Orientation change?

One part of the Bishops' doc sure to cause controversy is this one about the possibility of "changing" sexual "orientation." Its cautious wording is important:

A considerable number of people who experience same-sex attraction experience it as an inclination that they did not choose. Many of these speak of their homosexual attractions as an unwanted burden. This raises the question of whether or not a homosexual inclination can be changed with the help of some kind of therapeutic intervention.
There is currently no scientific consensus on the cause of the homosexual inclination. There is no consensus on therapy. Some have found therapy helpful. Catholics who experience homosexual tendencies and who wish to explore therapy should seek out the counsel and assistance of a qualified professional who has preparation and competence in psychological counseling and who understands and supports the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. They should also seek out the guidance of a confessor and spiritual director who will support their quest to live a chaste life.

This strikes every note. There is no scientific consensus on the question of change, properly understood, because there is no scientific consensus on the cause of homosexuality beyond the obvious -- that the cause is complex and the result of the interaction of a bunch of factors, which is only a little better than "we have no frickin idea." (This lack of consensus should not be conflated with a 1984-like conformity among professional groups on bad questions informed by false ideology.)¹

The church leaves open the possibility of "changing," and makes the noncommitally bland statement "some have found [it] helpful." That "change" is *possible* is something all but rigidly blinded ideologues know upon reflection (though it does require getting beyond the whole "gay-straight" discourse). But the USCCB doesn't hold out too much hope (as it shouldn't in fact, and would be beyond its competence in any event).

But as a general indication of priorities, understand that this section, called "Therapy for Homosexual Inclinations?" (note the question mark) constitutes 142 words -- my quote above is its entirety. In contrast, "Homosexual Inclination Is Not Itself a Sin" (note the lack of a question mark) has 618 words; "The Necessity for Training in Virtue" (ditto, plus the term "Necessity") has 733 words; "The Necessity of Friendship and Community" (double ditto) has 396 words. Word-counts are an imperfect measure, sure, but given those noted differences in tone, this is clearly just an aside for the US bishops.

Which inevitably leads to the endorsement of Courage in Note 44. And as someone at Beliefnet asked me earlier tonight (My response in the subsequent paragraphs is adapted from two different notes, with a couple of minor edits for clarity and missed nuance):

Can you explain why the focus is allegedly on being chaste, yet there are links throughout the Courage website to NARTH, Exodus, PFOX and other reversion therapy advocates?

Because some of our members pursue this path. But it is not a requirement or an official goal of the organization. Here are the five goals of Courage, said at every meeting, and orientation change is not one of them (#1 pretty strongly implies otherwise). Here are the description of the apostolate and the article on the Website linked to what is chastity. Neither contain any reference to orientation change. So anyone whose primary description of Courage is "an attempt to change orientation" simply doesn't know what he's talking about.

Now that isn't to say that some members don't pursue this and as the FAQs say, they are at liberty to do so but it is not any kind of requirement. Nor does it mean that Courage discourages their doing so. Or that the central office, or individual chapters and pastors, or Web sites must not provide information on where and how. The group is officially agnostic on the subject (which isn't to say that some of its members aren't). But the goal is Christ not getting hard or damp from the opposite sex.

It is true that at the Courage Web site you will find links to the mentioned groups (plus about 5 others to ex-gay or conversion ministries) among the 50 or so links on the Related Websites page. The "Books, Tapes and Videos" section also has some material that comes from that perspective -- again, among much else. But after spending about a half-hour skimming around the Web site (not exhaustive, sure, but it's not a very elaborate site), that was pretty much all I could find.

Both the amount and the segregated presentation seem about right to me. Their availability is made known for those interested. But it is not in the same place as our own material -- the mission statement, the FAQs, the conference and event listings, the solicits, the Web sites, etc. It's a well-established Internet convention by now that the mere offering of a link doesn't entail endorsement of everything at that site -- merely a general nod that "this is a site of potential common interest, but not our voice per se." This is also true of Beliefnet, the Democratic National Committee site and Instapundit.

