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by Jim Holman.
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Hatemongers or Healers?

L.A. CITY COUNCIL CONDEMNS REPARATIVE THERAPY FOR HOMOSEXUALS

By Christopher Zehnder

I knew I had arrived when I saw the protesters. They waved their signs accusing bigotry and hatred at me and shouted as I drove into the hotel driveway. The protesters were not many, but among them stood two or three police, chatting, seemingly unconcerned.

I had come to cover a conference sponsored by the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), which claims homosexuality is a curable disorder, and the Claremont Institute. The two-day (October 23-24) conference entitled "Making Sense of Homosexuality," was to be held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. I had gone to the Hilton, to find that the conference had been changed to the Regal Biltmore in downtown Los Angeles. The hotel staff gave no explanation.

This was the first conference I have attended where security checked my bag before allowing me into the conference room. During the lunch break, security escorted conference attendees into the dining room through the hotel kitchen; it was deemed too dangerous for all of us en masse to pass through the hotel lobby.

At lunch, Doctor Joseph Nicolosi, executive director of the association, explained to me the conference's change of venue and the tight security. The Beverly Hilton, he said, had called the group that Thursday, the day before the conference's opening, cancelling their reservations with the hotel. The Hilton claimed it had received hundreds of calls of protest against the conference that Thursday morning. Nicolosi said that the Hilton claimed it had made no contract with NARTH, though, said Nicolosi, they had given the hotel a $5,000 check (which the hotel cashed) and had signed a contract. Desperate for a new location, the association called the Regal Biltmore, who agreed to host the conference.

Nor was this all. At a news conference, held that Friday, several civic and civil rights leaders, including all 15 members of the Los Angeles City Council, condemned the conference in a signed resolution. Joe Hicks, executive director of the Los Angeles Human Relations Committee, told the Los Angeles Times that the conference, coming "literally one week after Matthew Shepard was buried... contributes to an atmosphere that allows those hate crimes to take place."

What were the conference speakers saying that could lead to an atmosphere of hate towards homosexuals? The group's members claim that homosexuality is not simply "another sexual orientation," but a psychological disorder arising from unhealthy family relationships.

"The general consensus regarding the cause of homosexuality is basically twofold," Doctor Nicolosi told me in a telephone interview. Nicolosi, clinical director of Thomas Aquinas Clinic in Encino, over the past 15 years, has treated over 400 homosexual men. "There seems," said Nicolosi, "to be what we call a 'temperamental predisposition' [to homosexuality]: this is not to be confused with 'predetermined tendencies' which would say a boy is genetically predetermined [to homosexuality]. What we mean is that the boy tends to be sensitive, introverted, artistic, timid. However, that temperament does not make one a homosexual. A boy with that temperament is placed in a family dynamic that seems to increase the possibility of a homosexual outcome-- specifically, [he has] a distant, detached and critical father, an over-involved, domineering, intrusive mother. So it's a two-step process: the boy has to be temperamentally predisposed, or vulnerable or susceptible, and then he needs a family environment to really tip him in the direction of a homosexual outcome." Nicolosi says that there are individual variations to this scenario, "but the basic dynamic, the basic family pattern is there-- what is called the 'classic triadic relation:' very close mother-and-son relationship, distant and detached father; and usually the mother and father do not have a good marriage."

Nicolosi says that psychotherapists "also see a high correlation between early sexual abuse or child molestation" and homosexuality. "A number of studies," says Nicolosi, "show a high correlation between boyhood sexual molestation by an older male and future homosexuality. In my own population of clients, approximately one third of my patients have memories of being sexually molested by older men when they were little boys."

Reparative therapy helps homosexuals understand that their homosexuality arises from a deficient father-and-son relationship during the son's gender-identification stage. The therapy helps the homosexual understand that his desire for other men masks a longing for the actualization of his masculinity which should have come through his relationship with his father. Understanding the causes of his condition can help the homosexual overcome his disorder.

