Written: 4/26/2012
I also have no idea if I spelled “repairative” correctly (spell check says no). Oh well, life moves on, because as it’s main proponent has just revealed, it doesn’t work and his research was wrong:
In a move that serves as a significant blow to “ex-gay” programs and anti-gay organizations, Dr. Robert Spitzer repudiated his much-criticized 2001 study that claimed some “highly motivated” homosexuals could go from gay to straight. His retraction occurred in an American Prospect magazine article that hit newsstands today. Spitzer’s rejection of his own research, which was originally published in the prestigious Archives of Sexual Behavior, is a devastating blow to “ex-gay” organizations because it decisively eliminates their most potent claim that homosexuality can be reversed through therapy and prayer. “Dr. Spitzer’s repudiation of his 2001 study is an earthquake that severely undermines the validity of ‘ex-gay’ programs,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen, who criticized the study in his 2003 book, Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth. “Spitzer just kicked out the final leg from the stool on which the proponents of ‘ex-gay’ therapy based their already shaky claims of success.”
Ex-gay therapy is destructive to those forced into it, and those who enter voluntarily end up deeper in the closet and harming themselves. It’s so sad to read and watch the stories of those forced into the “therapy.” Although it’s always ironic to hear about the hook-ups that happen from ex-gay group meetings.
But please just understand that sexual orientation in men is set, it cannot be changed. Sure, you can choose how you act and if you want to experiment or repress urges. But you are who you are, and you can’t be changed by quack medicine.
All my best,
The King of Spades