So if the question is "does Courage have any link or relationships to these groups whatsoever?" The answer to that is clearly "yes, by a very broad definition of 'relationship' that also would prove that Courage has a relationship to Islam (StraightWay is on the links page)." And there is sufficient common ground that people who advocate reparative therapy have spoken at our conferences, and we don't treat them as ritually unclean pariahs. But that's pretty small potatoes, and linking from the site doesn't prove otherwise.² The USCCB document, which I think could have been written by a well-formed Courage member, pretty clearly indicates from space and rhetoric that "orientation change" is a small part of the Church teaching and not a big priority compared with a much broader orientation change that all need. In fact, here is how it transitions into the next segment after its "Therapy for Homosexual Inclinations?" segment.

There is another kind of “therapy” or healing of which we all stand in need, regardless of whether one is attracted to the same or the opposite sex: Every person needs training in the virtues.

Which is the "The Necessity for Training in Virtue" segment. In fact, I wish I could say I influenced the following segment ...

To acquire a virtue—to become temperate, brave, just, or prudent—we must repeatedly perform acts that embody that virtue, acts that we accomplish with the help of the Holy Spirit and with the guidance and encouragement of our teachers in virtue. ... The acquisition of virtues requires a sustained effort and repeated actions. As the ancient philosophers recognized, the more one repeats good actions, the more one’s passions (such as love, anger, and fear) become shaped in accord with good action.

Which sound suspiciously like this post (OK, fairly unremarkable, but I'll take my synchronicity or Providence where I can)

To wax personal: I'm pretty much a "Kinsey 6" (or maybe a 7), have been for as long as it's meaningful to call me a sexual being, and don't expect this to change any time soon. Being attracted to women is something that I hope for only in the sense that one hopes to win the lottery. My confessor knows all this and has never told me I have to "become straight" or marry. He did strongly encourage me to see a therapist, but about issues relating to my homosexuality and how I act out on it, not for the thing-in-itself. But to get all Matrix-y, if I were offered (1) a blue pill that would prevent me from ever having a sexual thought about a man or acting therein, but didn't change my complete lack of interest in women, or (2) a red pill that would give me normal response to women, but make me a compulsive womanizer, I'd take the blue pill without a second's hesitation.
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¹ Aside: I've never really understood why pro-gay groups think that they should push the genetic-inborn theory. Well ... I do understand its short-term appeal (publicly, it seems to clinch the analogy of "sexuality" to race and sex; privately, it salves/deadens the conscience). But does anybody imagine that if we find a "gay gene" or a definitive cause based in hormones or amniotic-fluid or the like, that a pre-natal test for these factors disposing to homosexuality will be far behind? And like with girls in China and India, that the abortion rates will ... adjust.
² I will caveat the following: Some members do in fact pursue the "orientation-change" attempt. So, human group dynamics being what they are, it wouldn't surprise me if in some chapters, there might be more (or less) de-facto "peer pressure" or "groupthink" to do this.

On tonight's 'Media Crossfire'

On the left ... Fox News. On the right ... the Los Angeles Times.

No, really.

Read this Fox News report about denunciations of the ex-gay ministry Exodus, which met last week in Southern California, under the headline "Former Leaders of Ex-Gay Ministry Apologize for 'Bringing Harm'," and remind yourself that this is the far-right organ of the christofascist godbags (HT: private e-mail from Irenaeus).

Three former leaders of an international ministry that counsels gays to change their sexual orientation apologized for their efforts, saying that though they acted sincerely, their message had caused isolation, shame and fear.
The former leaders of the interdenominational Christian organization Exodus International said Wednesday they had all, over time, become disillusioned with the group's ideas and concerned about what they described as the wrenching human toll of such gay conversion efforts.
"Some who heard our message were compelled to try to change an integral part of themselves, bringing harm to themselves and their families," the three, including former Exodus co-founder Michael Bussee, said in a joint written statement presented at a news conference in Hollywood. "Although we acted in good faith, we have since witnessed the isolation, shame, fear and loss of faith that this message creates."

