Amazon Removes Books Pushing Of Ex-Gay Torture

Expect to hear shrieks from Christofascists that they are being censored or even persecuted by Amazon which has ceased selling books advocating "conversion therapy,"a debunked, fraudulent therapy pushed by charlatans and shysters masquerading as legitimate therapists (Michele Bachmann and her husband run one of these fraudulent clinics).  One of the high priests of this harmful scam was Joseph Nicilosi who sought to give a false veneer of science and legitimacy to what in truth is snake oil at best and a deliberately harmful practice at worse. The end goal of conversion therapy? First, to enrich its practitioners who prey on desperate and gullible individuals, and second, to support the false claim that sexual orientation is a "choice" and, therefore, no LGBT non-discrimination protections are needed.  A piece in NBC News looks at this welcomed move by Amazon.  Here are highlights:

Amazon has removed English-language books by a man largely considered “the father of conversion therapy” from its site following mounting pressure from LGBTQ activists.

Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, founder of the now-shuttered Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic, as well as the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), authored several how-to guides directed to parents of LGBTQ youth, including “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality.” His books are some of the most well-known works about conversion therapy, the pseudoscientific practice of trying to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

“I would say many survivors of conversion therapy could trace their trauma to Nicolosi,” Sam Brinton, head of advocacy and government affairs at The Trevor Project and a survivor of conversion therapy, told NBC News. “His work lent credibility under the guise of ‘science’ to conversion therapy, even though the practice has been disputed and discredited as dangerous and harmful by medical experts.”

According to The Trevor Project’s 2019 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, 2 in 3 LGBTQ youths reported that someone tried to convince them to change their sexual orientation or gender identity, and youths who have undergone conversion therapy are more than twice as likely to attempt suicide as those who did not.

Though activists have been urging Amazon to remove the books for several months, as evinced by a Change.org position that has amassed more than 82,000 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon, one man in particular made it his mission to prevent the company from selling the books.

Roger Alan first learned about Nicolosi’s books from Peterborough International Christian Centre, a church in his native United Kingdom, around three months ago. The church planned to show “Flying Blind,” a video about conversion therapy, to its parishioners, and when met with widespread criticism, it defended the screening by referring to Nicolosi’s work.

While the church ultimately canceled the event, the books remained available for purchase on Wordery, an online bookseller, and Amazon.

Alan said he reached out to both sites and called for the books’ removal. Wordery removed the books the next day, but Amazon informed him that his request would be passed along to the “relevant team.”

After a month had passed with no action, Alan reached out the British Psychological Society and the American Psychological Association — organizations that have acknowledged the harm associated with conversion therapy — in an attempt to gain medical and legal context to strengthen his request. The BPS calls conversion therapy “unethical” and the APA says it has "serious potential to harm young people because they present the view that the sexual orientation of lesbian, gay and bisexual youth is a mental illness or disorder, and they often frame the inability to change one's sexual orientation as a personal and moral failure."

Then, three months after he submitted his first request, something changed. While Alan was completing his daily ritual of searching for Nicolosi’s books on Amazon on Tuesday, he realized the English-language versions of the books were no longer available (some of the works can still be found in Spanish and Portuguese).

Amazon has not contacted Alan about its removal of the books, but the company confirmed to NBC News that several titles by Nicolosi are no longer available and that it reserves the right to not sell books that go against its content guidelines.

Last December, Amazon removed a gay conversion therapy app from a religious group called Living Hope Ministries, which included anti-gay podcasts, articles and devotionals.

“These books were outrightly lying to parents on how they could cure their children from being gay or trans and essentially teach ways you can mentally and physically abuse your child.

“These books will still be accessible and will still be a risk for youth,” Brinton, the co-founder of 50 Bills 50 States, the largest campaign to protect LGBTQ youths from conversion therapy in the U.S., said. “But you can compare removing them to the surgeon general announcing smoking is dangerous: People now know the side effects of the practice.”

“The best way to save lives is to pass legislation,” Brinton added, noting that in the last 30 months, 13 laws have been passed protecting minors against conversion therapy. Currently 18 states, along with the District of Columbia, ban the practice on minors.

