Box Turtle Bulletin

Harvey Milk, Billie Jean King To Receive Presidential Medal of Freedom

The White House yesterday announced “sixteen agents of change” to recieve the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Among the sixteen are Harvey Milk and Billie Jean King. Focus On the Family, predictably, is having a complete meltdown over it.

Caught On Video: LDS Security Guards Hauling Off Kissing Couple

The Salt Lake City Tribune has posted video of security guards from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints confronting a gay couple after they kissed on the LDS plaza in Salt Lake City, Utah, on July 9, 2009. The video was made available through an open records request with Salt Lake City. Missing from the video clip is the couple’s kiss that started it all.

City prosecutors have dropped tresspassing charges against Derek Jones and Matt Aune because the church failed to properly mark the open plaza as private property.

Ft. Worth Task Force Recommends Protections for Transgender People

From The Dallas Voice:

The Fort Worth Human Relations Commission this week voted unanimously in favor of a resolution calling for the city to amend its anti-discrimination policy to include protections for transgenders. The resolution now goes to the new City Manager\’s Diversity Task Force, and then on to the City Council for final approval.

The City Manager’s Diversity Task force was established by the city in the wake of last month’s raid of the Rainbow Lounge by Ft. Worth police and agents from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. But according to Human Rights Commission member Lisa Thomas, this particular police recommendation from the Commission was was the result of more than a year’s worth of work. Several transgender residents spoke before the commission last March to talk about the discrimination they face at work and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, that newly formed Diversity Task Force, which met for the first time on July 23, discussed providing partner benefits to city employees. They are also taking up issues surrounding diversity training and LGBT economic development (i.e. resources for businesses and tourism).

Young Republican Tells Party “You Have to Change”

For your Friday reading pleasure, let me recommend this op-ed in the Minneapolis – St. Paul Star Tribune by Madeline Koch, a young Republican with some advice for the Party:

Even though I am a proud Republican, I am just as likely to be found backing up my political affiliation with how I think our party must adapt if there is any hope for survival.

Not surprisingly, we young voters will play a large role in the future of the Republican Party, but first our governing officials must listen to us.

And Madeline is very clear on where the party can start if it wants to reach younger Americans.

First: We want gay marriage. Though we may not all be willing to march in the Pride parades or even send fiery letters to our congressmen about it, most of us believe that gay couples deserve the right to be legally wed. I can guarantee you this: The issue of gay marriage is not going to go away, and unless you start shifting within the Republican Party, you will not gain our support.

I agree with Madeline. If the Party wants to survive it needs to change. Perhaps with more voices of young Republicans – or those in more liberal states – this message will start to take hold.

British Quakers Request Religious Freedom to Support Marriage Equality

The National Organization for Marriage is right. Gay marriage IS a religious freedom issue. They’ve just identified the wrong party as victim.

Currently in the US, and much of the Western World, there are churches that devoutly believe that their faith calls for same-sex couples to enter into marriage, protected by family, conducted by church, and supported by state. Other churches do not think that chruch or state should recognize same-sex marriages.

Governments have taken sides.

They have declared that because some churches don’t wish to sanctify marriages, that therefore the state will not recognize the marriages conducted by other churches. Even the most casual glance will reveal that behind every argument against marriage equality is one theme, an argument that is never absent and which never takes a back seat to any secular claims: “I demand that the state endorse and enforce my anti-gay religious beliefs about marriage.”

Any rational person will see this for what it is: state sponsored religious preference of one church over another. In the restriction of marriage equality, it is not only same-sex couples who have lost their rights; churches have as well. But, for a number of reasons, this is seldom a part of the argument.

Now the Quakers (the Society of Friends) in Britain are highlighting this injustice. (BBC)

One of the UK’s oldest Christian denominations – the Quakers – looks set to extend marriage services to same-sex couples at their yearly meeting later.

The society has already held religious blessings for same-sex couples who have had a civil partnership ceremony.

But agreeing to perform gay marriages, which are currently not allowed under civil law, could bring the Quakers into conflict with the government.

In the UK, same-sex civil partnerships are called “marriages” in the press and in conversation, but there is one very peculiar restriction that sets these unions apart from truly being marriages: churches are barred from conducting marriage civil partnerships or allowing them on their premises. Civil Unions must be held in a civic space like a hall and there can be no religious component.

This is not acceptable to Quakers.

The Quakers – also known as The Religious Society of Friends – are likely to reach consensus on the issue of gay marriage without a vote at their annual gathering in York on Friday.

They will also formally ask the government to change the law to allow gay people to marry.