Needless to say, the usual suspects are crowing. And needless to say, wrongly.

Admittedly, the first word is "former," but unless you read the article carefully or know the names or the backstory, it doesn't leap out to you that the speakers aren't just "former" in the sense that Bill Clinton is a "former president." It would be more accurate to describe Bussee as a "disgruntled" ex-gay, something the article mentions only late and in passing. His criticism of Exodus is about as meaningful as a 1980 article about a former Democrat apologizing for the damage his party had done through the Great Society and the "acid, amnesty and abortion culture." Then mentioning that it was Ronald Reagan's stump speech. Or describing David Brock or Damon Linker as "former conservatives," without mentioning that "disgruntled ex-conservative" is now their official role.

I don't mean to be hard on Bussee, but no therapeutic program can ever, in principle, work if the patient walks away or convinces himself, through whatever means, that his condition is something good. Fox notes that Bussee left Exodus to pursue a sexual relationship with another man. I really do understand that resisting a lifetime of habit is hard enough, even apart from cultural propaganda. And that the male organ does have a mind of its own. But Bussee's giving up once a man gave him the hots sufficiently is still a pitch-perfect example of Chesterton's epigram that "the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." In this case, "abandoned" might fit better than "untried," but the point is the same. Instead, Bussee surrendered to Woody Allen morality: The heart wants what the heart wants.

But the better news is that incredibly, and I found this via an article at the California Catholic about the confluence of the Exodus and "Ex-Gay Survivor" conferences, this very good Los Angeles Times piece notes how both the "ex-gay survivors" and Exodus are backing off some of their indefensible claims.

Despite the fundamental gulf that divides them, gay-rights activists and those who see homosexuality as a sinful disorder are starting to reach agreement on some practical points.

They seem to be coming closer to, dare I say, a more-Catholic view of same-sex attraction. (Father John Harvey is cited at the bottom of the Cal Catholic article). I think that the grandiose promises of some people associated with Exodus simply feeds the kind of frustration that produces cases like Bussee. I would have long ago become a self-identified gay, living the lifestyle in Dupont Circle, if the standard for holiness were "never having homosexual feelings" or "never having the standard male reaction in response to them."

But at the one end, the current head of Exodus Alan Chambers, who actually IS on board with the group's mission, acknowledges that "conversion" is slow and imperfect, and probably never complete.

... Chambers won't celebrate successful "ex-gays." Truth is, he's not sure he's ever met one.
With years of therapy, Chambers says, he has mostly conquered his own attraction to men; he's a husband and a father, and he identifies as straight. But lately, he's come to resent the term "ex-gay": It's too neat, implying a clean break with the past, when he still struggles at times with homosexual temptation. "By no means would we ever say change can be sudden or complete," Chambers said. ...
Chambers and other Exodus leaders talk deliberately about a possible biological basis for homosexuality, in part to explain that no one can turn a switch and flip from gay to straight, no matter how hard they pray.

Evangelicals tend toward a soteriology of "once saved, always saved," with salvation being a onetime, definable event that divides your life into "Before Christ" and "After Christ." Since religious doctrine shapes imagination, even when it's not intellectually cited, it's not surprising that evangelicals should see "conversion" sexually as analogous to "conversion" spiritually. And set themselves up for a fall. And while the move against that model is merely personal for Chambers, that it is occurring at all is heartening.

While it's not surprising, as the LA Times cites, that the anti-ex-gay side should "[see] it as a sign of openness," the article also notes that they're at least modifying their tune somewhat on therapy, again bringing it somewhat more in line with what the Church teaches (unintentionally in this case, I'm sure).

