Posted on 05/05/2006 12:43:11 PM PDT by DBeers
“Steve,” a married 48-year-old Orthodox Jew from Jerusalem with six children, is proud of his success: After 18 months of counseling, he has restricted his sexual encounters with other men to only once in the last four months. Steve, who is not — in his words — “a biological homosexual,” attributes his restraint to a therapy group that uses religious values as part of the treatment.
As someone who until recently had a long-term male lover and regularly engaged in casual gay sex, Steve — who asked that his real name not be used — says that a few years ago he would not have thought he could stop having sex with men altogether. Now, though, he considers it a goal that is “absolutely in my reach.”
Steve’s therapy group is one of many around the world that aims to help people cope with unwanted homosexual inclinations. Such treatment — known as reorientation, reparative or conversion therapy — has been severely criticized by gay-rights activists and many mental-health professionals who say sexual orientation is generally unchangeable. At best, the therapy is unsuccessful, activists say. At worst, it is harmful.
The scriptures of all three major monotheistic religions — as understood by many in those traditions — condemn homosexual behavior, leaving Christians, Jews and Muslims who have same-sex attractions to choose between their religious values and their sexual orientation. The dilemma has led some psychologists, psychiatrists and religious leaders to break off from predominant psychological thinking and swim against the current of political correctness in their attempt to induce change in patients with unwanted sexual attractions.
The American Psychiatric Association, or APA, removed homosexuality in 1973 from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, known as the DSM. In May 2000, the association stated: “Psychotherapeutic modalities to convert or ‘repair’ homosexuality are based on developmental theories whose scientific validity is questionable. Furthermore, anecdotal reports of ‘cures’ are counterbalanced by anecdotal claims of psychological harm. In the last four decades, ‘reparative’ therapists have not produced any rigorous scientific research to substantiate their claims of cure. Until there is such research available, APA recommends that ethical practitioners refrain from attempts to change individuals’ sexual orientation, keeping in mind the medical dictum to first, do no harm.”
But in 2001, a new wrinkle was added. Robert Spitzer, a Columbia University psychiatrist who had helped spearhead the removal of homosexuality from the DSM, presented a study at an APA conference concluding that “there is evidence that change in sexual orientation following some form of reparative therapy does occur in some gay men and lesbians.”
In his research, Spitzer found that 66 percent of the men and 44 percent of the women had achieved “good heterosexual functioning,” and that 11 percent of the men and 37 percent of the women reported being entirely free of homosexual feelings. His research was based on telephone interviews with 200 people who reported a five-year change from homosexual to heterosexual attraction. Spitzer also found that the vast majority of the interviewees were religious and “highly motivated” to change their sexual orientation.
The study, published in Archives of Sexual Behavior in October 2003, was criticized by some of Spitzer’s peers for using biased respondents. Specifically, 65 percent of the participants had been told of the study by the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), a secular group supporting the right to pursue change of sexual orientation, or by therapists and ministries devoted to encouraging homosexuals to abandon gay lifestyles. Critics also faulted the report for relying on self-reports and being inapplicable to society at large. “As scientists, we must disbelieve Spitzer’s data because they are so compromised by subject selection bias as to raise serious objections to any claims Spitzer might make about their meaning and generalizability,” wrote Kenneth Cohen, a counselor at Cornell University’s Gannett Health Center, in Archives of Sexual Behavior. Moreover, psychologists Michael Schroeder and Ariel Shidlo presented data at the same APA meeting contradicting Spitzer’s results. Their five-year study on the effects of homosexual “conversion therapies” found that 178 of their 202 subjects failed in such therapies and that most reported suffering mental stress or emotional pain from the treatment.
One of the key problems in determining the efficacy of reorientation therapy is that there is no single definition of sexual orientation.
“Whether one can say that sexual orientation is being changed depends on how narrowly one defines sexual orientation or if it can be defined at all,” wrote Warren Throckmorton, an associate professor of psychology at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, in a 1998 article in the Journal of Mental Health Counseling.
Most members of NARTH share the view that homosexuality is a developmental disorder. Adam Jessel, a NARTH member and therapist who has treated Steve, has said he tries to help his clients control their same-sex attraction, rather than to “cure” them. But Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders have diverging doctrine on whether homosexual is an actual disorder and what its causes are.