Often those who oppose equality speak in aggreived tones of a need to protect religious freedom. It will be interesting to see how anti-gay activists respond to this plea by devout Christians for a right to practice their faith.

Portugal Supremes Say No to Marriage

The A/P is reporting:

Teresa Pires and Helena Paixao, divorced mothers in their 30s who have been together as a couple since 2003, were turned away by a Lisbon registry office when they attempted to marry in 2006 because the law stipulates that marriage is between people of different genders.

Portugal’s constitution, however, also forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation. The women took the case to a Lisbon court, which rejected their unprecedented challenge.

After considering their appeal against that decision, the Constitutional Court said in a statement posted on its Web site that the constitution does not state that same-sex marriages must be permitted.

By a 3 to 2 vote, they denied the constitutional right to marriage. However they did not mandate that marriage could not be granted by the legislature. And that is a distinct possibility in the near future.

However, the center-left Socialist Party has included a proposal to permit same-sex marriages in its manifesto for September’s general election. Its chief rival, the center-right Social Democratic Party, opposes the measure. Opinion polls show the two parties are neck-and-neck in voting intentions.

You’d better hurry Portugal or you may be behind Albania.

Maine’s Battle For Marriage Is On

The Associated Press reports:

Opponents of Maine’s new gay marriage law have submitted petitions seeking a November referendum on the measure. Leaders of the Stand for Marriage campaign said Friday they collected more than 100,000 signatures of registered Maine voters. Cartons containing the petitions have been turned into the secretary of state’s office to be certified.

To qualify for a November referendum, 55,087 signatures need to be certified by Sept. 4. Meanwhile, a July 17 email from Betsy Smith, senior director of Equality Maine, indicates that $241,000 have already poured into the coffers of marriage opponents, including $160,000 from the National Organization for Marriage, $50,000 from the Knights of Columbus, and $31,000 from Focus On the Family. Now it’s time for us to do our part.

Four Lesbians Arrested For Assault on Anti-Gay Activists

There are idiots on both sides:

The salsa and eggs stopped flying, but the police continued to investigate. Now four young women face charges of assault and disorderly conduct. They’re accused of hurling food and drinks and spraying pepper spray at a group of men who stood in the median on Bald Hill Road and East Avenue Tuesday afternoon carrying signs supporting traditional marriage, Capt. Robert Nelson said Thursday morning. The men all gave the police an address in Spring Grove, Penn. — 1358 Jefferson Rd. — that’s the location for the Foundation for a Christian Civilization Inc., a group that’s in the midst of a caravan along the East Coast. The group states on its Web site that they make themselves “visible to motorists by engaging them to support traditional marriage.”

…Thursday evening, the police arrested four women: Melissa Migliaccio, 22, Amanda L. Zangrilli, 23, Kristen A. Scungio, 19, and a 17-year-old female from Pontiac Street in Warwick, whom the police have not named because she is a juvenile. All are charged with at least one charge of battery or simple assault, and with disorderly conduct. The 17-year-old faces a more serious charge as well — felony assault with a dangerous weapon or substance, according to the police.

The Providence Journal updated that story early this morning:

Amanda L. Zangrilli, 23, of West Warwick, said she and her girlfriend had seen the men in the same spot for a few days, and had “every intention” of bringing opposing signs of their own. Then, Tuesday afternoon, Zangrilli said, she and her girlfriend, Kristen A. Scungio, 19, also of West Warwick, saw the men again. She says they were pointing at the women, in a way that told her they realized the two were gay. Her girlfriend threw the soda bottle out the window –– missing the man she threw it toward, just as she had intended. “We heard him yell, ‘Ha ha, you missed,\’ ” Zangrilli said.

The two drove to a friend\’s house, gathered whatever they could get their hands on and returned with the friend. Zangrilli and Scungio said the men yelled at them when they returned, calling them the Antichrist, homosexuals and sinners. The men shouted anti-gay slurs at them, the women said, and one pushed his camera into Scungio\’s face; she “pushed it away on instinct.” “And then the flagpole guy raised his pole to me, and I turned around and punched him because I wasn\’t sure what he was going to do,” Scungio said. “I was wicked scared. It turned into, like, a riot.” Another woman driving by, an acquaintance of the women, jumped into the fray.

Members of the Catholic group deny using anti-gay epithets. But whether they did or not, these women acted like idiots. Getting into a physical brawl over words and signs is never justified, not under any circumstances. Committing assault is wrong no matter how anyone tries to justify it, and beyond that it is immensely stupid.