He and other gay activists — along with major mental-health associations — still reject therapy aimed at "liberating" or "curing" gays.
But Bussee is willing to acknowledge potential in therapy that does not promise change but instead offers patients help in managing their desires and modifying their behavior to match their religious values — even if that means a life of celibacy.
"It's about helping clients accept that they have these same-sex attractions and then allowing them the space, free from bias, to choose how they want to act," said Lee Beckstead, a gay psychologist in Salt Lake City who uses this approach.
The guidelines for this type of therapy — written by Warren Throckmorton of Grove City College and Mark Yarhouse of Regent University — have been endorsed by representatives on both the left and right. The list includes the provost of a conservative evangelical college and the psychiatrist whose gay-rights advocacy in the 1970s got homosexuality removed from the official medical list of mental disorders.
"What appeals to me is that it moves away from the total polarization" common in the field, said Dr. Robert Spitzer, the psychiatrist.
"For many years, mental-health professionals have taken the view that since homosexuality is not a mental disorder, any attempt to change sexual orientation is unwise," said Spitzer, a Columbia University professor.

Every little bit of progress is noted -- the gay therapist refers to "these same-sex attractions," which refers strictly to what can be known (phenomena) and avoids the reifying (and therefore obscurantist) language of sexual orientation. There have been a series of reports in recent months that the APA is considering re-listing "unwanted homosexuality" as a mental-health condition (something I would definitely acknowledge as existing in my own case). As follows:

APA President Gerald P. Koocher affirmed a patients’ right to help at a Town Hall Meeting at the organization’s annual convention in New Orleans. Koocher stated, “APA has no conflict with psychologists who help those distressed by unwanted homosexual attraction.”

The rubber will hit the road when the APA's gay caucus and the rest of its pro-gay membership has to approve a course of action -- will it say approved therapies can "modify[] their behavior to match their religious values" and, in Beckstead's words, "allow[] them the space, free from bias" to do this. After all, the most rabid gay activist can easily acknowledge "unwanted homosexuality" as a condition, but say that the only approved courses of action are those intended to get the patient to "want" homosexuality. Again, this is closer to the Church's teaching that behavior is normative and that "orientation" is a category suspect at best.

I don't quite know how optimistic to be about the APA's vote next year -- there are some doubts about the review panel's composition. Its decision in 1973 to remove homosexuality from the DSM was not a medical or scientific decision at all, but a philosophical one that "gay is good." The work of pro-gay head-shrinkers since merely presuppose this and build on it; they don't and can't actually prove it as true. The head of the APA's gay caucus more or less says as much. Their criticism of anti-gay therapy is not its success or failure, but because it is Badthought.

Anderson conceded that it is the motivation of many therapists involved in reparative and conversion therapies, rather that the effectiveness of the programs, with which he takes issue.
"The APA, of course, recognizes the issue of client autonomy to set their goals," Anderson said. "But we also still see that people who promote reparative therapy are promoting a prejudicial attitude toward homosexuality."

If we must call psychiatry a science (and I am very reluctant to for the reason here¹), a medical decision could in principle have been soundly made within the APA's scientific competence. "There is nothing known that can counter this condition" is not different in principle from "this cancer is inoperable," a judgment in which an oncologist is, in fact, expert. But instead the decision has been taken as giving unimpeachable "scientific" support to what is nothing more than a certain philosophical anthropology, which science is incompetent to critique. An oncologist has nothing to say on whether it is good to have cancer (that's a matter, to use Mr. Anderson's lingo ... "for client autonomy, which psychiatrists [of course] respects"). It misses the point to call an oncologist "wrong" on that issue, in the sense that someone who says 2+2=5 is "wrong. "The point is that said oncologist is not even right enough to be "wrong," instead being more like the man who says "2+2 demonstrates that your love is like a red, red rose."
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¹ The universal problem of all psychological discourses is that the human soul ("psyche") is plastic and self-conscious, which makes all psychologies true to those who believe them and false to those who do not. As I noted above and have before, no therapy will ever work on someone determined to resist it or who thinks his condition is good (so the "scientific" criterion of "randomness" is nonsense on stilts for psychology. Psychology can only be "true" at the level of a self-fulfilling prophecy to those outside each discourse, but so what? Why does gay-activist psychology get a veto over Catholic psychology?

