Monday, July 13, 2009
(Weekly Column)In a brazen effort to preempt an American Psychological Association report on human sexuality scheduled for release in August, an anti-gay organization unveiled its own report, which amounts to rubbish in the guise of research.
The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality's (NARTH) "new" study, "What the Research Shows: NARTH's Response to the American Psychological Association's Claims on Homosexuality", is so embarrassingly slipshod that no scientist would take it seriously.
But, the goal, of course, is not to impress researchers who would cackle at the kookiness. The real aim, according to Dr. Jack Drescher, a renowned psychiatrist and author, is to confuse the public and gullible media into believing the APA and NARTH are equally credentialed scientific bodies engaged in a legitimate dispute over homosexuality.
The truth, however, is that NARTH is a fringe group held in ill repute by anyone who has even a rudimentary knowledge of science. The organization is best known for encouraging male clients to drink Gatorade and call friends "dude" to increase masculinity.
The first clue that this study was utter trash was the fact that NARTH and Focus on the Family referred to it as "new". Indeed, not one iota of fresh research took place. Not one moment was spent in the lab, nor were any subjects recruited to broaden the base of knowledge on the etiology of sexual orientation.
The study was basically a compilation of everything negative ever written about gay people, no matter how invalid, idiotic or biased the conclusion. NARTH essentially blasted shit out of a cannon, hoping at least some would stick to the wall.
The second clue to the inanity of this report was that NARTH's Scientific Advisory Board guided it. The last time this assemblage of reprobates appeared in the news, it was after one of their members (Gerald Schoenwolf) seemed to endorse slavery, while another (Joseph Berger) opined that gender variant children should be "ridiculed" by their peers.
The third clue was when NARTH claimed that its work appeared in the peer-reviewed "Journal of Human Sexuality." They conveniently fail to mention that this is their own journal -- staffed by other like-minded quacks. This is the equivalent of me offering a glowing review of my last book on my own personal website, while pretending it was an independent overview.
The fourth clue was that NARTH refused to rely on modern research. Instead, they elected to incorporate discredited and outdated century-old studies, where gay subjects were often recruited from prisons or mental hospitals. It is no coincidence that NARTH used work from the horse and buggy era, as no research in more than thirty years has supported their views on homosexuality.
Could you imagine how people would be howling if an organization used 125 year old studies on African Americans, climate change or even medicine? The idea is as shocking as it is laughable.
Most absurd, NARTH invoked the Stonewall uprising that ushered in the modern gay rights movement, on the event's 40thanniversary, to highlight the alleged oppression of "ex-gays." According to the group's website:
"Those who have received help from reorientation therapists have collectively stood up to be counted--as once did their openly gay counterparts in the 1970s. The first time a formal demonstration against the American Psychiatric Association was protested against--not by pro-gay activists, but by a group of people reporting that they had substantially changed their sexual orientation, and that change is possible for others--was on May 22, 1994, in Philadelphia. A similar demonstration occurred...at the 2006 American Psychological Association Convention in New Orleans."
Interestingly, NARTH writes this passage as if it is a casual observer witnessing an organic uprising. What NARTH conveniently fails to point out is that the group engineered and staged these protests as a public relations gimmick. I was at the so-called "protest" in New Orleans. The demonstrators were all professional "ex-gay" activists or members of NARTH -- including the group's president Joseph Nicolosi and his son.
So, let's put this "study" in perspective.
NARTH is repackaging 125-year old research as new and unveiling its "findings" in its own publication, while trying to claim that it survived peer review. The group is also pretending to document a spontaneous popular uprising that they had actually staged. They are hoping to pull off this publicity stunt by creating an online echo chamber, with Christian news outlets mindlessly repeating their obvious lies.
NARTH is not interested in science. Its real motivation is bigotry that can be best evidenced by a quote made by the group's late co-founder Dr. Socarides: "Homosexuality is...a purple menace that is threatening the proper design of gender distinctions in society."
If it quacks like a duck, it may just be quacks ducking out on reality.
27 Comments:
NARTH are not perfect, I grant you that, but then again no one is. Despite what legitimate criticisms might be made of NARTH, their view of homosexuality is closer to the truth than that of gay activists.
(BTW, it's not true that 'encouraging male clients to drink Gatorade and call friends "dude" to increase masculinity', is an official position of NARTH).
posted by Kwo, at
7/14/2009 4:37 AM
Kwo:
What do you base your anti-gay position on other than prejudice?
NARTH is a hate group that uses fake science to malign millions of people and destroy families.
And, yes, the group's co-founder Dr. Joseph Nicolosi,does encourage clients to drink Gatorade an call friends dude. I suggest you read his first book.
posted by Wayne Besen, at
7/14/2009 7:56 AM
Wayne, I think Kwo may be a shill for NARTH let alone a sympathizer. These lunatics are infesting other gay blogsites with their right wing, religious psycho talk to dehumanize LGBT people in their quest for full equality. Amazing how they seek out so many gay sites and spend so much time doing so.
posted by , at
7/14/2009 8:28 AM
Robert:
I am afraid you may be correct.