This incident will now become a huge part of the anti-gay arsenal: see how violent they all are? For months, anti-gay activists have characterized the Prop-8 protests as “violent” even though no one has been able to demonstrate that a single violent act was perpetrated by LGBT protesters or their allies. But now they have this, handed to them on a silver platter.

Morons.

By the way, Rhode Island appears to have a very robust hate crime law that protects on the basis of religion as well as sexual orientation. This might quality. After all, these people were assaulted for legally expressing their religious belief.

And Number Eight May Be… Albania?

Back in May when Sweden became the seventh nation to recognize same-sex marriages, had we conducted a pool as to what nation would be next, very few of you would have bet on Albania. In fact, I imagine that very few of you could have found Albania on a map.

Albania is a Balkan nation tucked between Greece and Montenegro. It has a relatively conservative culture and homosexuality is not well tolerated by the people. In fact, none of its direct neighbors offer any recognition of same-sex relationships.

But Albania wants to join the European Union. And they know that passing marriage equality would present a modern progressive image to the rest of the continent. So Prime Minister Sali Berisha took a surprising step by announcing that the country would move in that direction. (BBC)

Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha has announced his party will propose a law legalising same-sex marriage.

It is an unexpected move in a country that is still one of the most conservative in the Europe and where homosexuality was illegal until 1995.

Mr Berisha acknowledged the proposed law might provoke debate but maintained that discrimination in modern Albania had to end.

This bill, which will be voted on in the fall, has the expected opposition of Catholic and Muslim leaders. But while Albania is primarily Muslim, this is not a strongly religious nation. While most residents still associate themselves with Christianity or Islam, over 70% of residents do not attend services and consider themselves to be non-religious. Practicing religion was banned during the 1944-1990 Communist regime.

I know too little of Albanian politics to make any predictions at this time. Although Berisha and his right-wing Democrat Party hold 74 of 140 seats and the bill is reportedly popular among the legislators, I am not sure whether they vote in a block or whether there may be defectors. Additionally, I’ve not heard whether the opposition Socialist Party is putting up a strong objection to the bill.

But should Albania become the eighth nation to enact marriage equality, this may well serve to shame some more progressive nations that pride themselves on their culture and civility.

Washington Anti-Gay Petition – 137,689 Signatures

The Washington Secretary of State has announced the total number of signatures turned in by the anti-gay coalition seeking to block the domestic partnership enhancements enacted by the legislature. With 137,689 signatures submitted, anti-gays only have a 14.2% cushion for error over the 120,577 valid signatures needed. The average historical error rate in Washington State is about 18%. **

WhoSigned.org, along with a couple of other petitioners, has requested that the state provide them with a listing of the names so that they can make it public. Supporters of Referendum 71 claim that signatories should be exempt from laws that require public disclosure of signatories and are suing to keep the names on the list private.

“We have a one-size-fits-all shoe that is going to result in the inappropriate disclosure of petition signers, who will then be exposed to boycotts, threats, harassment and so forth,” Pidgeon said.

Attorney Stephen Pidgeon seems to be unaware of the meaning and purpose for petitions. He seems to think that “stand up and be counted” should not allow for any public consequences for such an action.

A judge has put a temporary restraining order on the state until a hearing is held on Wednesday. Considering that other states have found the listing of anti-gay petitioners to be legal and that the State will be siding with those who wish full disclosure, I think it unlikely that anti-gay advocates will be able to convince the court that they should have special rights.

Meanwhile, the state will move forward with reviewing signatures one by one to determine their validity. They will likely fall about 7,500 short.

Ultimately, Gary Randall and the other organizers have not well served those they claim to represent. The most likely scenario is that there are inadequate signatures for a referendum but those who did sign will be exposed to public scrutiny.

The end result is that some friendships will be ended, some customers lost, some families shattered, and some respect will be lost. Further, the campaign may well be embarassed by a large number of signatories who publicly denounce the campaign and explain that they were fooled and defrauded.

And all for nothing.

** Reader Dan notes below that the proper numbers to compare are not the cushion of 14.2% and the historical error rate of 18%. Rather, we should note the error rate which this petition could have which would allow it to still have sufficient valid signatures. And that is 12.4% of the total signatures submitted.

Comparing this maximum error rate of 12.4% to the historical rate of 18% further solidifies my expectation that this petition will fail to qualify for the ballot.

