Category: Religion and sexuality

JONAH Guilty of Consumer Fraud According to NJ Jury

That didn’t take long.
Today, the jury in the sexual orientation change case in NJ said Jews Offering New Alternatives to Healing (JONAH) was guilty of consumer fraud by claiming sexual orientation can be changed.
According the report, the jury found that JONAH founders Arthur Goldberg and Elaine Berk and life coach Alan Downing:

…engaged in unconscionable commercial practices” and misrepresented their services.

This is a big deal and should have a chilling effect on such services elsewhere. Hopefully, fewer therapists will engage in such practices and instead work with clients in conflict over sexual attractions to explore realistic options.
JONAH will have to refund fees collected.
 

A Few Thoughts on The Village Church Controversy

UPDATE: Christianity Today is reporting this evening that Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church, plans to apologize to his church this weekend during Sunday services. He gave CT some comments which indicated that he believes the elders were “domineering” and “sinned against some people.”
Matthew Paul Turner has an email he says is an apology to the Village Church members from the elders. It appears that The Village Church elders have made a better move.
……………….
This post will be of most interest to those who have been following the controversy involving The Village Church and a former missionary couple, Jordan Root and Karen Hinkley (formerly Karen Root). I have received several requests from readers to comment on the matter. I will briefly summarize but to really get up to speed, there are several lengthy documents which must be read (see links at the end).
The Roots were missionaries to Asia with Serving in Mission (SIM) and supported by The Village Church beginning in August 2014. In December, Jordan Root confessed to his wife that he was attracted to minors and had used child pornography for years. This admission set off a cascade of events including return from the mission field, an FBI investigation, and Karen having the marriage annulled. She also left The Village Church which has become a major point of contention with the church as the church covenant doesn’t allow members to leave which under church discipline. According to the church, Hinkley is under church discipline because she completed the process to have the marriage annulled.
As I understand it, Mr. Root has not contested his ex-wife’s claims and the The Village Church has allowed him to attend as long as he avoids children and is supervised. The church considers Ms. Hinkley to be under church discipline and sent a letter to their 6,000 members advising them of their action toward Ms. Hinkley. Ms. Hinkley said she made the matter public because she was concerned that Mr. Root might have sexually offended in past positions where he was in the company of children and because she believes The Village Church is overstepping proper boundaries by trying to keep her as a member and by placing her under church discipline.
First, it is tragic that any of this is happening and I have prayed every day for everybody involved.
Second, I read on one of the blogs that the church had been criticized for not contacting former employers or families where Mr. Root had worked with children. In this case, I think caution is in order. The research of psychologist Elizabeth Loftus provides ample evidence that communications with young children can trigger recollections of events which did not happen. The “lost in a shopping mall” paradigm indicates that such contamination can occur in older people too. People can be induced to believe misinformation depending on how questions are asked. Experts in memory and working with children should be consulted on this point.
Third,  I can’t discern if Mr. Root has been involved with experts in sexuality and sexual orientation. Most counselors are not equipped to help people who struggle with this problem. Mr. Root should be in touch with a trained and experienced professional in addition to whatever spiritual care he is getting. There are also support groups of adults attracted to children who work to help those who struggle not become sexual offenders.
Finally, The Village Church’s allegiance to the man-made church covenant is such an overwhelmingly unimportant distraction to the repair of these two people. Karen Hinkley needs to leave the church in peace and Mr. Root needs for this to leave the public square.
There is precious little in the New Testament about church membership and nothing that I can find about signing a perpetually binding church covenant. I will grant that some instructions to the early church imply some kind of affiliation with a local body of believers, but we have no instruction about church forms, covenants, by-laws and/or constitutions.
For what it is worth, I got a Mars Hill Church feeling when I read this:

Karen has been through a terrible experience due to Jordan’s sin and wants to heal in her own way. Why are we continuing to pursue communication with Karen or even trying to minister to her if she does not want us to do so?
This is a tragic situation, and we are grieving with Karen. While the wounds of sin may be deep, Scripture states that the best care and counsel comes from the hope and comfort of the gospel, through the ministered Word in the care and community of the saints, particularly the local church. In our Membership Covenant, we articulate this belief and covenant with our members to be there for them in any type of situation, good or bad, including dealing with the aftermath of a spouse’s sin. In signing that Membership Covenant, a member agrees with that belief and covenants with us to receive that care. In essence, by signing the Membership Covenant, Karen asked us to minister to her in good times or bad, regardless of what might come.

As a Christian just watching this train wreck from afar, let me add my voice to the chorus of other believers asking The Village Church to let it go. Ms. Hinkley has been through enough without having to fight people who say they are serving her.
To conclude, I will refer back to thought number one above.
For reference see:
Watchkeep Blog’s initial post on the matter.
The Village Church letter to members.
Karen Hinkley’s response to The Village Church letter about the situation.
 