Several respected scientific findings point to at least some involvement of biology in homosexuality. Among them is a 2005 genome study conducted by the University of Illinois at Chicago that found about 60 percent of gay brothers shared four stretches of DNA that appeared to be linked to sexual orientation. The findings first appeared in the March 2005 issue of Human Genetics. Brian Mustanski, a psychologist in the university’s department of psychiatry and lead author of the study, found the DNA stretches on three different chromosomes in the nucleus of cells of the human male. “There is no one gay gene,” said Mustanski. “Sexual orientation is a complex trait, so it’s not surprising that we found several DNA regions involved in its expression. Our best guess is that multiple genes, potentially interacting with environmental influences, explain differences in sexual orientation.”
Such findings have been used to argue all sides of the issue. Norman Goldwasser, an Orthodox Jewish psychologist who treats patients with unwanted homosexual inclinations at his Florida clinic, said he sees homosexuality as a result of traumatic experiences or dysfunctional family dynamics but also believes that biology can play a role. Goldwasser said homosexual tendencies can be modified or healed “just as other biologically oriented issues [can].” In short, he said that people’s biology need not become their destiny
But while some Orthodox rabbis have characterized homosexuality as a disease for at least some people with same-sex tendencies, the heads of the Conservative and Reform rabbis in Israel reject the concept of homosexuality as a psychological problem subject to change. “Jewish law clearly prohibits eating pork; no one would suggest that someone who has an inclination to eat pork has a psychological difficulty,” said Rabbi Andrew Sacks, director of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly in Israel.
Not all Jews share the same viewpoint. “We don’t see it as a disease,” said Rabbi Kinneret Shiryon, chairperson of the Reform movement’s Israel Council of Progressive Rabbis. “There’s nothing to cure.”
The Roman Catholic Church, in a 1986 letter approved by Pope John Paul II, refers to homosexual inclination as an “objective disorder.” Some Catholics say, however, that the church’s reference to a disorder is meant in the philosophical, not psychological, sense. The letter rejects the “demeaning assumption that the sexual behavior of homosexual persons is always and totally compulsive,” said Father John Francis Harvey, author of the 1996 book The Truth About Homosexuality: The Cry of the Faithful.
Harvey is the founding director of a Catholic support group called Courage, which enlists a 12-step program similar to the one used by Alcoholics Anonymous, or AA, to help people with homosexual inclinations be chaste. By modeling its program after AA, Courage draws a comparison between homosexuality and alcoholism that is widespread among supporters of reorientation therapy. Just as alcoholics can conquer their addiction through will and effort, so too — Courage’s argument goes — can people with homosexual inclinations bring their desires under control.
Similar to the way other organizations look to treat homosexuality, Courage refers to its clients as “people with same-sex attractions” in an effort to portray homosexuality as one of many possible personal problems rather than as a description of identity. “We changed the terminology,” said Harvey, who has a master’s degree in psychology and a doctorate in theology. “We don’t like ‘gay,’ ‘lesbian’ or ‘homosexual.’ We see these as labels.”
Among some major Protestant denominations, including the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches, there is a split over whether homosexuality really is a psychological problem and whether it can — or should — be treated.
“It’s not viewed as a disorder by the majority of the church,” said the Rev. Jan Nunley, communication deputy at the Episcopal Church, which consists of 2 million to 3 million worshipers in roughly 7,500 congregations across the United States. She added, however, that some member churches do attempt to treat people with homosexual inclinations. The church’s official position is that any religious or psychological treatment for sexual orientation must not be coercive or manipulative.
The Presbyterian Church sees the issue of whether sexual orientation can be chosen or changed as a matter of crucial significance, but says it is a question yet to be settled. However, the pastoral guide for OneByOne, a Presbyterian organization that helps churches reach out to people “struggling with homosexuality,” said that “the homosexual orientation is not chosen and, therefore, is not sinful in and of itself.”
There has not been a lot of reorientation therapy in the Presbyterian Church, said Kristin Johnson, executive director of OneByOne. The conservative wing has largely sufficed with voicing negative views of homosexuality, while the liberal wing sees no reason to advocate changing a drive it sees as “healthy and normal,” she said.
