The Christian Right wants to "repair" us all

The fourth and final part of Salon's series on conversion therapy/reparative therapy is now available: True confessions Salon 07/21/05. The first three parts have Mark Benjamin's byline, but this one has none.

There is something deeply disturbing about these quack therapists:

Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, president of the National Association for Research and Treatment of Homosexuality, says that gays who are unhappy with efforts to change their sexual orientation are no different from patients who are disgruntled by some other medical treatment. "That can happen in any treatment," Nicolosi says. "You name any kind of procedure or treatment, and you are going to find people that are really dissatisfied with it."

He dismisses any alleged harm caused by his methods. "They say we are doing harm," Nicolosi says. "There is not one case against me. There is not one legal or ethical case against me. Where are all these people who have been harmed? There should be a small busload."

I tell Nicolosi I have spoken to a half-dozen people who have been through reparative therapy. All are still gay. All feel hurt by the therapy. None are gay rights' advocates. Nicolosi's group claims that 25 to 50 percent of those seeking treatment get "significant improvement." So I ask him if he can introduce me to any men or women who have been converted from gay to straight who are not on the payroll of an ex-gay ministry. He responds that his patients will not talk to me because they don't get a fair shake in the press. They are done with homosexuality and have moved on with their lives. They don't want to talk about it now. (my emphasis)

One of the peculiar things about this to me is that this particular scam is sponsored by fundamentalist Christians. Yet fundamentalists have traditionally been hostile to the whole notion of psychotherapy, with the justification that Jesus can solve all your problems. There are more material reasons, too, like the fact that many fundamentalists insist on a distinctly subordinate role for women, in families and in society. Any honest and professional psychotherapy could raise all kind of challenges to that. And to hyper-restrictive sexual norms. And would not lie to people about birth control or sexually-transmitted diseases.

The callousness and lack of ethics that this series of articles describes is grim enough in itself. But, especially knowing something about the ugly history of the "recovered memories" therapy fiascos, I have a strong hunch that this "reparative therapy" business is the tip of a bigger iceberg.

When you cut through all the fakey Christian rhetoric - which doesn't seem to be too hard to do, as the quote above suggests - this whole "reparative therapy" production is just another attempt to stigmatize gay sexuality.

Once again, though, gay sexuality isn't their only target. Any kind of "deviant" sexual behavior is equally sinful to the zealots of the Christian Right. I recall once as a teenager hearing a fundamentalist minister at a summer youth camp seriously advise his congregation that kissing before marriage - yes, I said kissing before marriage - was sinful. God must have known what he was doing in creating teenage hormones, though. I doubt that advice persuaded anyone there.

Living together "in sin"? Having sexual activity that not for the purpose of reproduction? You're on their list for reparative therapy or some variety of it, too. For the Christian Right, even the notion that sex should be pleasurable is a controversial idea.

All those secular Republicans that think these people that are so prominent in their Party are just harmless kooks might want to think carefully about what life would be like in a Christian Republic.

Because there's something skin-crawling creepy about this "reparative therapy" scam.

Tags: christian fundamentalism, christian right, christianism, gay rights

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