NARTH Cites Aversion Therapy As Evidence That “Change Is Possible”

The American Psychological Association will hold its annual convention in Toronto next week, where the Task Force on Appropriate Responses to Sexual Orientation is due to issue its review of the current scientific research on therapies to change sexual orientation. That report is expected to lay the groundwork for a possible update to the APA’s 1997 policy statement on therapeutic responses to homosexuality. A group of anti-gay therapists known as the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) are concerned that the Task Force isn’t sufficiently stacked with anti-gay activists, so NARTH sought to preempt the APA report by releasing a “journal” last June called the Journal of Human Sexuality.

As we said earlier, NARTH’s new journal contains just one 121-page article by James Phelan, Neal Whitehead, and Philip Sutton, titled “What Research Shows: NARTH’s Response to the APA Claims on Homosexuality.” NARTH brags that this article “examines over 100 years of professional and scientific literature as well as over 600 reports from clinicians, researchers, and former clients principally published in professional and peer-reviewed journals.” They described this effort as a new peer-reviewed study even though, as we already observed, it’s not new, not peer-reviewed, and not a study. It’s also unclear whether this “journal” is actually a journal. Instead, the article is a review of past studies, and a highly selective one at that. But even with their selective approach, they nevertheless included more than 700 source citations in their voluminous bibliography going back to the late 1800’s. That mountain of citations is intended to impress the reader with what NARTH considers to be overwhelming evidence that change in sexual orientation is not only possible, but also that it causes no harm in those who try it — a position that the APA appears unlikely to endorse entirely.

To try to make their case, Phelan, Whitehead and Sutton include just about everything but the kitchen sink regardless of its scientific merit. As expected, they dedicate several pages to the Jones and Yarhouse’s 2007 book, Ex-Gays? A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation, and they dedicate several more pages to Robert Spitzer’s 2003 study (Ex-Gay Watch examined that study here). But more curiously, PW&S dedicated some 14 pages to reports from various books and journals from 1882 through the 1970’s — a period when homosexuality was illegal and gays were regularly arrested and jailed, when they were prohibited from federal employment, and when they were even committed to psychiatric hospitals because the professional community regarded homosexuality as a serious mental illness. The literature from that period reflects those views, and this is the literature that NARTH believes is relevant to today’s discussion on attempts to change sexual orientation.

Phelan, Whitehead and Sutton’s historical review covers such broad therapeutic approaches as psychoanalysis, group therapy, hypnosis, sex therapies, pharmacological interventions, religiously-based methods, “spontaneous reorientation”, and cognitive and behavior therapies. That last category — behavior therapies — is especially troubling. PW&S blithely gloss over what that often entailed, but a sharp eye can spot it pretty easily. Hidden in those three pages lies western psychiatry’s darkest stain: aversion therapy.

Dr. Max’s Machine
Phelan, Whitehead and Sutton’s discussion of aversion therapy begins with this innocuous statement:

Behavioral-based therapists successfully treated not only unwanted homosexuality, but also a variety of sexual dysfunctions and paraphilias, including voyeurism, exhibitionism, and transvestic and other fetishism (Rachman, 1961). Aversion therapies aimed at changing the sexual behaviors of homosexuals were used as early as the 1930s (Max, 1935).

Dr. Louis Max's diagram of his electric shock aversion therapy device, as it appeared in March 1935 edition of The Psychological Bulletin.

1935 is when it all began. Dr. Louis W. Max of New York University published a paper in the March 1935 edition of The Psychological Bulletin describing an apparatus which would become an important part of efforts to change sexual orientation throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and even through 1980s. That notorious apparatus was designed to administer a powerful electric shock to the client whenever the client was experiencing what was considered an inappropriate erotic stimulus (i.e. viewing a picture of someone of the same gender whom the subject found sexually attractive). In later experiments, that shock could be anywhere from 80 to 100 volts for a short period of time (although in some experiments it could be as long as five seconds). Max cautioned in his original paper that the jolt of electricity could be very powerful. “Where possible,” he wrote, “electrodes should be firmly fastened to the subject, especially when intense shocks are contemplated, as the subject’s ‘startle’ responses may dislodge an electrode.” Later work by others determined the optimal shape for the electrode to deliver the maximum level of shock to the patient while minimizing burns to the skin.

Later that fall,  Dr. Max gave a talk at a meeting of the American Psychological Association in which he described the “cure” of a homosexual man — even though he also admitted the man was “backsliding.” The November edition of The Psychological Bulletinbriefly describes Dr. Max’s talk, which Phelan, Whitehead and Sutton cited as one of many success stories:

A homosexual neurosis in a young man was found upon analysis to be partially fetishistic, the homosexual behavior usually following upon the fetishistic stimulus. An attempt was made to disconnect the emotional aura from this stimulus by means of electric shock, applied in conjunction with the presentation of the stimulus under laboratory conditions. Low shock intensities had little effect but intensities considerably higher than those usually employed on human subjects in other studies, definitely diminished the emotional value of the stimulus for days after each experimental period. Though the subject reported some backsliding, the “desensitizing” effect over a three month period was cumulative.

