Attacking the Gaie For Profit

Who has some good awards of the Darwin variety for Flat Earth Sexuality Comprehension. Water Tiger gave out the Golden Hoo Ha already this a.m. Do I hear an Iron Hide Your Head In The Sand, anyone?

In Dallas, we will have the convention of psychologists selling their treatment of gays as ornery. Yes, treating homosexuality as a stubborn rebellion against straight types. That loud quacking you hear is not those voices in your head again.

Hundreds of therapists who view homosexuality as a treatable disease are expected in Dallas-Fort Worth for the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality conference on Oct. 26-28.

“There will be several hundred quacks,” said Wayne Besen, founder of Truth Wins Out, a national organization devoted to exposing practitioners of ex-gay therapy as charlatans. “The whole flock will fly down south from all over.”

In response, Truth Wins Out is organizing a protest at the Marriott Dallas-Fort Worth Airport North hotel, where the conference is scheduled to take place. A conference call between leaders of local LGBT groups and Besen was held on Thursday, Oct. 4, to arrange plans for the protest, which will be announced soon.

NARTH, which is based in Encino, Calif., advocates the reclassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder. The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a mental disorder from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual in 1973.

NARTH was founded in 1992 by three therapists with the mission “to continue the scientific study of prevention, treatment and problems associated with homosexuality.” The founders contended that the APA “undermined the scientific integrity of the mental health profession” by succumbing to the demands of gay activists.
(snip)
The NARTH conference schedule includes seminars such as “A Proposal for the Development of Treatment Guidelines for Unwanted Same-Sex Attractions,” “The Role of Free Will in Same-Sex Behavior,” “The Interpersonal Approach to the Psychological Care of Men with Unwanted Homosexual Attractions” and “Religious Values, Science and Same-Sex Attraction.”

NARTH’s president, Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, claims no “man can ever be truly at peace in living out a homosexual orientation.” The group’s deceased cofounder, Dr. Charles Socarides described homosexuality as a “purple menace that is threatening the proper design of gender distinctions in society.”

Besen described NARTH’s therapists as “con artists” who have developed anti-gay therapy procedures as means of reaping big profits.

“It’s a good business model,” Besen said. “Ethical therapists won’t do this work. It’s a way for them to get perpetual clients who never get any better. It’s a big scam. As therapists, they are the worst of the worst.”

I have a problem with this description. Aren't there minimum standards for therapists, which could exclude those practicing erroneously? And can't they be invoked to keep the quacks from doing business?

It's quite possible that redneck style families embarrassed by the discovery that Johnny/Johnnie is gay might take them to some of these practitioners of sleaze. The kids can be irreparably damaged.

Maybe licensing authorities could descend on the convention en masse and urgently re-evaluate their licenses. A lot of damage could be prevented.