FOUR men who underwent courses in "gay conversion therapy" have embarked upon legal action, after the so-called treatment failed to cure them of their attraction to other men.
The case is important because it will be the first time that the controversial theory - that somebody can be cured of being gay - has been tested in a US court.
According to The New York Times the men are charging their counsellors with deceptive practices under the state’s Consumer Fraud Act.
They say the treatment ...
... included stripping naked in front of the counselor and beating effigies of their mothers. They paid thousands of dollars in fees over time, they said, only to be told that the lack of change in their sexual feelings was their own fault.
The counsellors claim that homosexuality isn't normal, but ...
.... an aberration rooted in childhood trauma. Homosexuality is caused, these therapists say, by a stifling of normal masculine development, often by distant fathers and overbearing mothers or by early sexual abuse.
To which pretty much every gay person of my acquaintance, including those to whom I'm related, would say: tosh.
Home