Desire, Faith & Therapy: Sexual Orientation and Orthodox Jews; Rabbinical Council Rejects JONAH

Desire Conf ColumbiaOn Sunday, I participated in a conference titled Desire, Faith and Therapy at the Kraft Jewish Student Center at Columbia University on appropriate therapeutic responses to sexual orientation. The conference was designed for therapists, rabbis and other interested members of the Orthodox Jewish community.
From the brochure:
 

“Desire, Faith and Psychotherapy” presents a Psychoanalytic perspective on sexual orientation and gender identity in the Orthodox Jewish community. We will explore the intersection of psychological, religious and communal issues that present with LGBT people from Orthodox & Hasidic communities. The program features experts in the field and professionals with experience working with this population. They will review the latest research and develop a conceptual framework in which therapists and Orthodox rabbis can work together to offer the best care.

I didn’t let the organizers know in time to make the brochure but I spoke as a part of a panel with Jack Drescher and Rabbi Mark Dratch. Drescher covered research and history of sexual orientation change efforts, Rabbi Dratch covered the position of the Rabbinical Council of America and I described the sexual identity therapy framework.
Rabbinical Council of America Repudiates Reparative Therapy and JONAH
The framework seemed to fit the audience well in that affirming and non-affirming members of the Orthodox community were present and interested in working together for best practices. I was pleased to hear Rabbi Dratch describe the Rabbinical Council’s repudiation of JONAH, and reparative therapy in general. Dratch told the crowd that the Rabbinical Council asked JONAH numerous times to remove the 2004 letter recommending JONAH. In fact, even after the Council issued their repudiation of JONAH, the 2004 endorsement remains up on JONAH’s website. JONAH advertises falsely in more ways than one.
The lawsuit against JONAH will be a test of the consumer protection laws in New Jersey. JONAH continues to claim efficacy from the strange practices used to try to change sexual orientation. With a couple of exceptions, the crowd at the conference seemed to join the sentiment expressed by the Rabbinical Council concerning JONAH.
My powerpoint can be viewed here.

Salon on Mixed Orientation Marriages in the Middle of Same-Sex Marriage Case

digitalcoupleimageYesterday, Salon’s Tracy Clark-Flory examined mixed orientation marriages as a possible new political statement against same-sex marriage. The article was triggered by the amicus brief filed by a Utah attorney on behalf of some people in mixed orientation marriages. She also interviewed me for the article and I am quoted extensively.
While my survey results are still unpublished (I keep getting distracted), the study has helped inform my views on the subject. Some essentially same-sex attracted men and women fall in love with a member of the other sex. While most of these marriages deal with issues other couples don’t have to address, there are many who are quite satisfied with the arrangement. They are not of necessity loveless, passionless marriages. However, the vast majority of these people don’t develop attraction to the other sex in any general sense. The baseline attractions remain about the same. On average, the people I surveyed demonstrated more same-sex attraction, not less.
In my opinion, there is no political benefit for any side in these results and I hope “mixed orientation marriage” doesn’t become the new “ex-gay.” Ex-gay became a political weapon and the political demands turned ex-gay into a caricature. In my view, the experiences of these couples have no relevance to the Supreme Court’s deliberations.

Should Discrimination Ever Be Permitted In the Name of Religious Freedom?

The saga of Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act has intensified the conversation about religious reasons for discrimination. Are there ever any defensible religiously based reasons for discriminating against a protected class?

One source I consulted on this was the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidance on religious discrimination. The following section seems relevant to the matter of competing discrimination claims (religious v. something else):

Thus, a religious organization is not permitted to engage in racially discriminatory hiring by asserting that a tenet of its religious beliefs is not associating with people of other races.  Similarly, a religious organization is not permitted to deny fringe benefits to married women but not to married men by asserting a religiously based view that only men can be the head of a household.

EXAMPLE 7
Sex Discrimination Not Excused

Justina works at Tots Day Care Center.  Tots is run by a religious organization that believes that, while women may work outside of the home if they are single or have their husband’s permission, men should be the heads of their households and the primary providers for their families.  Believing that men shoulder a greater financial responsibility than women, the organization pays female teachers less than male teachers.  The organization’s practice of unequal pay based on sex constitutes unlawful discrimination.[49]

The footnote for the case of Justina goes to the following court decision:

EEOC v. Fremont Christian Sch., 781 F.2d 1362 (9th Cir. 1986) (religious school violated Title VII and the Equal Pay Act when it provided “head of household” health insurance benefits only to single persons and married men).

Think about it. There may be bakers and florists and photographers who still believe miscegenation is wrong for religious reasons. Should a photographer’s religious objection to taking pictures at a wedding of two people of different races be protected? Should the act of refusing to take pictures be protected behavior? The EEOC suggest that the answer would be no.
To the example above. If owners of a daycare are forced to pay equal wages to men and women in violation of their religious beliefs, do the owners suffer religious discrimination? According to EEOC v. Fremont Christian, the Christian school engaged in unlawful discrimination by failing to treat married women the same as married men. Thus, sex discrimination trumps religious freedom.
The open question is does the government’s interest in non-discrimination override religious reasons for such discrimination. If so, what set of facts could lead a court to say certain religious objections trump the government’s interest in equal treatment?