Two scholars
funded by the "ex-gay" ministry Exodus reported
greatly mixed results this week in the most ambitious study
yet on whether faith-based therapy can "cure"
homosexuality.
Two scholars
funded by the "ex-gay" ministry Exodus reported
greatly mixed results this week in the most ambitious study
yet on whether faith-based therapy can "cure"
homosexuality, days after a counselor in another
"ex-gay" program was sentenced on felony charges of
sexually attacking his male clients.
Christopher
Austin, 43, was sentenced in Dallas to 10 years in prison on
two counts of felony sexual assault in connection with his
work in the "ex-gay" program Renew, operated out of
the Church of Christ South MacArthur in Irving, Texas.
A judge last week reduced his sentence to seven years'
probation, not concurrently, on each charge, a district
attorney's spokesman told Gay.com.
One of several
victims who came forward, Mark Hufford, testified that
Austin used "touch therapy" to ostensibly "cure" him of
homosexuality, a treatment that progressed to include nude
sessions and even oral sex.
The tale serves
as a painful counterpoint to a book published this week
by psychologists Stanton Jones of Wheaton College and Mark
Yarhouse of Pat Robertson University, who attempted to
show the extent to which sexual-orientation change is
possible though a study of 98 participants of "ex-gay"
ministries over four years.
Their book,
Ex-Gays? A Longitudinal Study of Religiously
Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation (InterVarsity
Press), concludes:
Fifteen percent
of participants reported substantially reduced homosexual
desire and attraction.
Twenty-three
percent experienced satisfactory reductions in homosexual
desire and were living chaste lives.
Twenty-nine
percent experienced only modest change in the desired
direction but expressed commitment to continue changing.
Fifteen percent
experienced no change and were conflicted about the
future.
Four percent
expressed confusion about their identity but did not label
themselves gay.
Eight percent
reported change in the "undesired" direction.
Twenty-five of
the original 98 participants dropped out of the study.
Alan Chambers,
president of Exodus International, cheered the findings
Monday in a Nashville news conference.
"Finally, there
is now scientific evidence to prove what we as former
homosexuals have known all along -- that those who struggle
with unwanted same-sex attraction can experience
freedom from it," Chambers said.
Critics claim
Chambers's assertion is, at best, wildly optimistic, given
that more than 60% who made it to the fourth year did not
significantly change; nearly a quarter were completely
celibate, and 8% claimed they were "gayer" after
the study.
Even the study's
authors appear to call their findings into question.
"Our study
examines a representative sample of the population of
those in Exodus seeking sexual orientation change….
Most of the individuals who reported that they were
heterosexual at Time 3 did not report themselves to be
without experience of homosexual arousal…. We
believe the individuals who presented themselves as
heterosexual success stories at Time 3 are
heterosexual in some meaningful but complicated sense
of the term," they wrote.
"They say it's
representative, admit they can't prove it, but they're
confident anyway," Jim Burroway, editor of the LGBT blog
BoxTurtleBulletin.com, told Gay.com. Burroway also suggested
the high dropout rate is a red flag.
"In most studies
which take place over a number of years, dropouts are
to be expected, and they usually aren't relevant. But about
a quarter of this study's participants dropped out,
and we should have a clear understanding of why they
dropped out before we write them off as irrelevant,"
Burroway said.
"Exodus should be
embarrassed that even their hand-picked participants
in this hoax of a study showed such a meager success
rate," Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out,
told Gay.com.
Resounding
success was not the study's point, however, according to
Besen: "It was created to suit their political agenda, which
is spreading myth that if one person can change,
anyone can change.
"And the study
also tried to show that there is no harm in ex-gay
therapies, when there's plenty of evidence to show that they
are harmful," Besen said.
According to
Besen, Austin was affiliated with the "ex-gay"
National Association For Research and Therapy of
Homosexuality (NARTH), even teaching a seminar at
NARTH's 2004 convention titled "Understanding and
Treating Compulsive Sexual Behavior in Men with
Value-Incongruent Homosexual Issues: A Multidimensional
Approach."
Austin lost his
counseling license and was ordered to pay a $2,500 fine
and to register as a sex offender, the district attorney's
office said. (Larry Buhl, Gay.com)
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