Opposition Confronts Pray Gay Away Group
Leslie Philp
The National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) recently held a convention at Phoenix Airport Marriot Hotel where they were confronted by the opposition.
Protesters such as No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, Humans & Equal Rights Organizers (HERO), and Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) stood outside of the hotel to rally against the medical practices of NARTH deemed by the American Psychiatric Association, American Medical Association and American Psychological Association as harmful.
“NARTH is a professional, scientific organization that offers hope to those who struggle with unwanted homosexuality,” Christopher Rosik, president of NARTH said.
“As an organization, we disseminate educational information, conduct and collect scientific research, promote effective therapeutic treatment, and provide referrals to those who seek our assistance.”
HERO, a non-profit organization established in 2008 after the passage of prop 8 and prop 102 that protested the conference, hope to show the faces of the LGBT community and to fight for the rights that are being denied by the government.
“At the conference we were outside all day and had different speakers from X Games, ‘Survivor,’ to families and friends of lesbians and gays,” Meg Sneed, chair of HERO said, “We had ministers and clergies speaking … at the end of the day we were able to meet with the president of NARTH for about an hour.”
Sneed, who struggled with her own sexuality, wanted to
make a difference by supporting same-sex couples acceptance into the community.
” … Something needs to change because if we continue to see hate crimes and we continue to see suicides and as long as there is a stigma attached to LGBT people, those things are going to continue to happen,” she said.
In this current day and age, One in every 10 people identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered.
The number of same-sex couples cohabitating in the state of conservative Arizona, according to the 2010 U.S. Census, has reached 21,000.
Despite the growing number of same-sex couples going public across America, NARTH has grown as well, promoting reparative therapy across the country.
“The American Psychological Association is on record as saying that the origins of sexual orientation are not definitive, which is to say that science is not clear on this matter as pertains to homosexual orientation,” Rosik said.
Rosik has been a member of the organization since 1994 and practices an outpatient mental health practice.
“My hope is that mental health professions will encourage research that will help us more clearly identify patients who will respond positively to therapy for their unwanted same-sex attractions,” Rosik said on why he thinks homosexuality can be reversed in patients through therapy or medication.
Ryan Henson, a psychology major at MCC and recent transgendered woman to man, has experienced living in an in-patient facility similar to the medical practice of NARTH first-hand.
“I got sent to California to a place called Love In Action, … They do electroshock therapy. That is illegal, so there are children as young as 10 there, I’ve heard, and adults go there as well,” he said on the two years that he was forced to live in the rehabilitation center.
Henson was sent to the Love In Action facility at the age of 13 and said the reasoning for the “school uniform” like clothing was so that the patients would not give any of the other residents an impression or provoke impure thoughts.
“They feel it’s an addiction like drugs and they say there’s a lot of restrictions when you go, you are wearing a certain attire … nothing revealing,” Henson said.
According to Henson, the facility is not bracketed off by age but by psychological needs of the patients diagnosis by residential staff of Love In Action.
“It was very intense,” Henson said of his treatment, “because I wasn’t sure necessarily what my sexuality was. I knew I liked girls, but I wasn’t sure like how in depth it was. I was still kind of assembling who I was at that time.”
