Tag Archives: conversion therapy

LGBTI kids are now protected from conversion therapy in Vermont – Gay Star News

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(For the record – the Catholic Church agrees that homosexuality is not a pathology, and does not recommend any form of conversion therapy.)

Governor Peter Shumlin: ‘It’s absurd to think that being gay or transgender is something to be cured of’

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin today signed a bill into law which protects LGBTI youth from the dangers of conversion therapy.

Vermont follows California, New Jersey, Oregon, Illinois, New York, Washington D.C., and Cincinnati in banning the controversial practice for minors.

‘It’s absurd to think that being gay or transgender is something to be cured of,’ Shumlin said in a statement.

‘Our country has come a long way in a short period of time in recognizing the civil rights of members of the LGBT community, and I am so proud that Vermont has taken a leadership role at every step of the way.’

The governor added: ‘At a time when the rights of LGBT individuals are under attack in other parts of the country, Vermont will continue to stand up to hatred and bigotry and show the rest of the country what tolerance, understanding, and common humanity look like.’

Source:  – Gay Star News

Living Out denies support for gay cure therapy: ‘Homosexuality is not an illness’ 

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Living Out denies support for gay cure therapy: ‘Homosexuality is not an illness’ Harry Farley JUNIOR STAFF WRITER 29 March 2016Email Print More Sharing Services Share A support group for same-sex attracted Christians has hit back at claims it supports gay cure.Sean Doherty, one of the leaders of Living Out, denied the accusations made by gay MP Mike Freer who labelled the charity “gay cure therapy rebranded”.TwitterSean Doherty, a leader of Living Out, topped the General Synod election poll in the London diocese. He also teaches at the theological college, St Mellitus.”Homosexuality is not an illness,” Doherty wrote on the group’s website. He said the language of a cure was damaging and could make vulnerable people “ashamed of who they are at a very deep and fundamental level”.

Source: Living Out denies support for gay cure therapy: ‘Homosexuality is not an illness’ | Christian News on Christian Today

Out Colorado Lawmakers Take on Conversion Therapy 

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Colorado is one step closer to outlawing the use of so-called conversion therapy on minors, after the state’s Democrat-controlled House of Representatives today approved House Bill 1210 by a vote of 35-29. The bill now heads to the Republican-controlled Senate, where it will be carried by out Sens. Pat Steadman, Lucia Guzmán, and Jessie Ulibarri.

The legislation, introduced by out Rep. Paul Rosenthal and cosponsored by fellow gay Reps. Joann Ginal, Dominick Moreno, and Daneya Esgar, would prohibit licensed physicians and mental health care providers from engaging in “efforts that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity,” according to the bill. It would not prohibit faith-based counselors from engaging in efforts to pray away the gay, carving out an exemption for “religious ministry,” provided the counselor “is not holding himself or herself out as a licensee at the time of the religious ministry.”

Source:  Advocate.com

Archbishop Admits Church’s Mistake in Supporting Reparative Therapy

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Malta’s top bishop acknowledged church leaders were mistaken when they released a controversial position paper designed to oppose a bill which seeks to make reparative therapy outlawed in the island nation.

Speaking to the Times of Malta, Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta said he “would not have simply released a position paper” about the reparative therapy bill knowing what he knows now.

The bill, entitled the Affirmation of Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Gender Expression Act, seeks a “ban

Source: Archbishop Admits Church’s Mistake in Supporting Reparative Therapy | Bondings 2.0

Gay ‘cure’ group faces consumer fraud complaint from rights coalition

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One of the leading ‘gay cure’ groups in the US is facing a federal fraud complaint from a gay rights coalition.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) have joined together to make the case against People Can Change.

According to HRC, the Virginia-based group People Can Change “preys on vulnerable LGBT people and families by using damaging and discredited claims that it can change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity”.

PCC says it provides services to people who are “seeking to overcome homosexual desires”, with desperate people and families forking over as much as $650 per ‘workshop’ in a bid to cure homosexuality.

Source: PinkNews

Campaign group launches action against ‘gay cures’

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Campaign group AllOut is urging the public to take action against a phoney ‘gay cure’ group

A petition calling for a ban on phony ‘gay cures’ will be delivered to governments across the world, beginning in France tomorrow and then the UK. So far, over 26, 000 people have pledged their support for the Time to end ‘gay cures’ campaign. The aim is to get 50, 000 names on the online petition.

The group is hoping for enough public pressure to cause a ‘domino effect’, whereby the ten countries that the campaign is focusing on will denounce the treatments and make them illegal. There are fears that the practice leads to self-harm and may even drive some to commit suicide.

AllOut, which promotes LGBT equality internationally, are concentrating in particular on the activity of extremist Christian group Desert Stream. The organisation is conducting a world tour with their ‘healing’ programme. According to AllOut, each ‘gay cure’ session costs up to $1,200.

