Recently, on the Joni Show, ex-gay therapist Jerry Mungadze said his therapy helps rewire the brains of gay clients. Listen (see RWW for transcript):
If you want the full context, go to this segment on the Joni Show and hear the rest.
Mungadze did not say how he accomplished this or how he tested it. His website mentions neurotherapy but we are not given many specifics.
Being aware that Michael Bailey at Northwestern University has challenged ex-gay therapists to send clients to his lab for brain scans to assess change in sexual arousal patterns. I asked him if he was open to issuing the same challenge to Mungadze. As I expected he agreed enthusiastically. Essentially, the challenge requires that Mungadze send a client to his lab before and after therapy to see if sexual arousal patterns have changed. Mungadze can invite the press or any other observers if he wants to. Bailey and I have discussed this for several years and made these offers to others. Thus far, no one has taken him up on the offer. I wonder if Mungadze will.
Category: Professional issues
Christopher Doyle Misinforms Public on New Jersey Sexual Reorientation Bill
Like Matt Barber before him, Christopher Doyle is misleading his evangelical peers about a New Jersey bill which would prohibit sexual orientation change efforts for minors. Here is what Doyle told Christian Post readers:
The bill is being dubbed the Jerry Sandusky Victimization Act, because when sexually abused children are denied treatment to resolve the symptoms of trauma, criminals like convicted pedophile and former Penn State University football coach Jerry Sandusky, go undiscovered, sometimes for decades.
If this legislation becomes law, monsters like Sandusky will have more protection to victimize, because children who develop SSA as a result of abuse may never tell their parents. They may never tell their parents because organizations such as Garden State Equality, the largest gay activist group in New Jersey, are indoctrinating young people to believe that homosexuality is in-born, and if a child believes they are born gay, then the possibility of resolving homosexual feelings that result from sex abuse may never enter their mind.
Either Doyle has not read Senate Bill 2278 or he is deliberately withholding information from his readers. The New Jersey bill specifically addresses the concern about abuse. The entire bill will legislative comment is below.
SENATE, No. 2278
STATE OF NEW JERSEY, 215th LEGISLATURE
INTRODUCED OCTOBER 15, 2012
Sponsored by:
Senator RAYMOND J. LESNIAK, District 20 (Union)
Senator STEPHEN M. SWEENEY, District 3 (Cumberland, Gloucester and Salem)
Senator LORETTA WEINBERG, District 37 (Bergen)
SYNOPSIS
Protects minors by prohibiting counseling attempts to change sexual orientation.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
AN ACT concerning the protection of minors from counseling attempts to change sexual orientation and supplementing Title 45 of the Revised Statutes.
BE IT ENACTED by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. a. A person who is licensed to provide professional counseling under Title 45 of the Revised Statutes, including, but not limited to, a psychiatrist, licensed practicing psychologist, certified social worker, licensed clinical social worker, licensed social worker, licensed marriage and family therapist, certified psychoanalyst, or a person who performs counseling as part of the person’s professional training for any of these professions, shall not engage in sexual orientation change efforts with a person under 18 years of age.
b. As used in this section, “sexual orientation change efforts” means the practice of seeking to change a person’s sexual persuasion, including, but not limited to, efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to reduce or eliminate sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward a person of the same gender; except that sexual orientation change efforts shall not include counseling that:
(1) provides acceptance, support, and understanding of a person or facilitates a person’s coping, social support, and identity exploration and development, including sexual persuasion-neutral interventions to prevent or address unlawful conduct or unsafe sexual practices; and
(2) does not seek to change sexual persuasion.
2. This act shall take effect immediately.
STATEMENT
This bill prohibits counseling to change the sexual orientation of a minor.
Under the provisions of the bill, a person who is licensed to provide professional counseling, including, but not limited to, a psychiatrist, licensed practicing psychologist, certified social worker, licensed clinical social worker, licensed social worker, licensed marriage and family therapist, certified psychoanalyst, or a person who performs counseling as part of the person’s professional training, is prohibited from engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with a person under 18 years of age.
The bill defines “sexual orientation change efforts” as the practice of seeking to change a person’s sexual persuasion,including, but not limited to, efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to reduce or eliminate sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward a person of the same gender. The term, however, does not include counseling that: provides acceptance, support, and understanding of a person or facilitates a person’s coping, social support, identity exploration and development, including sexual persuasion-neutral interventions to prevent or address unlawful conduct or unsafe sexual practices; and does not seek to change sexual persuasion.
Please note the section which addresses the issue of sexual abuse:
…except that sexual orientation change efforts shall not include counseling that:
(1) provides acceptance, support, and understanding of a person or facilitates a person’s coping, social support, and identity exploration and development, including sexual persuasion-neutral interventions to prevent or address unlawful conduct or unsafe sexual practices;
The bill correctly separates sexual abuse recovery from sexual reorientation. If a person is confused in their attractions after a trauma, then recovery from the trauma may bring some clarity to sexual attractions. This facilitation of coping and identity exploration is allowed by the law. Furthermore, the law allows therapists to discuss issues surrounding abuse (“unlawful conduct”).