The sniping

Despite my general skepticism of "ex-gay" therapies, the one reason I will always defend them qualifiedly is that the attacks on them from the pro-gay people are so devoid of merit, so self-serving, so hypocritical, so self-righteous that ... one shudders.

For example, here is an execrable rant by Truth Wins Out and its leader Wayne Besen, released the same day as the study was, i.e., before it could have possible to digest it if one's motives were truly scholarly or scientific. Here are the problems:

1. there is no "Pat Robertson University," a phrase used repeatedly, indicating that Besen's is really motivated by prejudice and a desire to demonize. Plus "pray away the gay" is sound-bite lingo that has nothing to do with anything. (Aren't liberals supposed to be the intelligent discerning ones, with conservatives the knee-jerk simplifiers?);
2. the researchers did in fact do a bit more than "telephone professional ex-gay lobbyists and ministers from Exodus International and ask them if they had 'changed'." And not a few told them they had not;
3. A series of quotes attempting to show that Yarhouse and Jones have beliefs pertaining to homosexuality is nothing but a vulgar attempt at anathematization, at declaring Christians ritually impure, as if Besen or Truth Wins Out don't have beliefs;
4. "Any 'ex-gay' study that does not include physical components that measure truth are essentially meaningless ... It is folly to suggest that telephone interviews can be considered genuine research." Really?

Warren Trockmorton quickly pointed out that the very most-prominent study used to "prove" that "anti-gay therapy" has harmed people had exactly the same (if not worse) methodological shortcomings as Jones and Yarhouse did -- personally interested parties; an explicitly stated desire to prove a thesis at the start; sponsorship by an agenda-driven lobby group; soliciting participants through non-random organizations where members self-select according to one side of the issue being studied.

In an article for Planet Out from the Advocate (in which the story was folded into a sex-abuse charge against an ex-gay former leader), Besen continued his attack, with this claim:

"Exodus should be embarrassed that even their hand-picked participants in this hoax of a study showed such a meager success rate."

One suspects that if Jones and Yarhouse had claimed a higher success rate, this would have been chalked up to their "hand-picked sample." A serious person with scholarly motives can attack a study for having a hand-picked sample, or for showing little success, but hardly both (the teeth of the former charge presupposes a high success rate). There is no doubt that samples for this sort of study are not random, but they cannot be because no therapy in principle can ever work if the subject resists the therapy or thinks his condition is a good thing to have. You will always need a motivated and "primed" population.

Further, what would Besen consider an acceptable success rate. Keep in mind that psychiatry is largely unsuccessful when it cannot chemically mess with the brain. The standard has to be compatible with the success rate for similar non-drug therapies, otherwise the carping sniping is merely equivalent to noting that Ted Williams didn't get a hit about 2/3 of the time. Jones and Yarhouse anticipated this objection, by showing that the success rate was comparable to "results shown in a recent, reputable study of drug therapy for depression."

Then Besen continued:

"It was created to suit their political agenda, which is spreading myth that if one person can change, anyone can change."

Is there no lie to which gay propagandists will not stoop? This is simply a lie. L-I-E. The studiers quite specifically say the very opposite, as I cited in the post below, in the quote about the four-minute mile. And this was supported by their acknowledged figures -- some people even embraced the gay lifestyle. If anything Jones and Yarhouse's "point" is the mirror image -- debunking the myth, spread by gay propagandists, that absolutely nobody can ever change (which is nonsense that nobody who gives the matter a second thought can believe).

In other words, Besen is just drooling.

The Washington Blade had an article that was somewhat more reasonable, though it "led with the reaction" rather than the facts (and wasted column inches on Besen). But most of the criticisms were from someone sober, if biased, and the researchers were even quoted rebutting some of them.

