The Advocate magazine has a must-read piece by Jamie Scot, who vividly outlines the horrible history of “ex-gay” 
torture programs:
With the recent announcement from Exodus International that it is closing its doors, and its leaders offering apologies for their actions, LGBT people are now left wondering, “Can this really be the end of ‘ex-gay’ reparative therapy?” “Is it really over?” While the dust settles on all of this, we have to remind ourselves that it wasn’t too long ago that reparative therapies had less to do with praying the gay away and more to do with physically removing it.
Before the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973, aversion therapy was used routinely in hopes that it would prevent or eliminate homosexual behavior. Devices like the one below were used by therapists treating gay patients, and some of them were even available for use in the convenience of your home.
Today’s quacks, like Christopher “Snake Oil” Doyle, Richard Cohen, and Joseph Nicolosi are the heirs to such psychological terrorism. They can’t get away with shock treatment or aversion therapy, however they do considerable psychological damage to the people they are purporting to help. They habitually choose not to reflect on their 100% failure rate, and are indifferent to the suffering of their clients.
We need to close these creeps down and end the business of torturing LGBT people for who they are.
