Reversal: Being Gay Can Not Be Cured by Prayer/Therapy

Homophobic politicians and anti-gay protestors often cite the 2001 study by Dr. Robert Spitzer which claimed that some gay people could become straight through the power of prayer and therapy. For many in anti-gay movement, it is the icing on the anti-gay cake.

This study came as a major shock to the gay community because Spitzer had been one of the leaders of the earlier successful 1973 campaign to have homosexuality removed from the list of mental disorders.

Even though Spitzer’s methodology had often been criticised, his “research” has been particularly harmful, if only because he was the only non-religiously oriented scientist to promote the “pray away the gay” message.

Virtually every anti-gay organization in the country quotes this study to justify everything from support for “ex-gay” therapy to voting against gay rights under the theory that because homosexuality is mutable, homosexuals don’t qualify for equal rights as other minorities do.

Now, however, the bigots have lost their champion. This month Dr. Spitzer has finally repudiated the findings in that 2001 study.

“In retrospect, I have to admit I think the critiques [against his study] are largely correct,” Dr. Spitzer told the American Prospect in an article titled, My So Called Ex-Gay Life. “The findings can be considered evidence for what those who have undergone ex-gay therapy say about it, but nothing more.”

 

. . . While it took too long for Dr. Spitzer to renounce his study, it is a relief to see what anti-gay activists considered a crowning achievement in their efforts to promote sexual conversion reduced to a crown of thorns.

http://www.truthwins.../2012/04/24299/