NARTH Ex-Gay Torture Founder Joseph Nicolosi Dead

Nicolosi - the face of hate and evil

One of the biggest lies promoted by the Christofascists  - and even the Vatican - is the myth that sexual orientation is a "choice" and that through "conversion therapy" or "reparative therapy," gays could become heterosexual.  All gays needed to do was admit their sinful behavior and decide to "change."  One of the high priests of this dishonest campaign was Joseph Nicolosi, a co-founder of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), which peddled the "choice" myth for decades - and made a plush living "treating" desperate gays and getting paid for speaking engagements at Christofascist venues.  As The Daily Beast reports, Nicolosi died today at age 70, leaving behind him a wake of lives damaged - or ended through suicide -  by the foul lies and practices Nicolosi championed.  Here are highlights on the passing of this foul individual:

Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, a co-founder of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) and a prominent figure in the ex-gay movement, has passed away, the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic, where he served as clinical director, confirmed over the phone to The Daily Beast. Nicolosi, 70, was a practitioner of conversion or reparative therapy, treatments intended to change a person’s sexual orientation that have been widely denounced by major medical associations—including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Psychological Association—and banned by legislation in five states: Vermont, Oregon, New Jersey, Illinois, and California.

As noted in numerous previous posts, Nicolosi and other practitioners of "conversion therapy"  not only enriched themselves at the expense of others, but also aided GOP allies by claiming that LGBT nondiscrimination protections  are unnecessary since homosexuality is a choice and a behavior, not an inherent characteristic. I may sound cruel, but the world is a better place now that Nicolosi has left it.  The damage he did will long out live him. 

Throckmorton Takes on Chuck Colson's Lies

While I don't know what has caused the "conversion" if you will of Warren Throckmorton - a former high priest of the Christianist myth/lie that homosexuality is a "choice" or the result of a dysfunctional family setting - it has been refreshing to see Throckmorton embracing modern medical and mental health knowledge on sexual orientation. Perhaps the American Psychological Association's condemnation of reparative therapy and citing its use by practitioners as "unethical" played a role. Or maybe Throckmorton has seen the hand writing on the wall and realizes that the anti-gay mantra of the Christian Taliban is repelling younger generations. Whatever the cause, in a post on his blog, Crosswalk, Throckmorton has slammed Chuck Colson's praise of the work of the faux experts at NARTH. Yes, that Chuck Colson, the Watergate felon who seems to have discovered the lucrative nature of being a professional Christian while in prison. Here are highlights from Throckmorton's post:
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Yesterday, Chuck Colson posted a column titled “Born Gay? A Parent’s Guide” which asserted that the way parents relate to their male children can create homosexuality. Colson quoted extensively from Joseph and Linda Nicolosi’s book, A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality as support for the view that weak or distant fathers and smothering mothers create gay males.
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Did you catch the assumption? If a boy is gay, his father was not “both strong and caring” and the bond with the mother was “unhealthy.” To an audience consisting of evangelicals, these are ominous words. In future broadcasts, Colson promises to bring more information “about what parents can do to lessen the chances their children will grow up homosexual.” Apparently, females are not of interest here since they are not mentioned by Colson.

This advice is unfortunate for academic and practical reasons. It is difficult to research family dynamics and sexual orientation because of the subjectivity of the variables. There are no direct tests of how attached a boy is to his father; recollections of children and parents are subject to bias and reconstruction. In practice, if you believe the reports of men who say they are gay because their fathers were distant, then you are bound to believe the reports of gay men who say they had close relationships with their fathers. In that case, the theory fails as a general explanation for homosexuality because, as I illustrate below, there are numerous gay men and their fathers who report histories of close bonding and mutual love.
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Another academic approach is to test a prediction based on the theory. In this case, one might expect the dynamics proposed by Nicolosi to be more frequent in fatherless homes. However, a 2010 New Zealand study led by Elisabeth Wells reported no effect of single parent homes on sexual orientation or behavior as compared to families with a biological mom and dad. Some of the results seem hard to explain by any theory.
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Practically, such advice has caused confusion and pain among evangelical families, where being gay is a challenge socially and religiously. I have worked with parents who were near divorce over who caused their son to be gay. They had read the books and gone to the conferences which blamed them for their son’s “condition.” Surely, no parent is perfect but something seems wrong about obviously loving and involved parents examining and re-examining every move they made to find out where they “failed.”
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I recall one young man I worked with in counseling who first disclosed his same-sex attractions to his father because his dad was his closest friend. When they read the theory Colson described, they were bewildered and angry. A very masculine linebacker for his high school football team, the young man scoffed at the idea that he was identified with his mother.
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It appears that the underlying purpose in Colson’s presentation of Nicolosi’s theory is to present an alternative to prenatal theories of sexual orientation.
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Fighting a political agenda is not a good reason to promote questionable theories. There is currently no scientific consensus about why sexual orientation takes the direction it does. Homosexuality is not strongly related to genetics but that does not mean that parenting is the only alternative non-genetic factor. Other prenatal factors, such hormonal variations during prenatal development, are being investigated and might be a part of the picture. The jury is out with much more research to be done, but what has been done on parenting does not inspire confidence in the claim that distant fathers and smothering mothers create gay men.

