An article published today by USA Today withholds key information about gay conversion therapy from readers, and misreports the past week’s marriage-equality cases at the U.S. Supreme Court.
USA Today fails to note that:
- PFOX President Gregory Quinlan and reparative therapists scapegoat parents (not just sexual abuse) as the cause of homosexuality
- If antigay therapists now avoid the buzzwords “reparative therapy” and “conversion therapy,” it is because they chose these buzzwords for themselves, and discredited their own work through repeated treatment failures, scandals, and attempts to exploit patients for political gain.
- Ample research studies and survivor reports show that conversion therapy does not work. Exodus International, the leading ex-gay support network, even admits this.
- Bans on reparative therapy have no effect on patients seeking counseling for sexual abuse.
USA Today says that New Jersey’s move to ban reparative therapy “comes at a time when gay rights are being challenged in the Supreme Court, which last week heard two days of arguments on the issue of same-sex marriage.” Wrong. Gay rights weren’t on trial at the Supreme Court last week; quite the opposite happened. Advocates for marriage equality put two antigay laws on trial.