As for Kwo, he avoids specifics for good reason. NARTH's program is pure horseshit. They say a man is gay because of a distant father. The sensitive child fears this rejection, so he in turn rejects the father and all things masculine. The cure is to make friends with straight guys and that will cure you.
NARTH basically pulled this nonsense out of its behind. They needed a pseudo-scientific reason to reject gay people based on their extreme religious beliefs, and this is the garbage they invented out of whole cloth. (With the help of outdated and discredited theories, some a century old)
posted by Wayne Besen, at
7/14/2009 11:35 AM
Kwo is a disingenous person who frequently posts on Box Turtle Bulletin as Quo III and Quo. He makes unsupported assertions and refuses to answer follow up questions because he knows to do so honestly would make it difficult for him to hide from the truth that's in direct opposition to his claims. For example, he claims that gays can be converted to straights but admits that he is gay himself and has utterly failed to become straight.
To demonstrate:
Quo, tell us what is this view of gayness that Narth has that is closer to the truth than that of gay "activists".
posted by Priya Lynn, at
7/14/2009 2:27 PM
Aside from "prejudice", I base my views about homosexuality on personal experience, and on my reading of the literature on the subject (I will set aside the "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" aspect of your question).
Nicolosi's views on the merits of drinking gatorade are his personal views, not official positions of NARTH. I have read his first book, and also his "A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality", which supports its theories on the causes of homosexuality with sources such as "Freud Scientifically Reapprasied", a book by Seymour Fisher and Roger P. Greenberg, two thoroughly respectable mainstream researchers.
posted by Kwo, at
7/14/2009 9:11 PM
The folks from NARTH and other "ex-gay" groups all seem to have one basic thing in common. They all tend to grandly trip over themselves in a neurotic attempt to prove that their worldview is, despite all evidence to the contrary, correct.
They are so wildly off-base, however, that their efforts almost become evidence, in an of themselves, of the futility of their position. It is a shame that they become so invested in their archaic view of sexuality that they allow themselves to descend into such foolishness.
They want to believe that "there is a way out" of homosexuality because they want a way out, and that is a shame. I feel sorry for these fine people, because our lives are so precious.
Rather than struggling against who we are, we should embrace ourselves and celebrate who we are, even if we would have chosen a different path for ourselves, if we had been given such a choice. As the scripture says, "You do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away." (James 4:14)
posted by Chris L., at
7/14/2009 11:00 PM
Kwo, obviously you havent been paying attention to those who defect from the "ex-gay" movement. These people leave because they realise that when all the BS rhetoric and the disnhonest "research" is really put to the test.
You cannot change orientation--the best you can do is to change behaviour. The heterosexual fundamentalists who back this sort of thing do so because of their backwards religious views and because THEY personally are uncomfortable with homosexuality (which is a result of their backwards religious views. They would much rather have LGBTQ people live cold, lonely, celibate (this last is the most important for them)lives rather than risk their comfort zones being disturbed.
How can anyone take stuff like "rubber band therapy" seriously? I read that to my spouse and we had a great time laughing at such stupidity.
Those who remain in these programs are not changed, but they are so self-loathing that they would rather deny the obvious--that nothing has changed except that they are now lonely and celibate. They have so much invested in these programs that they cannot accept that they were mistaken and that they are indeed still gay.
Nicolosi and Cohen are two of the biggest jokes I have ever seen. What on earth is wrong with letting people live their lives with someone they love and want to spend their lives with?
When I read Wayne's book--especially where he attended the "ex-gay" meeting, I could only shake my head and pity those poor people being misled into psychological quackery and who sometimes spend thousands of dollars on therapy that does not work.
NARTHis disgusting and so far as I am concerned no self-respecting gay people should get involved with them.
posted by Merlyn, at
7/15/2009 3:07 AM
I asked Quo to defend his statement - "tell us what is this view of gayness that Narth has that is closer to the truth than that of gay "activists"." and as I knew would be the case he refused to answer. Quo makes unsubstantiated assertions and refuses to provide details because he knows if he does he won't be able to defend his position. Quo is a liar.
posted by Priya Lynn, at
7/15/2009 12:17 PM
I read one of Nicolosi's books in which he reported on six of his best patients. Amazingly, not one of the six patients had changed from being gay to being heterosexual. They just spoke of their ongoing struggle and their reasons for wanting to change. I found it to be quite interesting that one of that movement's most well-known leaders himself could not claim that any of his clients had changed their sexual orientation.
posted by Chris L., at
7/15/2009 1:14 PM
Priya,
I wasn't eager to go into NARTH's view of homosexuality because I assumed (perhaps quite wrongly) that people already know, at least roughly, what NARTH think.
NARTH's view that boys having poor relationships with their fathers contributes to the development of homosexuality seems true to me, and it is indeed supported by research. See "Freud Scientifically Reappraised" (which I already mentioned), and several other books by Fisher and Greenberg.
posted by Kwo, at
7/15/2009 8:41 PM
KWO:
A relationship with a father does not cause homosexuality. I'm very close to my Dad. There is no respectable science to back up this garbage.