The Choice Myth: A Century of Ex-Gay Treatments Have Ranged from Horrifying to Horribly Unscientific

Despite the latest report by the American Psychological Association Condemning ex-gay and reparative therapy, various quacks and Christianist "ministries" continue to claim that they can turn gays straight. The claims are simply put and actually motivated by two things: (1) the money to be made off of individuals, or more typically, their families who due to religious brainwashing cannot except being gay and (2) the political need to continue to claim that since gays can change if they but want to, no legal protections should be granted. Discover Magazine has an article that looks at the bogus "cure" programs and some of the horrific things done to gays to make them "change." If you believe these therapies work, you might just as well go hire yourself and African witch doctor or voodoo practitioner. Here are some highlights:

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All the major psychiatric organizations, including the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association, have warned against therapies that try to change sexual orientation. Both APAs have ruled that these therapies are unscientific and possibly harmful—not to mention unnecessary, since homosexuality was officially de-classified as an illness in 1973, and therefore can't be "cured." As such, sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) are rarely practiced by mainstream mental health practitioners, while many therapists are concerned that anyone who does try to change through therapy may do themselves more harm than good.
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Still, practices like Nicolosi's [and NARTH] have persisted, as has the debate over whether sexual orientation can—or should—be changed. So on August 5, the APA's Council of Representatives took the strongest stand yet, passing a near-unanimous resolution urging mental health professionals not to tell clients that they can change their sexual orientation through therapy or any other methods.
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Homosexuality was officially labeled a mental illness in the U.S. in the 1950s. The debate over same-sex attraction was not new: Sigmund Freud reported on one deliberate attempt to change the sexual orientation of a young woman who'd been brought in for involuntary treatment by her parents. He was unsuccessful, and concluded that attempts to change homosexual orientation were likely to fail.

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Experimental treatments were performed throughout the mid-century, sometimes in high profile cases. In 1952, renowned mathematician Alan Turing was convicted of gross indecency in the U.K. after admitting to a sexual relationship with a man . . . Two years later, he committed suicide.

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One of the most popular aversion techniques was "orgasmic reconditioning"—men would be shown erotic pictures of other men, and if they became aroused, th ey would receive an electric shock on their genitals. Therapists also gave patients drugs that induced vomiting or paralysis, or exposed them to noxious chemicals like ammonia, whenever they were aroused by same-sex photos.

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These "therapies" were generally ineffective—the person remained attracted to the same sex—or over-effective—the person was traumatized and lost all sexual arousal entirely. They "were used without people thinking about whether they were humane."

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Befitting the times, the mainstream mental health community no longer advocates change treatments, but instead supports approaches that help patients cope with the stress and stigma of being a sexual minority. Still, SOCE is still being practiced within a small group of mental-health practitioners, most of whom cater to a population whose religious beliefs strictly bar homosexuality.

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Then there's the larger question of whether science should study treatments for a condition that is not, in mental health terms, a problem. "All the major mental health organizations have concluded that homosexuality is not an illness, and there's no reason to try to change it or treat it," Miller says. "So whether it's appropriate, or ethical, to do such an experiment is a serious consideration."

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I hope the day comes when these bogus "cure"programs are a thing of the past. Unfortunately, those driven by a lust for money and the cynical use of gay lives for political power are unlikely to care about whether or not what they do is ethical. The APA and state licensing authorities need to go on the offensive and close down these horrible practices once and for all.