The Southern Baptist Convention rejects biology as a possible factor in the formation of homosexuality, instead pointing to environmental factors such as family dynamics and sexual abuse. Citing NARTH President Joseph Nicolosi, it says that because homosexuality is a condition — not an identity — that a homosexual person simply does not exist.
Muslim theologians, meanwhile, tend to see homosexuality as environmental, although some Muslim and Arab medical professionals are open to the possibility of biological factors.
While homosexuality is not a “normal behavior,” its causes have yet to be determined with certainty, said Dr. Hossam E. Fadel, chairman of the Islamic Medical Association of North America’s ethics committee. Fadel said some Muslim clinicians in North America provide reorientation therapy. But in other parts of the world, Muslims and Arabs may be too frightened to either come out as gay or seek treatment to reduce their same-sex attractions.
It is quite rare for Arabs to seek treatment for homosexuality, said Dr. Issam Bannoura, director of the Bethlehem Mental Hospital in the West Bank. Bannoura classified homosexuality as untreatable abnormal behavior but not a disorder. “For such cases they don’t go to doctors in Arab society. It’s a great stigma for them,” he said.
Regardless of whether religious leaders and mental-health professionals view homosexuality as biological, genetic or both, those who support reparative therapy all agree on one thing: Some people can alter their sexual orientation.
As for “Steve,” he said that while he doesn’t know if he will be able to completely stop his homosexual behavior or come to terms with his attraction for men, he continues to believe that change is possible. “The will is greater than anything else in the world.”
Although I recognize the effort to continually be masculine at all times, as such, I would probably say the same things at times.. but...
If you were inundated with homosexuality constantly for years and years, it was glorified, you were told that it was okay and even desirable, your wife cheated on you and left you, you were forced to move to key west where all the happiest people you knew were gay adn so on and so on... It is completely arrogant to believe that you alone are capable of being unaffected by certain things. How many people never believe they would cheat on their wife but start to flirt (innocently) and it escalates to a 4 month affair? You are not so special that you are so deadset in a mindset that it couldnt change. Many things can change over time.
That is the way sin works, it starts out small and what was once just a little mistake has snowballed and you end up in a place that you never thought you would be
And although it is unlikely that I would ever switch to craving some homo sex, it is possible because I am fallible. I am not immune to making mistakes and neither are you.
Gay people act in a way that they choose to. You can go out and be gay for a night if you want and then go back to your wife, and you were just as gay as the lifelong homo. Its a choice to live a life in defiance of nature and more importantly God.
Its not being masculine, its telling the truth. Gay people obviously are drawn to being gay from something. Because almost all of them weren't raised in some gay paradise, they were raised in comparable living conditions as I was.
You couldn't pay me enough money to have sex with a man, but I'd probably have sex with the ugliest woman in the world for 1000 bucks.
AMEN! CONTRATS ON YOUR STAND.
More power to you.
And may God lead you and His best mate to each other in His best timing. And may you have the most fulfilling Friendship possible the rest of your natural days.
Other people... ALL of them have a choice. Congrats on being above the influence, and never having your worldview altered in the slightest way.
I just find that people, guys especially, tend to heartily say "NO NO NO WAY, never me" it just seems illogical and arrogant.
Take pornography for example. A person may think that is disgusting as they drive by a prostitute or a strip club, thinking that it is deplorable. But they look at SI swimsuit one day, that turns into MAXIM magazine, which turns into playboy, which leads to the cess pool of the internet where they get caught up in a vile disgusting world that they would have NEVER thought they could get into, and so on...
That sort of thing happens. Thats all I'm saying. Now I have forgotten what the original story was even about.. LOL have good one.
>>As it does for you, that is all I am saying. Doing those things may be the last thing either one of us would consider, but in a certain environment it could happen. Thats all I am saying...<<
I can't by logic rule that out. All I can say is that I have not ever felt same sex attraction and growing in Atlanta I have been exposed plenty. I would think it would have come up by now but I understand your point.
Thats all I was saying. And I was pretty amazed the first time I drove through Atlanta at the number of gay establishments that littered the side of the road. Glad we could figure one another out. Until our next meeting, have a nice life.
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