The success rate for reparative therapy, said Nicolosi, is "a third, no change; a third, significant improvement, and a third, cure. Now when you compare those percentages with most therapies, with most outcomes for any kind of psychotherapy, you get about the same thing. We did a study of over 850 individuals who claim to have significantly cured their homosexuality. Besides that 850 individuals, we did another survey of psychotherapists, and we came up with 210 licensed psychologists and psychotherapists who claim to have successfully cured homosexuals. And that's just our own study. Besides that, a review of the literature, we found approximately 65 articles, 65 studies that showed individuals do change."

The conference presentations turned on these themes. Charles W. Socarides, M.D., a member of NARTH, explained, in response to a question, that lesbianism springs from a "maimed" feminine identity in girlhood. In some cases, the lesbian is a woman who, in childhood, identified with a mother who was malevolent or hostile towards the child's father. Lesbianism may also be caused by a father who, during the girl's critical gender-identification phase, did not relish her femininity. (Socarides recommended that a father give his three-year-old daughter a doll, to affirm her femininity). Sexual molestation at an early age by a man, too, may cause girls to shrink as adults from men, and seek the comfort of women. Dr. Nicolosi told me that there is "a higher correlation" between lesbianism and "sexual abuse where the girls are sexually molested by men" than there is between such abuse and male homosexuality. For women so molested, said Nicolosi, "lesbianism is a retreat from feared male sexuality."

Harold Voth, M.D., another presenter, addressed the alleged scientific evidence that homosexuality is genetic in origin. In reply to those who cite homosexual activity among beasts as evidence of a natural homosexual orientation, Dr. Voth asserted that this is mostly "displacement behavior," which occurs when there is an unequal number of males and females in a particular area. In studies of seagulls, said Voth, where there is an equal number of males and females, no such homosexual behavior is detected. Further, said Voth, homosexuality is not hormonal in origin: studies of both homosexual and heterosexual men reveal no difference in testosterone levels between the two groups.

Dr. Voth referenced the famous study done by Simon LeVay, published in the journal Science, which said that results from studies performed on the brains of homosexuals revealed that cells in the hypothalamus of homosexual men are more like the cells found in the hypothalamus of females than of males. Voth said that this study was deeply flawed in that LeVay (himself a homosexual) did not perform a "double-blind" study. In such a study, researchers would examine at random the brains of both homosexuals and heterosexuals, without knowing beforehand which were heterosexual and which were homosexual. Furthermore, all the brains LeVay studied were taken from patients who had died from AIDS; certain medications, such as those used in treating AIDS, said Voth, can cause brain cells to shrink. Finally, said Voth, the LeVay study has never been replicated.

Equally doubtful, according to Doctor Socarides, is the research into the "gay gene." To date, said Socarides, researchers have been unable to find such a gene, though, say researchers, they may have found the "neighborhood" in which too look for one. When research was done on 40 pairs of brothers from HIV clinics, it was discovered that seven pairs of these brothers shared "markers" at the end of the X chromosome. However, seven other pairs of brothers did not share these markers, and there was no study done on pairs of heterosexual brothers to find such markers. Finally, said Socarides, researchers looking for the "gay gene" admit that this elusive gene may contribute to both heterosexual and homosexual orientations.

Voth asserted that homosexuality is not found in all cultures. It is not found among the aborigines of Australia, where an uncle will step in to raise a boy upon the death of his father. Neither has homosexuality been detected among certain Native American tribes and among certain African tribes.

Dr. Thomas West of the Claremont Institute, an organization whose stated mission is "to restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life," approached the subject of homosexuality from the perspective of political philosophy. Calling himself a "Declaration [of Independence] Conservative," West in his talk appealed to the "law of nature and nature's God," which he defined as a "rule discernible by human reason that promotes human happiness, well-being, and society." In the past, said West, Americans abolished chattel slavery because it violated this natural law; today, he argued, Americans must support marriage which, according to natural law, exists as a "useful institution" for the procreation and rearing of children.

