MEXICO CITY, February 7, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A conference by a self-described ex-homosexual who offers therapy for people with unwanted same-sex attraction has been cancelled by its venue due to harassment and pressure from pro-homosexual groups.
In an email to the Mexican newspaper El Norte, Richard Cohen, who organized the “How to Love Correctly” conference, wrote: “This is an evident denial of our human right of free speech and free expression.”
He said that he “won’t allow for a few who fear my message to stop others who seek to find hope,” and added that if he didn’t find another place for his conference he will “stand in the street and give my talk.”
The conference, sponsored by the Mexican Center for Psycho-traumatism, was to be held on February 12 in the city of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, in Mexico, at the Labastida School, a Catholic institution run by the Daughters of Mary Immaculate of Guadalupe.
The event’s organizers have offered to reimburse ticket holders.
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In the email to El Norte Cohen explained how “the parents and students of the Labastida School were repeatedly harassed by gay and lesbian activists when coming in and out of the school.”
“The school was traumatized by the constant harassment so they had to cancel my conference,” he concluded.
Lawyer Fernando Elizondo, a consultant for the Human Rights Commission of the state of Nuevo Leon, started a petition to cancel Cohen’s conference on the webpage www.change.org, calling it “highly homophobic and discriminatory” and saying it was contradictory to the school’s mission of “promoting the potential and growth of human beings.”
Gay activists also threatened to organize a protest outside the school during the conference and some of them posted pro-gay propaganda on the school’s Facebook page.
When it was announced that the conference was cancelled, pro-homosexuals organized a free event titled “Same Love: the science behind sexual preference” to take place on the same day of Cohen’s conference and to be held just in front of the school.
Cohen, a psychotherapist and educator, is now married with three children. He is the founder and director emeritus of the International Healing Foundation, and author of Coming Out Straight, Gay Children Straight Parents, and Straight Talk About Homosexuality.