Despite that mixed result, a new therapeutic approach was born. Today we are justifiably horrified to imagine the suffering that thousands of gay men and women endured to try to rid themselves of their same-sex attractions (sometimes under court order or while confined to a psychiatric hospital), Phelan, Whitehead and Sutton thinks nothing of trumpeting the “successes” of this barbaric form of therapy in staking out their position.

But PW&S do appear to understand that these reports are disturbing. Curiously absent from their article is any mention of what these forms of therapy entailed — at least not in any language that laymen are likely to understand. (And make no mistake, it’s lay persons who are the target audience for this report, not professionals.) There is one lone mention that “aversion therapies are no longer used for sexual reorientation because of ethical considerations,” but those thirteen words are obscured by the nearly 44,000 words that make up the rest of the article.

No, you have to delve deeply into the professional literature itself, directly, before you can get a sense of the horrors that these clients must have gone through — horrors that PW&S chose to ignore and few others have the resources to discover. My favorite part of a report like this is the bibliography. I guess you could say that looking up references at our local university library is something of a passtime for me. Call me a nerd if you will, but it’s a worthwhile endeavor because it reveals the vast gulf between how PW&S describe these articles and what the articles themselves reveal.

“Success” and Failure
For example, here’s how Phelan, Whitehead and Sutton describe one such report:

Mather (1966) reported that of 36 homosexuals treated with behavioral and aversion techniques, 25 were considered much improved on the Kinsey scale.

Pretty simple. A brief description and a result. Twenty-two words in one sentence is all the space that PW&S give to this study from the October 1966 edition of Medicine, Science and the Law.(Remember, homosexuality was still against the law in most states.)  Already we have one problem: Dr. Northage Mather described the 25 as simply improved, not “much improved” — and there wasn’t much of a definition for what constituted improvement.

But besides that bit of obfuscation, that lone sentence hid a lot. Dr. Northage Mather’s “scientific” paper was replete with the distinctly unscientific stereotypes of the day. Mather justified his need to cure clients of their homosexuality by calling it “responsible for many antisocial acts such as larceny, blackmail, robbery with violence and murder” — hence the legal justification. Of the 36 subjects, 14 were directly or indirectly referred by a court, and six more were patients at a psychiatric hospital. Only sixteen appeared to be there of their own accord. Eight more beyond the 36 dropped out. One of the dropouts was “so frightened of the treatment that he only attended twice.” Another insisted that he receive electric shock therapy under an anesthetic, which of course would have negated the effects of the treatment.

Photo and diagram of a simple electric shock apparatus connected to a cuff. (British Medical Journal, Jan 18, 1964)

Phelan, Whitehead and Sutton also cited several studies by the renowned team of Malcolm MacCulloch and M.P. Feldman. They were some of the pre-eminent experts in the field of aversion therapy in the 1960’s.  In one citation, PW&S claimed that MacCulloch and Feldman “successfully treated 43 homosexual men.” Five paragraphs later, PW&S cited a 1971 book by Feldman and MacCulloch, Homosexual Behavior: Therapy and Assessment. This time, they wrote that the authors “worked with 36 patients,” and described it as though it were a separate study. One wonders if Phelan, Whitehead or Sutton read either work. If they had (as I did), they would have noticed right away that the two references were reporting on exactly the same study. The 1967 paper was titled “Aversion therapy in management of 43 homosexuals,” but MacColloch and Feldman explained:

Thirty-six patients had the full course of treatment, and seven failed to complete it. Six of the seven terminated treatment after one or two sessions, and one terminated it after six sessions.

That sentence is repeated virtually verbatim in Homosexual Behavior on page 31.

One can only imagine the reaction of those who terminated electric shock treatment “after one or two sessions.” MacCollough and Feldman are characteristically mum about the distress they must have endured. But we do know is that MacCullough and Feldman had some rather odd definitions for success. In the Appendix of Homosexual Behavior, they defended Series Case 2 as “improved,” even though on follow-up he was found to have a regular boyfriend and had no further desire to change. The authors chalked it up to “a weak-willed personality disorder.” It’s unclear whether Series Case 41 was ultimately classified as a success, but the authors were very optimistic about him. He was kicked out of the hospital after he was caught engaging in “some horseplay” with a female patient. They didn’t classify him as a failure and they didn’t include him among those who failed to complete the treatment, even though they immediately lost track of him following his discharge and had no idea where he was. So much for clarity and follow-up. MacCullough and Feldman were considered giants in the field, but this is what passed for science in those days, a standard which is apparently very impressive to PW&S.

