As a social worker and someone who has invested a great deal of time, effort and finances into psycho-therapy, I have to believe that dysfunctional thinking that leads to unhappiness, anxiety and destructive behavior can with the right therapy and therapist, be reconfigured. That said, as a gay man, I also know that my sexual orientation is not going to change as a result of any therapeutic processes nor at this point in my life do I have any desire to change it. Why should I? I may have many neurosis, but I don’t see my sexual orientation as being abnormal in any way.
Have you ever met someone who was once gay or lesbian and today is heterosexual? There is a reason for that, they don’t exist. And those delusional gay people who claim that they are now straight are speaking more out of fear and necessity than fact: They desperately want to be straight so they lie to themselves; they live in fear of the wrath of God, their church and community.
There are two kinds of people who insist that conversion or reparative therapies can work: LGBT people who can’t accept who they are or rigidly orthodox religious fanatics who must believe that sexual orientation is a choice like any of the other “evil” behaviors forbidden by our various religious traditions. While no one can yet definitively say when or how a person’s sexual orientation is determined, thank God, much of society is finally coming to the realization that concerns and fears about homosexuals have more to do with the dysfunctional thinking, outdated religious doctrines and homophobia than with LGBT people themselves.
Just a few days ago, a very courageous young man, Chaim Levin gave testimony to how useless and dangerous conversion therapies can be. It’s time to get the word out: The challenges posed by the status of LGBT people in our society are the creation of the people who can’t accept them. It’s not the LGBT people who need reparative therapy, it’s the people who live in fear of us and really believe that by loving a member of the same gender we will somehow destroy society and incur the wrath of God. Those who insist that LGBT people can and should change, are the people who really need be re-programmed.
Tent of Abraham 