In his Christian Post article, Doyle takes his opponents to task for presenting false witness. However, it seems clear that he has misrepresented the bill in his comments. Oppose the bill if you believe you should but don’t do it for false reasons.
Does the APA consider hebephilia to be normal?
That question is being asked by Ray Blanchard in a letter to the editor (read entire letter here) of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Blanchard is the former chair of the Paraphilias Subworkgroup of the APA’s DSM V Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Workgroup. DSM stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. The new 5th edition is slated to be released any day now and has attracted much controversy for a variety of reasons.
Generally, there is no more controversial area of the DSM than the section on sexual disorders. Blanchard’s subworkgroup recommended including reference to hebephilia in the section on paraphilias in the new edition. Hebephilia is defined as primary sexual interest in children who are in early puberty (i.e., at Tanner Stages 2 and 3, often corresponding to development between ages 11 and 14). Blanchard begins his letter by noting that “on December 1, 2012, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) announced that its Board of Trustees (BOT) had voted to reject the changes to the diagnostic criteria for pedophilic disorder proposed by the Paraphilias Subworkgroup for DSM-5 and to retain the diagnostic criteria published in DSM-IV-TR [i.e., a sexual preference for prepubertal, i.e., Tanner Stage 1, children, nowadays about age 10 or younger].”
Blanchard believes the proposed change would have allowed more precise diagnosis and research of people who have sexual preferences for early pubescent children but not younger, pre-pubescent children or adults. However, for reasons that are not clear, the APA Board of Trustees did not accept the recommended changes.
The fact that the APA did not make this change raises questions. Blanchard asks if the APA wants to discourage research on hebephilia. Furthermore, Blanchard wonders if the current DSM allows for hebephilia to be diagnosed under the category “other specified paraphilic disorder.” In other words, can clinicians and researchers use the “other” category to give label to individuals with hebephilia. Ultimately, according to Blanchard, the answers to these questions may provide insight into the APA’s stance on normal sexual preferences. He writes
It remains to be seen how the BOT [board of trustees] will respond to these questions when they start to arise in real-life settings, which they will. It seems to me that there are only two possibilities. If the BOT denies that it meant to assert that the sexual preference for children in early puberty is normal, then it has to allow the diagnosis of ‘other specified paraphilic disorder (hebephilia).’ If the BOT, or someone officially speaking on behalf of the BOT or the whole APA, states or testifies that the BOT intended to prohibit the diagnosis of ‘other specified paraphilic disorder (hebephilia),’ then that is tantamount to stating that the APA’s official position is that the sexual preference for early pubertal children is normal.
Elsewhere in his letter, Blanchard states that sexual preference for early pubertal children doesn’t “square with the average layperson’s concept of sexual normalcy and probably does not square with the average clinician’s either.” I agree and believe Blanchard raises some important issues which I hope the APA will address.
Note: On May 16, I asked the APA PR dept for comment on Blanchard’s letter. No response as of today (May 17). I will post anything I get.
Based on Biased Reading of New Mortality Study, Paul Cameron Gives Sen. Portman Parenting Advice
In this month’s edition of the International Journal of Epidemiology, Morten Frisch and Jacob Simonsen reported a new study of mortality in Denmark. Paul Cameron wasted little time trotting out the study to give Senator Rob Portman advice on how to parent his gay son – tell him to get married to a woman. Apparently, any woman will do. After all, in the words of the song, what’s love got to do with it?
Cameron says he even went to Ohio to deliver his advice:
COLUMBUS, Ohio, April 24, 2013 /Christian Newswire/ — Dr. Paul Cameron, the first scientist to document the harms of secondhand smoke, went to Ohio’s capital to call upon U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) to reconsider his recently announced support for gay marriage. “Sen. Portman, gay marriage is hazardous to one’s health. For the sake of the son you love, urge him to marry a woman.”
Cameron did say at least one thing that was true in his presser:
Cameron said, “Bad science is bipartisan…”
Proven by Cameron’s own press release, bad science is indeed everywhere. And bad advice. One of the findings of the Frisch and Simonsen study is that mortality for same-sex married men is better than “unmarried, divorced and widowed men.” It is also important to note that the mortality rates for gay married men have improved since Frisch’s last study. Cameron doesn’t tell you that.
Cameron and Frisch tangled on this blog back in 2007 and 2008. Cameron made his mortality claims in a “study” presented before the Eastern Psychological Association and Frisch responded to him as a part of a nine-part series I did on gay mortality claims. Frisch’s first study on gay mortality was done in part to address Cameron’s spurious claims.
