Unless I’m mistaken Yarhouse and Throckmorton work with already married couples mostly.

I don’t think that they encourage unmarried gay men to marry women… probably because they work with those who have. I think they go with celibacy as a reasonable expectation and if that’s what someone wants, well, there are a lot of people who are celibate for one reason or another.

If you are interested in knowing more about spouses, the Straight Spouse Network is an information source. They are a group whose spouses came out.

Interestingly, they’re pretty pro-gay politically. They figure that ‘if society accepts a gay man then he won’t marry me!’

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/18/amid-bachmann-controversy-many-christians-cool-to-conversion-therapy-for-gays/

These words of Dr. Throckmorton literally jumped off the page at me

“Some Christian counselors have moved away from reparative therapy and have adopted a therapeutic approach that Throckmorton describes as a “congruence paradigm.” The model encourages counselors to appreciate a client’s wishes to harmonize their values, often shaped by religion, and their sexuality.

Under the congruence approach, a religious person who considers homosexuality sinful could attempt to square their beliefs and sexuality by trying to remain celibate. A bisexual client who perceives a similar conflict could try to focus on heterosexual relationships.”

I just started studying ex-gay within the last month or so (as my name indicates I really am str8 and a grandmother)because, “You can just change” is used as an excuse to deny Equal Civil Rights to gays, lesbains, bi-sexual and transgender citizens. I went into my research slanted towards, “I don’t think they can change” but was still open minded. I still had not decided if it really was possible for gays to change until I read that Yarhouse research.

It was only yesterday that I made up my mind. I am now in the “No” camp. Any therapy that has a goal of getting a person to BEHAVE contra their same sex attractions is then going to involve another person. And as Yarhouse’s research clearly shows this other person, the heterosexual spouse is going to be harmed. I do not believe it is ethical for a medical person to counsel a person in therapy knowing that, although their patient may report that s/he has a better life, outwardly living contra to their natural sexual orientation, the spouse does NOT. I think it is unethical of them to spring their “little project” on unsuspecting heterosexuals. Those heterosexual spouses never can get those years back again. The numbers are just not there to justify this type of therapy and the risk of harm is documented.

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good points in both comments.

I would be interested in the individual Kinsey rating of each of the participants, to see just how many of them were some degree of bisexual and what difference it made from those who were purely homosexual.

In that sense, yes, I agree.

“Gay identity” vs “Christian identity” is something so culturally foreign for me too… it takes me a huge effort to even keep that perspective in mind long enough. But I guess this is a peculiarity of somebody who lives in a very secular post-communist culture.

Sorry if this is a digression.

Good point. I try to avoid “homosexual” as it can cause those who are just coming here and unfamiliar with BTB to assume that we are anti-gay, as the word is seldom used outside that circle.

But when posed against heterosexual, homosexual is more accurate and, as you note, having a homosexual orientation does not indicate that you identify as gay or are part of the gay community.

I’ll try to be more careful.

But as far as Wayne’s “pray away the gay” phrase, if you think about it, it’s the gay that they really object to and is their real objective. Once you no longer identify as gay but “identify with Christ” then you are pursuing holiness and can spend decades as a successful celibate.