A most obvious natural result of sex, said West, is the generation of children, who must receive direction and moral support. How is this best accomplished? Nature, said West, offers us the institution of marriage which, arising from a natural inclination among men and women and their complementarity, promotes the happiness of both. Marriage offers the love and security needed for the raising of children. Laws and mores should, therefore, encourage marriage and discourage all sexual intercourse outside of marriage, including fornication, adultery, pornography and homosexual sex.

West was quick to point out that the natural law, while insisting on the discouragement of homosexual sex, also teaches that "gay bashing," assaulting and injuring of homosexuals, or any violation of their right to life is wrong. In fact, argued West, any remedy for restoring marriage must go beyond a critique of homosexuality alone. Promotion of homosexuality is but one of the powerful sexual promiscuity movements that has led to an increase of rape, sexual abuse and the injury of children. Men and women, he said, do not love each other as much as they used to; an "ideology of selfishness," of self-fulfillment has "generated an ideology of sheer exploitation." A denial of differences between men and women has made it so that when "men and women get together, they are always negotiating their position" vis-a-vis one another. Along with this has appeared a distortion of gender roles. Men are encouraged to be effeminate, while women seek to become more "manly," and so, departing from their nature, men and women begin doing things they resent doing.

According to West, the remedy for American society lies in a reaffirmation by society of marriage and the love between men and women, and in a reaffirmation of the principles of theDeclaration of Independence and of the American family.

Dr. Voth agreed that the American character has changed. This change he ascribed to the wars of the this century which "took men out of circulation," and so deprived children of the needed male influence. The demise of marriage, said Dr. Socarides, and the rise of the divorce rate has led to an "alienation from the father." The mother, in many cases, has become a "powerful figure" while the father has become a "weak and denigrated one."

In his presentation, Doctor Nicolosi asked the question, is "homosexual" the description of a behavior or of a person? In recent years, said Nicolosi, the symptom of homosexuality has been expanded to describe a person's entire identity, so that we talk, not of persons with a homosexual disorder, but of "gay persons" and the "gay lifestyle." This thinking is epitomized by Project 10, which works with teenagers in Los Angeles area schools. Project 10 counselors, said Nicolosi, tell young people who claim to have homosexual feelings, "if you have these feelings, this is what you are." This is especially tragic because though, according to Nicolosi, homosexual feelings and acts are not unusual in early teen years, they do not necessarily constitute a homosexual orientation. Homosexual acts for young teens, he said, are often an attempt to repair something lacking in oneself, but they are transitory. Homosexual acts may also be an aspect of adolescent rebellion. Nicolosi related that that a fifteen-year-old boy he counsels is more receptive to therapy when he is getting along with his parents. At such times he says he is not really homosexual. When he is not getting along with his parents, the boy claims to be gay.

A seeming point of contention arose during a question-and-answer period when Professor Hadley Arkes of Amherst College, a fellow of the Claremont Institute, asked Doctor Socarides how his therapy differs from the counseling, say, of a priest; like the priest, does the reparative therapist insist on the homosexual's responsibility for his own acts? Doctor Socarides did not answer the question. Larry P. Arnn of the Claremont Institute reiterated the question, and again Socarides avoided answering it. Finally, Dr. West, who sat on the panel with Socarides, said that, unlike his fellow panelist, he would answer the question. Human beings, West insisted, have the freedom to react to what they know is right and wrong. As a disorder in a person, homosexuality, said Dr. Nicolosi, does not take away a person's responsibility to act morally, thus answering, for himself at least, the question posed by Arkes and Arnn.

Dr. Socarides, it seemed, wanted to emphasize that the homosexual is a victim of unconscious forces. Since he is not responsible for his condition, the homosexual deserves great compassion, and should never be hurt. It was psychoanalyists, said Socarides, who, because they saw homosexuality as a psychological disorder, were in the vanguard of protecting homosexuals from violence.

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