…what does he do with gay men who don’t sound like his theory? Does he in fact say that somewhere down deep inside, they’ve lived his theory, but can’t remember it.

I have no acquaintance myself with Nicolosi, so I have no idea how he operates in this respect, but I would imagine that his theory can be somehow tweaked or, to use JR’s terminology, “refined” to fit most cases. This shouldn’t be too difficult because a gay client who goes for “reparative therapy” is likely to be troubled about his sexual orientation and therefore will approach the therapist as “the one who knows”. Such a client will not wish to be or to seem uncooperative, especially since he is paying for the “therapy”, and is therefore likely to suspend his faculties of criticism and independent thought. And as the biologist Douglas Futuyma noted:
“Whatever your personality or history may be, a good astrologer will find some conjunction of the planets that explains why you are this way, even though as a Sagittarius you’re ‘expected’ to be different.”

then the father-deficit theory, if refined, might help explain something about some cases of homosexuality, even if not all of it.

JR, the trouble is that Nicolosi insists the father-deficit theory can account for most or all cases of male homosexuality — he thinks the theory has “broad explanatory power”, despite the rather obvious points that:
(a) plenty of male homosexuals DON’T have childhood histories consistent with the father-deficit theory, and
(b) plenty of male heterosexuals DO have childhood histories consistent with the father-deficit theory.
So while your point is well made that the “absent father” hypothesis shouldn’t be totally discarded (because it might yet turn out to be relevant to a small sub-set of male homosexuals), that doesn’t justify Nicolosi’s giddy overuse of “failed father-son bonding” as a universal, one-size-fits-all explanation.

He validates his theory every time he meets a gay man who sounds like his theory. I know this first hand from discussions with him.

Warren, what does he do with gay men who don’t sound like his theory? Does he in fact say that somewhere down deep inside, they’ve lived his theory, but can’t remember it.
I’m really interested in this, Warren. Are certain types of gay men attracted to Nicolosi because their life fits his theory? Is that a possibility? If they find it doesn’t fit, do they find another therapist?

SGM – It has to do with the links you include. Spam filters stop comments with lots of links because spammers use those links.

Neither can your claim that “father-deficit theory is considered outdated by mainstream sexuality researchers” provide adequate grounds for dismissal of Nicolosi’s position. Do we know why they consider it outdated, and whether their opinion is based on a valid interpretation of the data?

StraightGrandmother= JR consider these statistics from
http://www.americanvalues.org/html/r-turning_the_corner.html

But, new statistics show that an estimated “80 percent of all African-American children will spend part of their childhood living apart from their fathers.” Seventy percent of African-American children are born to unmarried mothers and 40 percent of all children regardless of race, live in homes without fathers, according to the Morehouse statement.

Looking at the data, close to double the number of African American children live in homes without their fathers compared to the rest of the population. If there was a cause and affect of, no father or cold fish father = homosexuality why then there should be a virtual explosion of gay African Americans right? The problem with the Nicolsi theory is the facts do not bear out the theory. African Americans are not any more represented than they are in the general population.
http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/census-lgbt-demographics-studies/statewide-estimation-of-racialethnic-populations-of-men-who-have-sex-with-men-in-the-u-s/

Men who have sex with men (MSM) bear the greatest burden of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in every state in the U.S., but their populations are poorly defined. Authors of the study estimated and compared populations of MSM in 2007 by region, state, and race/ethnicity. Of an estimated 7.1 million MSM residing in the U.S. in 2007, 71.4% (5.1 million) were white, 15.9% (1.1 million) were Hispanic, 8.9% (635,000) were black, 2.7% (191,000) were Asian, 0.4% (26,000) were American Indian/Alaska Native, 0.1% (6,000) were Native Hawaiian/other Pacific Islander, and 0.6% (41,000) were of multiple/unknown race/ethnicity. The overall U.S. percentage of males who were MSM (6.4%) varied from 3.3% in South Dakota to 13.2% in the District of Columbia, which was treated as a state. Estimated numbers of MSM ranged from 9,612 in Wyoming to 1,104,805 in California.

If Nicolosi’s theory is right there should be way more African Americans who are MSM (men having sex with men) , I mean like WAY more.
JR =

I am a Christian who is struggling with how to reconcile the Bible’s position on Christianity with reality as we see it.

StraightGrandmother = I think you would be interested in reading John Smid’s blog
http://www.gracerivers.com/gays-repent/
Now John Smid was a board member for Exodus International and was the director of the in patient Love In Action outfit that tried real hard to change people from gay to heterosexual.

One cannot repent of something that is unchangeable. I have gone through a tremendous amount of grief over the many years that I spoke of change, repentance, reorientation and such, when, barring some kind of miracle, none of this can occur with homosexuality.

I have heard story after story of changes that have occurred as men and women find the grace of God in their lives as homosexual people. But, I’m sorry, this transformation process may not meet the expectations of many Christians. I also want to reiterate here that the transformation for the vast majority of homosexuals will not include a change of sexual orientation. Actually I’ve never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual. I have met some women who claim that is the case but then again, male sexuality and female sexuality are vastly biologically different so this would not be a fair comparison.

Warren did an article on John Smid when he first came out with his observations and I think he gave a good summary concluding paragraph

John Smid has been in the thick of the ex-gay ministry world since at least the mid-1990s, serving on the Exodus board and as the director of one of the most visible ministries in the nation. He has known and knows many more people who have tried to change than I have known. I think his experience is incredibly relevant for the church still struggling with how to address GLBT issues.

/2011/10/10/former-love-in-action-director-i%E2%80%99ve-never-met-a-man-who-experienced-a-change-from-homosexual-to-heterosexual/
JR as long as you are examining your sexual orientation and how it relates to being a Christian I would recomend a good book by John Shore. It is available on Amazon.com as a Kindle book. If you don’t have a Kindle, and I don’t, Amazon has a free app you download onto your computer and you can read Kindle books on your computer. It is $9.95 and is called

UNFAIR: Why the “Christian” View of Gays Doesn’t Work by John Shore

I have bought the book and highly recommend it, it is the best $10 you could possibly spend right now. Read the reviews where many people mention the last chapter. I concure you will find answers for yourself JR in the last chapter.

Neither can your claim that “father-deficit theory is considered outdated by mainstream sexuality researchers” provide adequate grounds for dismissal of Nicolosi’s position. Do we know why they consider it outdated, and whether their opinion is based on a valid interpretation of the data?

StraightGrandmother = JR consider these statistics from
But, new statistics show that an estimated “80 percent of all African-American children will spend part of their childhood living apart from their fathers.” Seventy percent of African-American children are born to unmarried mothers and 40 percent of all children regardless of race, live in homes without fathers, according to the Morehouse statement.
I am a Christian who is struggling with how to reconcile the Bible’s position on Christianity with reality as we see it.