If you are not close to your father, perhaps, it is because you are a jerk and he is ashamed of you.
posted by Wayne Besen, at
7/15/2009 9:16 PM
I didn't say having a bad relationship with one's father was a cause of homosexuality. I said that it contributed to the development of homosexuality, which is a similar but significantly different statement (it's the difference between saying that A causes B and that A makes B more likely).
Please elabourate on why you think Fisher and Greenberg are not "respectable." Would that be because you disagree with them?
posted by Kwo, at
7/15/2009 9:42 PM
Quo, there is no research that suggests a poor relationship with one's father contributes to gayness. That that feels true to you is simply coincidence. The gay oppressors like Narth have been claiming without substantiation that if boys don't have a close father figure they are more likely to become gay. Amongst the several situations that put the lie to this is the fact that there wasn't an explosion in gay people as a result of world war II when many boys didn't have a close relationship with their fathers or the fact that there isn't a higher incidence of gayness in the black community despite the problems there with absentee fathers. In light of these facts you're clearly out to lunch when you say Narth's view of gayness is closer to the truth than that of gay "activists".
posted by Priya Lynn, at
7/15/2009 11:58 PM
Priya,
You don't know what you're talking about. I have already shown that you're wrong about there being no research that supports NARTH. I mentioned a specific book by researchers Fisher and Greenberg - try reading it, or at least the relevant parts dealing with homosexuality.
posted by Kwo, at
7/16/2009 4:23 AM
Also, in regard to your claim about blacks, would you mind supporting this with valid statistical evidence? I've seen this claim made over and over again, but no one ever supports it with real evidence, presumably because there isn't any.
posted by Kwo, at
7/16/2009 4:38 AM
Kwo:
Are you referring to the 1977 Fisher and G. study? I certainly hope you are not trotting out 32 year old information - data before the personal computer was widely used and Carter was President. Which study are you referring to? And, what data are you talking about?
And,as far as the stats on African Americans? Try reading once in a while. I'm not trying to be mean, but your dumb as rocks.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/04/08/out.of.wedlock.births/index.html
posted by Wayne Besen, at
7/16/2009 11:14 AM
Quo, you never demonstrated any research showing poor relationships with fathers contribute to gayness. Lies from right wing bigots most certainly don't count. If there was any truth to this there would be example after example of societal upheavals such as WWII and the black communities father issues demonstrating a rise in the rate of gayness. The chrisitinist bigots like Narth wouldn't hesitate to trumpet loudly and widely such information if it was available - they don't mention it because it never happens.
posted by Priya Lynn, at
7/16/2009 2:42 PM
Here's your statistics Quo:
http://www.helium.com/items/1486731-the-absence-of-black-fathers-in-the-home
Roughly half of all black children live in single parent household." "Children that grows up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crimes." "Nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prisons".
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0419185720070614
"More than 19 million children -- about one in four -- were living in households where no father, biological or other, was present, according to a Census Bureau report in 2005.
The statistics also show that this burden falls more heavily on black children. Some 56 percent of black children lived in single-parent families in 2004, with most of those families headed by mothers. That figure compared with 22 percent of white children and 31 percent of Hispanic children."
Now you've claimed that this leads to gayness - prove it. There is no such evidence and the onus is on you to support the claim you make, not on me to disprove it.
posted by Priya Lynn, at
7/16/2009 3:00 PM
Wayne,
No, I was not referring to Fisher and Greenberg's 1977 book. I was referring to their 1996 book "Freud Scientifically Reappraised", one of the sources used by Nicolosi in his book on preventing homosexuality.
Just to show that I don't automatically accept everything Nicolosi might say, I will note that the way he quotes that book is slightly misleading - but I have checked it, and it does basically support his theories.
As for http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/04/08/out, that just leads to a "page not found" site.
Priya,
From your comments, it appears that you haven't even looked at the book in question. Try doing so, you might learn something.
Also, I was asking for statistics about the proportion of black people that are gay. Those articles you linked to do not deal with this. I'm not surprised.
posted by Kwo, at
7/16/2009 6:39 PM
Quo, you're the one asserting that situations such as in the black community lead people to be gay, the onus is on you to support that assertion, not me to refute it. As I've stated, there is no such evidence to support your position - you simply made it up.
posted by Priya Lynn, at
7/17/2009 12:35 PM
Priya,
So, you still haven't read the book? Reading a book is too hard for you?
posted by Kwo, at
7/18/2009 3:59 AM
Kwo, lies from right wing Christianists don't count as research. If that's all you've got, you've got nothing.
posted by Priya Lynn, at
7/18/2009 12:22 PM
Fisher and Greenberg weren't right-wing Christians, but I suppose there's little point telling that to someone not interested in reading.
posted by Kwo, at
7/19/2009 3:58 AM
posted by Priya Lynn, at
7/19/2009 5:26 PM
Yeah, right Quo, sure they aren't. And neither are the bozos at Narth like Nicolosi, Socarides, nor Jones and Yarhouse. Tell me another one.
posted by Priya Lynn, at
7/19/2009 5:38 PM
posted by Kwo, at
7/22/2009 4:19 PM
<< Home
