freedom of religion.

Finally, the editorial board opines that, “It’s strictly a form of talk therapy. And lawmakers have never outlawed any type of talk therapy. Do we really want them to decide what sort of speech should be allowed in your therapist’s office?”

While most people might not think talk is as obviously harmful as “medicine or electric shock,” in the clinical setting talk is not always benign and therapists can say things that hurt patients. Poorly managed talk therapy with depressed patients can sometimes precipitate suicide attempts. As an intern, I watched a psychiatric supervisor do a “stress interview” that made a patient so psychotic he had to be placed in a straightjacket. All they did was talk. It’s not just sticks and stones that break people’s bones. Words can also harm.

Which is what often happens when conversion “therapists” tell people hurtful untruths, such as, “You have a mental disorder, no matter what the American Psychiatric Association says.” Or, “If you come out as gay, you will probably die early and live an unhappy and unhealthy life.” Or, “God will not love you if you are gay.”

When words such as these are addressed to children by misguided authority figures delegated to do so by their parents, conversion “therapy” becomes more than just a crackpot idea meriting First Amendment protection. And if this ban protects only one child, should that child not be protected from a barrage of harmful hate speech? 

I think so, which is why I urge the New Jersey Assembly to follow the lead of the New Jersey Senate and pass A3371, so that Gov. Chris Christie can sign the bill into law.

 Of course, Drescher leaves out the main reason the Christofascists  want to protect "ex-gay" therapy from governmental restrictions: it is their principle tool to dupe the ignorant and gullible into believing that gays can "change" and that, therefore, we need no legal protections nor do we need civil law marriage.  In short, it is part of an evil plot advocated by evil people.