MacCullough and Feldman weren’t the only ones with odd definitions of success. PW&S cited a 1969 paper by B.H. Fookes in the British Journal of Psychiatry which defined success this way:

In the homosexuals I also required the unrefuted, and where possible, supported claim to have enjoyed heterosexual coitus on more than one occasion.

I can just imagine an Exodus or NARTH-affiliated therapist demanding that kind of evidence today.

Several PW&S sources revealed the dark side the aversion therapy if you were actually able to get your hands on the material and read it. But good luck trying to discover what that dark side might be in the PW&S article alone. For example, PW&S cited a 1964 paper by Dr. J.G. Thorpe and colleagues, but didn’t give it much discussion. But the paper itself revealed that all the subjects in that study were patients at the Banstead Hospital in Sutton, U.K., and their particular form of aversion therapy involved delivering electric shock through the soles of their feet. Not all of the patients were treated for homosexuality. One, for example, was an Irish girl of 21 — In Britain in those days, it was customary to single out the Irish for special mention in cases like this — who was being treated for compulsive over-eating. Her treatment didn’t go very well:

Depression recurred following the eighth treatment session and was accompanied by violent gastric pains. She claimed she could not face any more treatment, preferring drugs. At this point her diagnosis was changed by the psychiatrist in charge from one of “recurrent depression” to one of “hysteria”. Treatment was discontinued.

Another paper by Dr. Thorpe from 1963 gave a much more vivid example of “therapeutic failure in a case of aversion therapy.” Funny how Phelan, Whitehead and Sutton chose not to mention this one, which, again, involved delivering electric shock through the soles of the subject’s feet through specially-designed shoes:

Three conditioning sessions of 15 min each were given over a period of two days, the picture being changed before each new session. For a period of about 30 min following these sessions the patient was extremely disturbed, and wept bitterly, and he doubted whether he could continue with the treatment. He presented himself for the fourth session, entered the treatment room, put on the shoes, but after a few seconds took them off, burst into tears, came out of the room, put on his own shoes (i.e. there was no generalization), and continued to weep bitterly.

That patient discontinued his therapy at that point.

It Gets Worse
As bad as electric shock aversion therapy was, it was mild when compared to another more extreme form of aversion therapy that was also being developed in the same period. This involved the use of emetics like apomorphine, powerful drugs which produces instantaneous and extreme nausea. Emetics were sometimes combined with other drugs to induce diarrhea. The subject was given the drugs and then shown pictures representing a “homosexual stimulus.” The idea behind this was that the patient would associate the “homosexual stimulus” with a gut-retching nausea.

Phelan, Whitehead and Sutton cited a 1969 study by Nathaniel McConaghyin Sydney, Australia, which employed apomorphine therapy. That brutal treatment program was compounded in a later 1972 study by McConaghy and colleagues when they combined apomorphine with electric shock. And if that wasn’t barbaric enough, they added another humiliation: their patients’ penises were connected to plethysmography devices to measure their erections to determine whether the treatment was successful or not. In another 1973 paper published in the British Journal of Psychiatry— which Phelan, Whitehead and Sutton also publicized as a success story — McConaghy summarized how this all worked:

With aversion-relief the patient read aloud a series of phrases descriptive of homosexual activity and immediately received a painful electric shock. Each patient experienced over 1,000 pairings of phrases and shocks during the course of treatment. With apomorphine therapy the patient was shown slides of males he found attractive on 28 occasions, each occasion being associated with nausea produced by apomorphine injections. With avoidance conditioning the patient was presented 420 times with similar slides of males, with the possibility of rejecting the slide and so avoiding a painful electric shock on two-thirds of the presentations; on the remaining occasions the patient could not avoid the shock.

Let’s just pause here and think about what those patients endured: more than 1,000 shocks, 28 sessions with apomorphine, and a guessing game of whether the he would be shocked 420 more times.

