The Netherlands’ basic health insurance package will no longer include ex-gay conversion therapy, according to a report this week by pinknews.co.uk.
Dutch Health Minister Edith Schippers announced that persons “who suffer psychologically because of their sexual orientation should be offered pastoral guidance rather than medical treatment, since homosexuality is not a psychiatric disorder,” according to Pink News.
The policy change will impact “Different,” a Dutch counterpart to U.S. Christian-Right groups such as NARTH which sell pricey sexual-conversion and repression therapy. Until the policy change, insurance companies were required to pay Christian Rightists for their fraudulent therapy — and the proceeds from these therapists’ scam were reinvested in antigay propaganda.
Patients may still pay antigay therapists out-of-pocket, and they may still seek out Exodus-style ministries that cloak antigay treatment in the trappings of religious counseling and prayer instead of professional therapy.
