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Friday June 22, 2007
APA Appoints Gay Activists to Monitor Homosexual Reorientation Therapy
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By Elizabeth O'Brien
WASHINGTON, DC, June 22, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The recently created "Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation", which is part of the American Psychological Association (APA), has appointed five openly gay activists to monitor clients who want to overcome their homosexual tendencies.
The APA's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Concerns Office requested that the task force be created, asking clinicians to submit qualified names for job positions. In response, the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) compiled a list of doctors and professors for the new committee. Despite the high qualifications of these professionals, a recent NARTH press release stated that all of them were rejected by APA president Dr. Sharon Stephens Brehm.
Instead, five out of the six people chosen this May for the task force, reports NARTH, are "committed gay-affirmative activists who are openly hostile to the reality that individuals with unwanted same-sex attraction can be helped."
The six people include Dr. Judith M. Glassgold, a board member of the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy, and Dr. Jack Dreshcher, a gay-activist psychiatrist who, according to NARTH, is "one of the foremost opponents of reparative therapy".
Another member, Dr. A. Beckstead, is openly skeptical of reorientation therapy, and Dr. Roger L. Worthington received an award in 2001 from the LGBT Resource Center, University of Missouri, for "speaking up and out and often regarding LGBT issues".
Joseph Nicolosi, President of NARTH, commented on the choice of these doctors, saying, "This new APA task force was created to monitor 'reorientation therapies'--therapy for people who want to decrease their homosexual attractions and develop their heterosexual potential."
"But the APA has sent the foxes to guard the henhouse. Reorientation therapy is for people who don't want to be gay--and it is now being monitored by gay activists who believe there is no such thing as a formerly gay person!"
Nicolosi states, "The eventual findings of this committee are already predetermined. I predict that once this task force finishes its investigation into 'appropriate responses to sexual orientation,' it will issue a report calling upon the APA to declare reorientation/reparative therapy to be unethical and harmful. It will then call upon all psychological groups to ban such therapy."
The APA is supposedly committed to "diversity", said Nicolosi, and yet the choice of task force members is to all appearances agenda-driven. Nicolosi says that he predicts that because of this apparent bias, thousands of people seeking reorientation therapy will not receive the proper assistance.
See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:
APA President Supports Therapy Treating Unwanted Homosexual Tendencies
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06082905.html
Ex-Gays Protest APA Claim that Homosexuality is Irreversible
http://www.queenofpeace.ca/Ex-Gays_Protest.htm
APA Ignored Evidence that Homosexual Behaviour is Part of Psychiatric Disorder
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jul/05072502.html
To contact the APA Public Affairs Office and respectfully voice concerns:
Office Of Public Affairs
750 First Street, N.E.
Washington, DC 20002-4242
Phone: 202-336-5700
Fax: 202-336-5708
Email:
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