They are steering teenagers and others to Jonah, as is evidenced by the signature of Arthur Goldberg. This executive and founder of the organization , Jonah, was disbarred and spent 18 months in jail for defrauding investors out of millions of dollars. He dropped his middle name Abba to disguise himself.It was one month after he got out of jail that he started Jonah to help himself to the money all these desperate families would give him. Aside from all the psychological harm this junk science therapy does to its clients, Jonah is using Christian evangelicals who specifically want to “shmad” Jews. Let everyone in this matter be clear when saying that “change” is possible. Yes you can become celibate but you can’t change your attractions and desires!

If you want objective results, there are machines that measure sexual arousal.

Since you are so desperate to believe that homosexuals can transform themselves into heterosexuals, I assume you believe we should seek to do so. But, why should we? Please tell us. If you can present a compelling reason to do so, along with reasonable assurance that I would be successful, I will seek change.

He “doesn’t know” because his “study” wasn’t a study. Literally, all he did was have people tell him over the telephone “I’ve changed.”

Have you ever seen those infomercials with people in the mall announcing how changed they are after wearing the magical bracelet with magnets or batteries or made of copper or doused in snake oil? Yep, that would the the equivalent of Spitzer’s study.

Spitzer is a good man. He was just trying to validate what some people were telling him. And his study proves that yes, some people really do tell researchers that they have changed. That’s all. Not proof they’ve changed, just proof that they were at one point willing to claim so.

Yosef, it comes down to this: reorientation doesn’t work. I used to think that while it wasn’t for me, maybe some people might actually experience some change in orientation. But, they just simply don’t. You can really, really, really want it to – and believe me many Exodus people really really really want it to – but it reorientation doesn’t work.

You can even cling to “well it might be true cuz Spitzer didn’t study that it wasn’t so, ummm, I choose to believe that if he had studied it he would have found 30% success.” It doesn’t work. He wouldn’t have.

Yes, he verified that after looking for three years he was able to find 200 people to say that they had some change. Some of them were pressured to do so by their therapist (one of our writers was pressured this way). Some later retracted what they told him.

But Yosef, I don’t think you are trying to convince us here. I think you are desperately trying to convince yourself. And I don’t think that you believe it nearly as much as you want to believe it’s true.

His point is that he really doesn’t know since his study did not focus on that. His study started off with people who were helped by therapy. That was the given.

In this interview: http://www.drthrockmorton.com/interviewdrspitzer.pdf

he says: “But I’ve asked two of the more well known practitioners of this kind of therapy how often are they successful, and they say, well it depends on the way you define success, but if you define success in terms of a change in behavior, and in feelings, there’s about 30 percent or something like that. Now I suspect it’s much lower, but I could be wrong. So whether it’s 2 %, 10%, or 15%, but what I am sure is that it’s not 0%. And that’s what this study was about, whether it’s actually 0 percent.”

You can easily see that he himself said that maybe the practitioners who claim 30% are right – and maybe they are wrong. He is not making any claims about that point.

He simply didn’t study it and wants to make sure he is quoted accurately.

He began with people who claimed that they changed and he wanted to verify it. That’s all.

We are very familiar with Spitzer’s 2003 study, in particular his speaking out against those who have misrepresented his study:

http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/tag/robert-spitzer

He told the New York Times that he thought change was exceedingly rare: “Although I suspect change occurs, I suspect it’s very rare,” he said. “Is it 1 percent, 2 percent? I don’t think it’s 10 percent.”

http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2007/02/14/223

Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation? 200 Participants Reporting a Change from Homosexual to Heterosexual Orientation

Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 32, No. 5, October 2003, pp. 403-417 (2003)