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Ex-Gay Group Looking to Sue D.C. over Reparative Therapy Ban

Even as same-sex marriage expands (36 states, as of last week) and even in the wake of numerous former leaders in the so-called ex-gay movement admitting they didn’t change (including former Exodus vice president Randy Thomas, who came out as gay with “bisexual tendencies” yesterday) and even after the closing of Exodus, the largest ex-gay ministry in the country, a hardline fringe continues to push for reparative therapy, a pseudoscientific practice that claims to change homosexuals to heterosexuals.

Case in point.

The Christian Post reported last week that Voice of the Voiceless, an ex-gay group that claims to “defend your rights and the rights of all who desire to fulfill their heterosexual dreams,” is planning to sue the District of Columbia over its ban of so-called reparative (or conversion) therapy of minors.

Challenges to similar bans in California and New Jersey have also been mounted. The Supreme Court rejected the California challenge last summer while the ban in New Jersey was upheld by a federal appeals court in September.

But that hasn’t deterred Christopher Doyle, founder and president of Voice of the Voiceless (VoV), who told The Christian Post that the group is in the process of seeking a plaintiff to bring a lawsuit against the government of D.C. over the ban, which became law in December. Upon the passage of that ban, Doyle, who is married to a woman and claims to be “ex-gay,” lamented that it was a “victory for gay pedophiles everywhere.”

Doyle has a long history in the so-called ex-gay movement. In addition to his work with VoV, he is also the president of the International Healing Foundation, whose director emeritus, Richard Cohen, garnered a backlash after a 2006 CNN appearance in which he demonstrated “therapy” techniques that included beating a pillow with a tennis racket while yelling at his mother and holding an adult man as if he were a baby. Cohen was expelled from the American Counseling Association in 2002 for numerous ethics violations.

Doyle often works closely with anti-LGBT hate groups like the American Family Association (AFA) and the Family Research Council. The group named Mat Staver of the anti-LGBT hate group Liberty Counsel as the recipient of the 2013 “ex-gay freedom award.” VoV has also held two “Ex-Gay Awareness Month” conferences that often feature virulently anti-LGBT activists. Last year’s speakers included Matt Barber, who founded the rabidly anti-LGBT site Barbwire.com and Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council, who once called for the deportation of LGBT people (he would later apologize) but two years later told Chris Matthews that gay behavior should be outlawed. Sandy Rios of the AFA, who spoke at the 2014 conference, has linked homosexuality to pedophilia and called Russia’s anti-LGBT laws “common sense.”

The majority of mainstream psychologists don’t support reparative therapy, saying that it’s ineffective and often harmful, further exacerbating anxiety and self-hatred. Some who have spoken out about their experiences in conversion therapy report being subjected to pseudoscientific theories, that claim childhood sexual abuse or an overbearing mother and distant father can cause a child to be gay (see here, here, andhere, for example).

The American Psychological Association (APA) conducted a review of the literature(1960-2007) with regard to ex-gay therapy in 2009 and found little evidence to support it, stating that “APA is concerned about ongoing efforts to mischaracterize homosexuality and promote the notion that sexual orientation can be changed and about the resurgence of sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE).” All professional medical organizations have stated that attempts to change sexual orientation are ineffective.

The last three years have seen seismic shifts in public opinion regarding LGBT people and same-sex marriage, which may have dealt a blow to those who support therapy to change gay people to straight. In 2012, psychologist Robert Spitzer, whose 2001 study was touted by ex-gay and anti-LGBT groups as proof that reparative therapy works,repudiated that study while Alan Chambers, Exodus’ former president, admitted at a conference the same year that, “The majority of people I have met, and I would say the majority meaning 99.9% of them have not experienced a change in their orientation.”

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