Pray Away The Gay
The above is the issue which seems to keep coming up. Katy Perry, whilst receiving the National Equality Award in Los Angeles revealed how in her youth, she went to “pray away the gay Jesus camps” when she started to become sexually aware.
For years, organisations like the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy have fought to expose the out right fraud of these organisations. By fraud, I mean that these “camps” and indeed “therapists” have no psychological validity to their work. They only have a belief that in some way homosexuality is an abomination and therefore must be cured.
In my own practice, I have seen the results of such interventions. They lead to the person feeling wrong for who they are. I have, myself, written on this subject before and still find the whole idea of it ghastly. The established medical and psychological world have long since come out of the dark ages and realise that homosexuals are people just like straight people and they do not suffer from some pathology or deviancy.
It is time to say that reparative therapy is not therapy, it is hate. In any other circumstance, this would be seen as discrimination. However, because it cloaks itself in faith, all of a sudden it gains acceptance. It is my fervent hope that the UK will see an end to this form of discrimination in the very near future. We in the psychotherapeutic community, must say enough is enough and push even harder to see this bogus form of treatment go the way of leeches and be consigned to the dustbin of history.