Dr. Phil's Poison Pill

While hope for LGBT Americans is on the horizon with the inauguration of the Obama/Biden administration, we need to continue to be vigilant in opposing the poisonous messages that our enemies continue to disseminate. A recent example is the noxious message put out on the Dr. Phil Show which gave a platform to Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family and Joseph Nicolosi, fraudulent proponents of reparative therapy, who routinely depict transgender individuals as would be sexual predators. Never mind that every legitimate medical and mental health association condemns their claims. Dr. Phil could apparently care less and allowed these disingenuous individuals to peddle their false teachings. My friend Wayne Besen has a new column that takes Dr. Phil to task. Here are some highlights:

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I'm confused as to why people are still "confused" about transgender Americans. For years, they have said that the birth sex on the outside does not match the opposite sex they believe is on the inside. Modern science confirms that sexuality has as much to do with what is inside our heads as what is between our legs. This concept is not rocket science, nor is it difficult to understand. There is nothing homogeneous about our species, and this includes sexuality and gender.

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Unfortunately, talk show hosts are still using this issue for cheap laughs or to boost ratings. The latest example is the annoying and supremely talentless Dr. Phil. The talking (very large) head had an opportunity to educate the public by presenting the latest science. Instead, he shamefully chose sensationalism over professionalism by offering a platform to notorious anti-gay activists who used his show to promote quack theories with no scientific standing. Dr. Phil actually had the nerve to refer to Glenn Stanton, who is affiliated with Focus on the Family, and the laughable Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, as "experts" on gender and homosexuality.

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Dr. Nicolosi is the same "expert" who believes gay men can become more masculine by drinking Gatorade and calling friends "dude." Stanton is tied to Focus on the Family, an organization that has been accused by scientists throughout the world of distorting their work. Of course, none of this mattered to Dr. Phil. Instead of exploring this issue in-depth, "the mouth of the south" sunk to new depths. On the show, he exploited Toni, a loving mother of a transgender child, by ambushing her with the aforementioned disreputable hacks.

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I question why Dr. Phil offered a platform to men so at odds with every respected medical and mental health association in the country? And why didn't Dr. Phil inform viewers that these men were considered fringe religious figures with peculiar views on sexuality?

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Our enemies care nothing for the truth. Instead they cling to religious extremism and the distortion of medical and mental health science. Hopefully, the new administration will usher in an atmosphere where such lies are less welcome. In the meantime, we must be vigilant to continue to tell the truth about our enemies while they tell lies about us.

God, Gays and the Church

Unfortunately, it appears that U.S. based anti-gay Christianists are now in league with some of their bigoted brethren in the Church of England based on the new book being released through Anglican Mainstream (http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/index.php/2008/02/11/god-gays-and-the-church/), which describes itself as a “community within the Anglican Communion committed to promote, teach and maintain the Scriptural truths on which the Anglican Church was founded and which guarantee its catholicity.” Not surprisingly, one of the contributing authors is Joseph Nicolosi, former President of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (“NARTH”) who has literally made a career out of peddling the anti-gay “cure” myth to the unwary and gullible and who likewise is often used as a supposed “expert” by anti-gay Christianist organizations. Faced with the possibility that the APA may ban the use of reparative therapy in the USA, it appears Nicolosi and similar (in my opinion) quackes are seeking new markets for their snake oil. I hope that those in the UK and elsewhere do not fall for this garbage.

Anglican Mainstream has the following to say about the new book – which ironically will be launched at a fringe meeting:

The book, God, Gays and the Church: Human Sexuality and Experience in Christian Thinking, published by the Latimer Trust, will be launched at a special fringe meeting at the General Synod of the Church of England on Wednesday 13 February . . . The editors seek to put into the public domain not only the views of Christians who first thought themselves homosexual, and then chose to follow Biblical teaching, but also the expert evidence and research of psychologists, counsellors and theologians in the field. Further sections analyse the impact of the gay agenda on our culture.

In his Foreword to the book, the Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Revd Michael Scott-Joynt, writes: . . . Our integrity, as a Church that is properly serious about doctrine and discipline, was gravely undermined. … every Christian is called to have her or his ‘experience’ conformed to the teachings of Scripture, and then to those of the ‘great tradition’ of the Church down the centuries …”

I wonder whether the cited “great traditions” of the Church include heresy trials, the stoning of adulterers and other “Christian” conduct. Wouldn't feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, and treating other with love and respect be a more worthwhile use of time and energy?