McConaghy’s work with aversion therapy was so notorious that his 1970 talk before the American Psychiatric Association was interrupted by outraged gay activists in what was described by Time magazine as a near-riot. Gay activists weren’t the only ones scandalized by this barbaric approach. When McConaghy’s 1972 study appeared in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, it drew a blistering response from sexologist John Money — who himself was no stranger to controversy; his theories on gender identity had very tragic results. In an accompanying article in that same issue, Money wrote:

McConaghy, Proctor, and Barr could have designed an experiment in which they took ordinary men or women and punished them every time they responded erotically to a heterosexual erotic stimulus but not to a homosexual stimulus. There is no special reason to believe that these men and women would have become homosexual. It is rather more likely that they would have become sexually inhibited, anxious, or sexually apathetic.

Money closed his argument with the observation that “[t]herapeutic zeal in the absence of effective therapeutic technique produces charlatanism.” Nearly forty years later, it’s hard to find a more appropriate description for NARTH today.

Interestingly, McConaghy finally admitted in 1977 that “[a]s a therapist who uses behaviour therapy for homosexuality, I do not believe it is possible to alter a homosexual orientation.” He nevertheless defended aversion therapy in a 1981 paper in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy, in which he treated twenty subjects “to reduce compulsive homosexual urges.” Phelan, Whitehead and Sutton included that study in their paper as well, while omitting McConaghy’s repeated denial of the possibility of altering sexual orientation. PW&S claimed that McConaghy and colleagues did this simply “to evaluate behavior therapy for homosexuals in response to ethical objections of such treatment” — but they omitted naming McConaghy’s continued practice of aversion therapy which drew those very same ethical objections. As I said, Phelan, Whitehead and Sutton were highly selective in what they presented, and you would have to go to the original source documentation to find out what the authors really said.

Lasting Consequences
Those therapies proved to have lasting negative consequences for many who endured them, although researchers and clinicians at the time were loathe to admit it. Phelan, Whitehead and Sutton at one point reassured their readers that one aversion therapy researcher reported that “no harmful effects of aversion treatments were discernible.” But if there were no harmful effects, why is aversion therapy today considered unethical? A 2004 article in the British Medical Journalprovides several answers. They interviewed 29 people who had undergone therapies to change their sexual orientation, along with two relatives of those who underwent therapy. The brother of one participant died in the hospital due to side effects of apomorphine. As for the others:

With the decriminalisation of certain homosexual acts in 1967 and more tolerant social attitudes, most participants were able to explore their sexuality and several found fulfilling, same sex relationships. However, most never spoke to their partners, friends, or families about their treatment. One man was content to remain celibate when treatment failed to change his orientation, asserting that the main enjoyment in his life had been his hobbies. Three other men also avoided sex altogether but unhappily claimed it was the result of treatment. Other participants married in the hope this would complete their cure. Some marriages lasted many years and resulted in children. All except one—which was essentially a sexless marriage—ended in divorce on the grounds of sexual incompatibility.

This BMJ article is not a survey, but a descriptive oral history. It’s hard to draw statistical conclusions about the efficacy of aversion therapy. But it’s worthy to note that all of those marriages would have been counted as successes in the articles of the day. But besides that, the harms are clear.

History is replete with examples of professionals abusing the trust of patients (and sometimes prisoners) in order to carry out appalling experiments. Aversion therapy is one such example. It’s hard to imagine anyone pointing to that sort of legacy as justification for their own misguided policy aims. But that is exactly what NARTH has done. This example is probably the worst aspect of Phelan, Whitehead and Sutton’s work, but that’s not where the problems end. We’ve only examined four pages of their 121-page work. There’s so much more to delve into. And so we will.

To be continued…

Mass Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Is Pro-Gay

A fiscal conservative and pro-gay in Massachusetts. Could this be the future of the Republican Party?

Republican Charles D. Baker officially entered the governor\’s race this morning, filing his paperwork and then swiftly launching into an attack of Governor Deval Patrick\’s handling of the state\’s budget and economy.

Baker immediately pledged not to raise taxes as governor, and even said he would try to lower the state\’s increased sales tax – which will go from 5 percent to 6.25 percent on Saturday – if he is elected.

…He said he was prochoice and was in favor of gay marriage – “My brother\’s gay, and he\’s married, and he lives in Massachusetts, so I\’m for it. Is that straight enough?”

Charges Dropped Against Salt Lake City Kissers

Prosecutors will not pursue charges against Derek Jones and Matt Aune, the gay couple cited for trespassing in a public plaza after being confronted by Mormon Church security guards for giving a kiss on the cheek.

Apparently, the Mormon Church decided that it was not the Christian thing to do to try and use the legal system to punish this couple for a chaste kiss. Oh, wait. That isn’t why. The Mormon Church was all for civil punishment.

