In the 1920s, homosexuality was seen to be pathological and attempts to "treat" gays were seen as appropriate, however the vast majority of psychotherapists believed that it was virtually impossible to change a person's sexual orientation.
Views such as these began to dissipate after the Stonewall riots in 1969, but remain in society today, largely amongst the strongly religious communities even though "gay cures" have been proven to be useless. Now, there's a movement underway to stop them.
Just last night, I came across a petition on AllOut.org. The gay activism site starts petitions in order to publicize, and try to bring to an end, any threats to the LGBT community worldwide. They're currently raising money to allow LGBT Iraqis to flee their country where more and more of them are being placed on kill lists, sometimes by their own friends and family, before being hunted down and brutally beaten to death in the street. You can contribute to that fund and find out more, by clicking here.
Now, members of AllOut.org are running a petition to stop "gay cure" centers from being started up around Europe next week. According to the site, "for more than 30 years a powerful group of religious extremists claimed they were able to cure homosexuality. But last week, the leading organization behind these horrible practices publicly acknowledged that they were a fraud".
Despite this, Desert Stream, a "Christian" organisation claiming to be able to "liberate those bound by sexual and relational brokenness", is threatening to bring "gay cure clinics" to 10 countries worldwide, including France, Australia, Lithuania, the United Kingdom, and all over the US.
Gay "cures" have been proven to do more harm than good, with patients often self-harming or committing suicide. In the 1973, homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders by the American Psychiatric Association, where it was explicitly described as a mental illness. Before that, gay conversion therapy took the lives of many gay men and women, a form of which took the life of Alan Turing, inventor of the machine that deciphered the Nazi Enigma machine.
After reading they would be coming to France, and living in France myself, I immediately went to find out more. It seems that Desert Stream has branches internationally, usually with references to water in their name. In France, the organisation is called Torrents de Vie (Waterfalls of Life). I then proceeded to look up the whereabouts of their centers. I was unpleasantly surprised. In France, an area smaller than Texas, their website claims they alone have 17 centers nationwide, in every major city and others in large towns. To my horror, I discovered there is one a mere 45 minutes away from where I live, a majoritarily liberal area.
Other "gay conversion therapy" organisations include Exodus International (an umbrella group representing 150 ex-gay ministries in 17 different countries), Focus on the Family (based in Colorado Springs) now runs its own traveling ex-gay ministry called Love Won Out set up by CBN presenter Pat Robertson. The American Family Association,
another Christian Right group, distributes a video called "It's Not Gay" which uses ex-gay testimonies to claim that 95% of gay couples
are not monogamous (let's remember that AFA also uses anti-gay junk science to claim that gays die very early and are far more likely to molest children than heterosexuals). Leaders of Watchmen on the Walls,
an international anti-gay group that blames the Nazi Holocaust on
homosexuals, tell audiences that "one of the most important things you
can do is start an ex-gay movement here", and
Florida-based Coral Ridge Ministries
have even created their own ex-gay holiday, National Coming Out of
Homosexuality Day, falling one day after National Coming Out Day.
It's far too widespread and causes far more harm than homosexuality ever could. Reactions on AllOut.org's petition were strongly opposed to any form of anti-gay "cure clinics". One person from Colombia said they should "treat left-handed people as well", others said that it is not for us to interfere with nature, and homosexuality is natural. Many believed these clinics have no place in 21st century society. Olivier from France said "it isn't homosexuality we must cure, but homophobia".
AllOut.org are looking for 50,000 signatures which they will present to governments where these clinics are to be set up, hoping to force the politicians to take action and ban them. The total number of signatures currently stands at around 30,000, but every signature counts and we need to act fast because their work will start tomorrow, Thursday 19th June, when they'll hand your signatures over to the French government in the hope of starting an international domino effect of bans being placed on phony "cures".
You too can sign the petition and express yourself on the matter by signing AllOut.org's online petition and sharing it on popular social networking sites.
and help cure homophobia
Follow @FRW
