It's time to turn the tide against the cynical and sinister bad guys of the "ex-gay" industry

Ben Unger and Chaim Levin, two Orthodox Jewish victims, tell of their involvement with the fraudulent and predatory "ex-gay" scam JONAH.

“These dysfunctional, unscientific programs are rife with sexual impropriety and need to be shut down. Too often, repressed ‘ex-gay’ quacks pretend they are trying to get into your head when they are really trying to get into your pants. They call what they do reparative therapy, but it’s more like re-perv-ative therapy.”

-- Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out

by Ken

I have a feeling that not all that many people, especially non-LGBT people, spend a lot of time fretting over the "ex-gay" scam. Which is too bad, because these people are bad news -- pretending to solve a problem that doesn't exist in the best circumstances, and alas, the circumstances are more likely to be the worst rather than the best. By and large these geniuses who claim to be able to turn gay folk straight are scam artists at best, and at the all-too-frequent worst just plain predators.

There are distinctions to be made in the world of homophobia. I'm prepared to believe that many, even most homophobes have arrived at the view that same-sex sexual preferences are "unnatural" and "wicked" by taking the word of deeply ignorant and dishonest people and institutions -- and then choosing not to devote any intelligent consideration to this, or for that matter most of the other cretinosities they have absorbed from the same sources. So okay, they're lazy and stupid, but not necessarily inherently vicious or malevolent. Even many of the institutional stooges who play their parts in passing on this accumulated ball of crap fall into this same category.

Oh, it's not that society doesn't pay a heavy price for the laziness and stupidity of the (mostly) religiously gulled. It does, it does. But there's a separate and more insidious category of homophobes: the ones who know they're running a scam on all those pathetic dimwits who'll believe anything if you dish it out with the right kinds of threats.

Frank Rich paid appropriate tribute to a prime homophobe of that school in the remarkable column from which Howie quoted earlier today, "The Good News About Mel Gibson," the good news being that the asshole has worn out his welcome even among the religious crazies who lined up solidly behind him as recently as the furor over his anti-Semitic orgy of homoerotic S&M, The Passion of the Christ:

Take, for instance, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals. During the “Passion” wars, he had tried to blackmail Gibson’s critics by publicly noting that Christians are “a major source of support for Israel” and that Jewish leaders would be “shortsighted” to “risk alienating two billion Christians over a movie.” That evangelical leader was Ted Haggard, the Colorado megachurch pastor since brought down by a male prostitute.

Ah, Pastor Ted! One of oh-so-many rabidly homophobic homosexers, a fraternity now too populous to count. And then there's recent inductee, lying scumbag "psychologist" George Rekkers, a man who made himself rich demonizing gay people, doing anything in his power -- especially when he could get himself paid for it -- to make their lives worse, while claiming himself to be able to "straighten" out people who only feel in need of "fixing" because pestilential vermin like him demonize them. And of course it turns out that the guy is a screaming closet queen.

Today we're concerned with a specimen named Alan Downing, not just an "ex-gay" scam artist, it appears, but a predator. Here's a press release on the subect from Truth Wins Out, which describes itself as "a non-profit organization that fights religious extremism, monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes their leaders as charlatans, specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality."

Major ‘Ex-Gay’ Life Coach Accused of Sexual Misconduct By Former Clients

Therapist Alan Downing, A Key Figure In JONAH and People Can Change, Allegedly Made Clients Get Naked And Touch Genitals

NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out (TWO) released an exclusive video statement today from two former clients of “ex-gay” life coach Alan Downing. The clients, Ben Unger and Chaim Levin, alleged that during individual therapy sessions, Downing made them undress in front of a mirror and touch their bodies while the significantly older therapist watched. Unger and Levin call the sessions a “psychological striptease” and believe they were harmed by what they consider unprofessional behavior and sexual misconduct.

Downing, who admits he is still attracted to men, is a major player in the “ex-gay” industry and a practitioner of so-called “reparative therapy”. He is the lead therapist for Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) and is listed on the People Can Change website as a “Senior Trainer” for Journey into Manhood, which is a controversial “ex-gay” backwoods retreat designed to supposedly make gay men more masculine.

“These dysfunctional, unscientific programs are rife with sexual impropriety and need to be shut down,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Too often, repressed ‘ex-gay’ quacks pretend they are trying to get into your head when they are really trying to get into your pants. They call what they do reparative therapy, but it’s more like re-perv-ative therapy.”

“He was encouraging me, ‘it’s okay Ben, you can take your shirt off’…here was a man that was much older than me, and I was around 20,” said Ben Unger, a former client of Alan Downing. “At that point, I was just staring at a mirror with my shirt off and he was right behind me staring at the mirror with me at my body. Then telling me to look at my body and feel my body. It was weird.”

“While I was standing there without my clothes on, he asked me to touch my genitals,” says former Downing client Chaim Levin. “Once again, I communicated that I was not comfortable with it. And he was like, you know, ‘just feel yourself. Just feel it for a second. So, you can grasp your masculinity physically.’”

“If you believe having a closeted gay therapist undressing clients makes one straight, than you’ll believe that playing doctor makes one a brain surgeon,” said TWO’s Besen. “The concept is both outrageous and ridiculous and these sick, exploitative practices should be abandoned immediately.”

JONAH was co-founded by Arthur Abba Goldberg, a Wall Street criminal mastermind who was convicted in 1987 of “fraud of spectacular scope”. Upon completing parole, Goldberg secretly reinvented himself as a moral leader who “cures” gay and lesbian people. Known as “Abba Dabba Do” in the financial world, Goldberg was sentenced to 18 months in jail for bilking poor communities with complicated bond schemes and served six months in prison.

“Given the sordid history of JONAH, this latest scandal is not too surprising,” said TWO’s Besen. “This is an unscrupulous organization of high moral turpitude that has few qualms about harming desperate and vulnerable clients. This group has consistently been tied to bizarre, sexually suggestive methods that are unsettling, dangerous and ineffective.”

Journey into Manhood, where Downing is a counselor, exhibits similar eyebrow raising techniques. Writer Ted Cox infiltrated this peculiar program and was surprised to find what he called, “homoerotic exercises” and a cabin that he called “The Cuddle Room” because it was a space where supposedly “ex-gay” men gave each other inappropriate massages.

“Apparently some of the guys in one cabin threw their mattresses into the middle of the room and had an all-night holding session,” said one of the men attending the Journey into Manhood session, according to Cox’s article.

“How ironic that therapists that claim to cure homosexuals keep ending up naked with their gay clients,” said TWO’s Besen. “Such lurid exploitation has moved from a disconcerting pattern to a full-blown trend and it needs to be investigated by the authorities.”

I have visions of a suitable punishment for, um, people like this, but it might be best to keep them to myself.

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