It turns out that the prosecutor found that the church had not adequately noted the terms under which people could cross the plaza nor adequately let the public know that this plaza was not really public property. That can happen when you blur the line between church and state. (Salt Lake Tribune)

In addition, Gill said, “there is a reasonable basis to believe the alleged trespassers did not think the LDS staff who confronted them could legally eject them from the property. Under this scenario, the alleged violators wanted law enforcement to be called because they believed they had a right to be there.

“There were no signs clearly indicating the ‘at will’ capacity to eject — for any reason — persons who entered this private property. Under this statute when the property is ‘open to the public’ Utah law provides that even if there is a violation of the statute, there is still the affirmative defense for the defendant that such conduct did not ‘substantially interfere’ with the owner’s use of the property.”

Wouldn’t it all have been better if the Church had simply told Jones and Aune, “We’re sorry we slammed you to the ground, put you in handcuffs, and had you arrested for a kiss on the cheek. Please try to remember that this is our private property and to respect our rules and we will try to remember that you are our neighbors made in God’s image and we must treat you with decency and respect”?

Exposing the Children, Oh My!!

Matt Barber is not exactly an intellectual giant. While some anti-gays present logical, thoughtful, and principled defenses of their ideological beliefs, Matt is a bit more inclined to lean to the hyperbolic and histronic.

Sometimes he’s so illogical and ridiculous that you just have to laugh. His latest, a rant against Home Depot, is one such situation.

Barber is upset that Home Depot sponsors a children’s craft area at Nashville Gay Pride and at pride events in other cities. Here’s a snippet from OneNewsNow:

Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel tells OneNewsNow the home improvement store is facilitating the exposure of children to sinful behavior.

“Out of some kind of notion of political correctness and being tolerant, Home Depot is contributing to all of this,” he notes. “They’re contributing to the corruption of children, and they need to answer for that.”

Many parents are already outraged and are taking action, according to Barber. “I would tell parents to go tell Home Depot that they don’t appreciate it and that if they continue it, they’re going to take their business elsewhere,” he adds.

But wait. Exactly what children are being “exposed to sinful behavior?” What children are being corrupted? Is it the children of outraged parents?

No.

There aren’t any children wandering in off the street at Nashville Pride. Unlike, say, Vacation Bible School, events of this sort generally don’t let unaccompanied children wander in.

The only children being “exposed” are those attending with their parents. It is either children of gay parents or of those who support our rights.

As for the parents of children “exposed” at Nashville Pride being “outraged”, they no more exist than the bumper-sticker woman in Pennsylvania.

(hat tip Jeremy Hooper)

Anti-Gay Attacks Rock World OutGames in Copenhagen

According to the Copenhagen Post, a man was arrested for throwing two bombs at track and field event”

Copenhagen police have charged a 31-year-old man with committing a hate crime after he threw powerful explosives at participants in the city\’s World Outgames event, public broadcaster DR has indicated in a report.

A 31-year-old city man was arrested yesterday at St. Jakobs Church in Østerbro, where he allegedly threw the explosives at the games\’ track and field participants at Østerbro Stadium. He managed to throw two bombs before police arrived on the scene and took him into custody.

One injury was reported. Dean Koga, 58, of the Seattle Frontrunners, was treated for shrapnel in his right hand. He returned to compete againt the following day. OutSports has more coverage:

The 55-59 age group was in the starting area in the men’s 4×200-meter relay about 2 p.m. when a loud explosion was heard. Rob Lyons, a member of the New York Frontrunners, was taking photos and standing just feet from the blast, and said that the race starter looked at his gun, thinking it had misfired. “My ears were totally ringing,” Lyons said.

After a brief delay and with everyone assuming the first blast was some one-off prank, the race was set to resume. That’s when a second bomb was tossed.

“It lit up the whole area” near the relay start, said Stephen Stuehling, a member of the Seattle Frontrunners, who was on the other side of the track warming up for his relay when the second bomb hit.

“The [bomb] container hit the ground and everyone yelled to run,” said Koga, who was in his running lane and then headed for the infield area. “That’s when I felt the impact” from the shrapnel that ricocheted off the ground and into the top part of his right hand.

OutSports reports that after police arrived, the attacker threw a third bomb that rolled under the van of a film crew. That’s when police were able to chase down and arrest the suspect.

This bomb-throwing attack follows an earlier hate crime incident during last Friday night’s opening ceremonies. Two men, aged 28 and 33, were arrested after attacking three visitors from England, Sweden and Norway. The three victims were treated at a hospital for their injuries and released.