To understand more about Paul Cameron and his feelings about gays, read part 9 of the series. Disturbingly enlightening.
I have asked Morten for additional reactions and will have more reflections on the study in a coming post.
The Scandal of the Evangelical Double Mind
In his 1995 book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, Mark Noll wrote, “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”
Recently, at Patheos, Eastern University professor Peter Enns updated Noll and added that “The real scandal of the Evangelical mind is that we are not allowed to use it.”
Today, I want to extend Enns and Noll and assert that the evangelical mind, such that it is, is double minded.
First, let me say that Enns makes an observation which sounds quite familiar to me:
Calling for Evangelical involvement in public academic discourse is useless if trained Evangelicals are legitimately afraid of what will happen to them if they do.
As a participant in the great sexual reorientation wars of the past decade and the current controversy over David Barton and American history, I can tell you that the culture war complex does not seek or accept well scholarship that does not support current culture war talking points. For instance, after Thomas Nelson dropped Barton’s The Jefferson Lies, Wallbuilder’s number two man, Rick Green, compared Barton’s Christian critics to Hitler and Saul Alinsky. Green wrote:
Question: What do elitist professors have in common with Adolf Hitler & Saul Alinsky?
Answer: They masterfully use the powerful art of innuendo to falsely defame those with which they disagree.
That kind of thing is shocking, but I am mostly numb to it after years of this give and take. However, I think most academics are a little skittish about such vitriol over doing what academics do.
Enns adds:
The scandal of the Evangelical mind is that degrees, books, papers, and other marks of prestige are valued–provided you come to predetermined conclusions.
Persistence pays off and real headway has been made in the sexuality arena, but I still see a blackout of sexual orientation research among Christian media. As I have documented, important studies of sexuality and gender have been reported in the popular press but haven’t risen to the level of newsworthiness in the Christian press. Even though evangelical scholars take these studies seriously, the consumers of culture war and Christian media probably won’t hear about them if the research implicates a biological origin for homosexuality.
On the American history front, many of the popular media sources have ignored the David Barton controversy (e.g,, I don’t think Christianity Today has touched the subject). Many popular radio hosts simply won’t allow another point of view on their programs. I am glad that World Magazine has been the clear exception.
In 2011, Thomas Kidd pointed out that evangelicals are bosses at creating subcultures (e.g., Christian music, Christian television, Christian publishers). We also have our in-house “experts.” Others (e.g., Stephens & Giberson in The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age) have pointed out that these evangelical experts rarely have deep academic training in their chosen subject.
Now we come to the double-minded part. The experts (e.g., David Barton) create their niche by demeaning academic work, even by Christian scholars. Witness Barton’s defense of his work. As noted previously, his radio show co-host blasted us with comparisons to Hitler and Alinsky. With condescension, Barton blasted Coulter and me for being “academic elitists” and added
It is striking that the negative critiques of The Jefferson Lies revolve around the academic arrogance that says “Unless we tell you so, it just can’t be; we are the sole gatekeepers of historical truth.” But Governor Mike Huckabee, in speaking of my approach to history, stated: “In typical Barton style, every syllable is given scholarly research and backed up with source documents. Those who hate America and God’s Word won’t like it, but they won’t be able to discredit it.” Clearly, academics such as Throckmorton, Coulter, Jenkinson, Crawford, et. al., simply don’t like what the self-evident documentation actually proves.
Here is the scandal of the evangelical double-mind. On one hand, evangelicals spend lots of money to send their children to evangelical colleges, and they want those children to learn their lessons well. On the other hand, with donations to culture war organizations, they prop up self-anointed experts who tell them that academic rigor, training, and skill are barriers to the real truth, hidden away by stuffy, arrogant professors. Want to know something about history (science, sexuality, etc.)? Don’t call your child’s Christian college professor; call David Barton.
All of this should be deeply troubling to evangelicals. Actually, the kids are not alright; we are losing them in buckets. I have to say that I believe one of the factors is the anti-intellectual stance of the organizations which say they represent us. By and large, these groups need to do an audit of the claims they make (scientific, historical, etc.) and allow Christian scholars of various views to weigh in. In addition, I think it would be helpful if the Christian media complex would report about research on hot scientific topics. And when they do, they need to go find academics who are doing the research and get comment from those Christian researchers and professors who understand the nuances of the topic.
I start with the premise that science is no threat to faith. If scientific work seems to conflict with tenets of my religion, I accept the tension until I understand things better. Extending that belief to history, I do not need the founders to be evangelicals in order to enjoy and defend American freedom for people of my faith, another faith, and no faith.
Loving God with all my mind doesn’t mean splitting it in two. If a study of science or history tells me something uncomfortable, I do not retool the science or history to make me comfortable. I walk by faith, live with the tension, and accept what is in front of my face.