News, analysis and fact-checking of anti-gay rhetoric
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The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.NARTH Counselor Admits Failure in Changing Sexual Orientation, Blames Patient, Sues California for the Right to Try Again
Jim Burroway
January 25th, 2013
The American Medical Association’s publication American Medical News has a very good article about efforts in California and New Jersey to regulate Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE). The article opens with a vignette about a patient who has undergone SOCE, failed to change his sexual orientation (predictably), and now has to come to terms with that failure:
After attending a religious-based therapy six times a week and experiencing no change in his sexuality, the patient was left feeling ashamed, depressed and suicidal, Dr. Drescher said.
“I felt sad[ness] and also anger, because sometimes a therapist would say things that were very hurtful to the patient,” said Dr. Drescher, an author and medical expert on gay conversion therapy. He also is president of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, a think tank that analyzes issues in the field of psychiatry. “It’s distressing when you see professionals, regardless if they are well-meaning or otherwise, deliver intentional or inadvertent harm to a patient.”
For an example of just what kind of harmful statements, the article points to Psychiatrist Anthony Duk, who is a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits challenging California’s ban on SOCE for minors:
“With this bill, what’s really at stake is the definition of masculinity as well as the entire basis of civilization,” he said. “When men don’t act like men, you have a breakdown of traditional family roles and weakening of the entire human race.”
Dr. Duk said he sees about three patients a year who he said need help fighting same-sex attractions. His treatment of such patients has not resulted in the desired outcomes, he said.
“I was not successful with the ones I had because they did not stay long enough,” he said. “The major factor is whether the patient really wants to heal. The ones who want to get better, those are the ones” able to change.
What you will notice is 1) Duk has been unsuccessful in trying to change the sexual orientation of his patients 2) he blames them for their failures, and 3) he wants the State of California to allow him to continue to inflict this same harm onto others — I guess in the vain hope that some day he might get it right?
Judge Issues Temporary Injunction Against California’s Gay Therapy Law
Jim Burroway
December 4th, 2012
U.S. District Court Judge William Shubb has issued a very limited temporary injunction which bars the state of California from enforcing its ban on Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) for minors when the law goes into effect on January 1. Judge Shubb limited the injunciton’s effectivity to the three ex-gay therapists who have sued to overturn the measure. According to the Associated Press:
U.S. District Court Judge William Shubb made a decision just hours after a hearing on the issue, ruling that the First Amendment rights of psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals who engage in “reparative” or “conversion” therapy outweigh concern that the practice poses a danger to young people.
“Even if SB 1172 is characterized as primarily aimed at regulating conduct, it also extends to forms of (conversion therapy) that utilize speech and, at a minimum, regulates conduct that has an incidental effect on speech,” Shubb wrote.
The judge also disputed the California Legislature’s finding that trying to change young people’s sexual orientation puts them at risk for suicide or depression, saying it was based on “questionable and scientifically incomplete studies.”
The injunctions applies only to the three plaintiffs: psychiatrist Anthony Duk, marriage and family therapist Donald Welch, and student Aaron Blitzer who is studying to become an SOCE provider and who claims that he is now heterosexual after having undergone ex-gay therapy. Duk was a speaker at NARTH’s 2011 convention in Phoenix. Blitzer claims that he is now heterosexual after having undergone ex-gay therapy. The three plaintiffs are being represented by the Pacific Justice Institute.
In granting the injunctions, Judge Shubb indicated that the plaintiffs stand a good chance of getting the law struck down on constitutional grounds.
Last October, Gov. Jerry Brown signed S.B. 1172, making California the first in the nation to prohibit licensed professionals in the state from providing SOCE for minors. Therapists who violate the ban will be subject to discipline by the professional organization responsible for their licensing. The bill does not prohibit therapists from providing SOCE to adults, nor does it affect unlicensed counsellors, pastors, and other ex-gay therapy providers such as religious-based ex-gay ministries.
NARTH co-founder Joseph Nicolosi recently admitted that about half of all NARTH clients are teens. NARTH and Liberty Counsel have also joined forces to fight the ban in a separate case in Federal Court.
Update: Judge Shubb’s ruling is available here (via Scribd).
