My gay therapy session (Part 2 of Salon.com series)

[kweerwolf]

Barry Levy, a Christian counselor and licensed clinical social worker, is explaining to me what causes homosexuality. "Take the young boy who is more sensitive, more delicate, who doesn't like rough-and-tumble, who is artistic," he says. "He can't hit the ball, fire the gun or shoot an arrow. There is a high correlation between poor eye-hand coordination and same-sex attraction."

I am sitting in an overstuffed chair in Levy's office in suburban Rockville, Md. The metal blinds are mostly shut. Tissues are at hand on a small coffee table. Levy is a middle-aged white man with a gentle voice. He wears a button-down Oxford shirt and pleated khakis hiked a bit too high. He stares at me serenely across the beige carpet, his legs crossed, giving me a warm smile.

I was referred to Levy by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, which claims on its Web site that homosexuality can be treated and prevented. "While the Bible clearly states that homosexuality runs contrary to God's plan for relationships, those who struggle with homosexual feelings are still God's children, in need of His forgiveness and healing," the group states. Conservative Christians say curing gays comes from loving them. "Compassion -- not bigotry -- compels us to support the healing of homosexuals," says the Family Research Council.

Levy practices what is called "reparative" or "conversion" therapy, which allegedly helps homosexuals become heterosexuals. The theory that homosexuality is a mental disorder that needs to be cured is the moral underpinning of the Christian right's crusade against gay marriage, sodomy laws, gay adoption and sex ed curriculums in schools. While all major modern mental health professions say conversion therapy is baseless and potentially dangerous, I wanted to experience for myself what is going on behind counselors' closed doors.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/07/19/gaytherapy/

[HockeyMom]

1. Absurd

I have two daughters; one straight, one gay. BOTH played sports. Neither of them growing up fit the mold of what these nut cases would call "feminine girls." My gay daughter played both soccer and softball. She was a pitcher on the HS Varsity team. You don't need good eye/hand coordination to pitch?

My younger straight daughter plays ice hockey. In HS she played DEFENSE (yes, CHECKING) on the BOY'S JV team. She played 2 years of D3 College Hockey. She was never one for the dating, make up, clothes scene, even to this day at 21 years old. But she has never lacked for boyfriends.

These people have no idea what the hell they are talking about.

[assclown_bush]

2. This is sad. To think people are subjected to this,

just sickens me. How can parents subject their children to these quacks? And how can adults subject themselves to it as well? If conversion therapy worked then the reverse would work as well: hetero men and women could be changed into gays and lesbians by zapping them every time they saw an erotic image of the opposite sex. I am sure that heterosexuals would question the implications that their own sexuality is not what they believe it to be...that within a few weeks or a couple of months they too could be homosexual. It just doesn't make any sense.

COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVES

[flordehinojos]

4. looking at the picture in your post makes me thinkg of people who need to

put their house in order but instead they are out trying to straighten out everyone else's house.

how pitiful!

[dsc]

7. because you hope against hope

that something will work to make you normal again. If you grow up under this belief system, and many gays do, then you believe that you can be cured and have a duty to be cured. Sadly, the parents involved really think they are doing what is right. They are, in their minds, literally fighting for the everlasting souls of their children. When those are the stakes virtually any means can be sanctioned.

[rurallib]

3. Wow - well I have a theory that fundamentalism

is a mental disease that apparently cannot be cured. Take the young boy who feels he can do no wrong, who claims God(or Allah) talks directly to him, who believes it is his mission to make everyone believe as hedoes and act as he does. This is a boy who will become a fundamentalist, who will cause catastrophies and wreak havoc and cause death to prove he is right.
Jesus condemned this kind of behavior, yet the fundamentalist persists in the name of religion, often in the name of that same Christ.

[kweerwolf]

5. Shootin' up Jesus

There are some strong arguments that fundamentalism (at least in some cases) is a mental disorder. Several years ago I read a book called "When God Becomes a Drug" that talked about excessive religiousity as a addictive behavior. I see a lot of evidence of that idea in the kind of toxic Christianity some fundamentalists practice today.

[assclown_bush]

6. Mohammad Atta and Eric Rudolph are ONE and the SAME.

The only difference is that Atta worshiped Allah through Mohammad. Eric Rudolph worships his own distorted vision of a Hateful God through his idea of a malevolent and spiteful Christ. As a gay American I feel no safer around fundamentalists than I do amid radical Muslims.

IMPORTED & DOMESTIC TERRORISTS

[Solar]

8. HAHA!

4 years of varsity wrestling in high school and I have damn good hand-eye coordination. This crap makes me laugh!

[sakabatou]

9. "Compassion -- not bigotry..."

...compels us to support the healing of homosexuals"

Yeah. F-ing. Right.