Desert Stream is holding Living Waters training programmes, claiming to teach people how to ‘cure’ homosexuality. The programme is currently happening in France, and will then be offered in other countries including the UK, Finland and Lithuania. The petition will be delivered to all the countries where the sessions are currently planned to take place.

-full report at Pink Paper 

(Sign the AllOut petition here)

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Ex-Gay Groups Go Back to the Future

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Exodus leader Alan Chambers, who recently admitted that since “reparative” therapy cannot “cure” homosexuality his group will no longer promise “change,” has come under fire from other ex-gay proponents. One of those seeking Chambers’ scalp is Dr. Robert Gagnon, who has called for Chambers to resign as head of Exodus.

Apparently, what chaps Gagnon’s butt the most is Chambers’ assertion that gay Christians can go to heaven “if they have a relationship with Jesus Christ.” Gagnon is apparently so upset about Chambers’ position that it took 35 pages to cover all his objections, including this one:

Alan’s approach of providing assurances of salvation to those actively engaged in sexually immoral intercourse is a very different approach than Jesus’ and Paul’s warnings that immoral sexual behavior, among other offenses, can get one excluded from the kingdom of God and thrown into hell.

Gagnon’s verbose reaction belies the truth that “reparative” therapy is finally on its last legs, condemned by every reputable psychological organization and propped up only by discredited studies from the likes of de-certified Paul Cameron and the work of Robert Spitzer, who recently disavowed his own research.

Chambers is simply the latest “ex-gay” to realize he isn’t. Exodus’ founder Michael Bussee discovered that back in 1979, when he and Gary Cooper—another ex-gay pioneer—fell in love and got married.

“By calling ourselves ‘ex-gay’ we were lying to ourselves and others. We were hurting people,” Bussee recalls.

Now that “pray away the gay” is quickly headed for the historical dustbin, Gagnon and his “ex-gay” enthusiasts will need a new generation of leaders to keep the snake oil business going.

I have a suggestion. Instead of relying on new “science” why not get medieval on homosexuality and hire former Navy Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt? He recently claimed on The David Packer show that he can exorcise the gay right out of you.

via Candace Chellew – Hodge, Religion Dispatches.

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Sexual Healing: Evangelicals Update Their Message to Gays

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At the world’s largest ministry for homosexual Christians, there’s no more talk of “curing” same-sex attraction. 

Thirty years ago, Alan Chambers was a Christ-loving 10-year-old with a terrible secret. He knew he was attracted to other boys. He also knew that the Bible called homosexuality an “abomination.” After nearly a decade of hiding his feelings (and his love of shopping and decorating) from family and pastors, he discovered a ministry called Exodus International. Today, Chambers is the president of Exodus and the author of the book Leaving Homosexuality. He oversees more than 260 ministries, spearheads large annual conferences, and is married to a woman.

More recently, Chambers publicly rejected reparative therapy — a school of counseling that aims to make gay people straight. At the Gay Christian Network Conference in January of this year, Chambers told the audience that “99.9 percent of [Exodus participants] have not experienced a change in their orientation.” Around the same time, he pulled all reparative therapy books from the Exodus bookstore. His actions irked a number of therapists, including one marriage counselor, improbably named David Pickup, who argued that Exodus had “failed to understand and effectively deal with the actual root causes of homosexuality.”

The question is whether Chambers’s changes will filter down through the rest of his organization. One of Exodus’s policy statements promises that the group will “stand with the LGBT community both in spirit, and when necessary, legally and physically, when violence rears its head in Uganda, Jamaica, or anywhere else in the world.” It’s no coincidence that those particular countries are mentioned. Just last month, Exodus board member Dennis Jernigan traveled to Jamaica, where homosexuality is a crime, and urged the country not to change its laws. In 2009, another board member gave a speech in Uganda that inspired a Christian campaign to make homosexuality punishable by death.

” (On Friday, the day after we spoke, Exodus sent out a press release distancing itself from Jernigan’s statements and announcing his resignation from the board.)

-full report at Atlantic

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‘Gay therapy’ no longer reimbursed (Netherlands)

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Outgoing Health Minister Edith Schippers has decided that health insurers no longer have to pay for a controversial therapy intended to ‘cure’ gay people as provided by the Christian organisation ‘Different’.

In her letter to parliament, Minister Schippers argues that when Christians suffer psychologically because of homosexual feelings, this does not mean they have a psychiatric disorder. In the absence of a disorder, there is no justification for psychiatric treatment.

The minister writes that Different is entitled to provide pastoral counselling to patients who experience their homosexual feelings as a burden, but such counselling should not be covered by any health insurance.

Early this year, parliament was up in arms when it learned that Different was trying to ‘cure’ homosexuals and that health insurers were obligated to pay for the treatment.

Radio Netherlands Worldwide

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