Sociologist Christine Robinson, a professor at James Madison University who focuses on social control of deviance and sociology of sexualities, said she has two major concerns about the study, which she has not yet read. The first is that some will abuse its findings and the second is the methodology.
“The authors are right to say that one limitation … is the lack of independent/objective measures of sexual attraction beyond self-reports,” Robinson wrote in an e-mail. “This is a major weakness of the study. In addition, and even more problematic to me, is that the study is being touted as evidence to counteract the claim that reorientation therapies are not inherently harmful, but the study doesn’t examine reorientation therapies of Exodus ministries.”

At the Throckmorton link I give above, Robinson expands on what she means by it, and she apparently told the Blade that what concerns her is "how this study, like Robert Spitzer’s study a few years ago, will be used in the culture wars over homosexuality. I’m concerned that ... this study will be misused to shame people into seeking out ex-gay therapy."

I'm glad she's acknowledging what really counts. Not what a study actually says, but its use in the culture war. One rather suspects that if it showed no change was ever possible, then its use in the culture war would perturb Robinson rather less. And Throckmorton quickly points out the double standards regnant in pro-gay discourse.

The Blade continues:

Critics note that anything that relies on an individual’s perception is not scientifically sound. Some “ex-gay survivors,” say they convinced themselves, at times, they were straight but later acknowledged those feelings as wishful thinking.

The double standard noted above about anti-ex-gay studies is not only here presented again, but done so even more baldly in consecutive sentences. If relying on an individual's perception is not scientifically sound, then not only does practically every study on sexuality fail, but so does the testimony of "ex-gay survivors" because that is merely their perception and self-presentation (albeit their current, and thus privileged, one).

This points to why, at the end of the day, I doubt that the scientific study of "sexual orientation" is even possible in principle. The very category "sexual orientation" is suspect, as something the slips away from objective measurement or scientific definition. Even if one weren't to go as far as I do and dismiss sexual orientation as mere reified discourse, there can be doubt that it is not separable from self-understanding and self-consciousness. As such, an innocent subject-object relationship -- no observer bias, no confirmation bias, no expectancy effects, no observer effect -- is simply not an option in principle. Add in such other problems as deformation professionnelle (accepting the conventions of a profession), the impossibility of random sampling, and the impossibility of objectively measuring sexual response in a moral way, and it's simply hard to take the "unscientific" charge seriously, even if it's true.

In fact, the level of scrutiny given to the ex-gay studies is itself a perfect example of one such particular example of confirmation bias -- the Tolstoy Syndrome.

Ex-gay ministries

Eve Tushnet and David Morrison both have written in recent weeks about ex-gay ministries and psychological programs that say they can heal homosexual desires. There is much wisdom in both of what these individuals say. Eve also followed up her NRO piece on her blog here (scroll down to the end of the day for about five posts) here and here.

As for my thoughts, I am a bit of a skeptic about these programs, because they tend to be based on historical-psychological theories for the genesis of homosexuality, and if that's true, then by definition, it can't be undone. You can't unlive your adolescence (you can try to recode it, sure, but I'm not sure wht this would help existentially ... the male body has a mind of its own and it's a hard thing to fool). But I have even less time for the attacks on these ministries, which I think presuppose a descriptively inaccurate understanding of sexuality -- the dominant-hand/eye-color model of something teleologically determined at birth (or so soon in one's pre-sexual conditioning as to make the distinction academic). I posted some of my thoughts at Amy Welborn's last month, and I've adapted my two or three notes into a few more paragraphs that I think stand up without the context of the back-and-forth:

As for the success of these programs, 'successful" sublimation of homosexual desire does not constitute 'becoming heterosexual,' if we understand these terms as ontological categories. But having desire for the opposite sex might constitute success, at least somewhat, and that IS common. What is rare is the complete elimination of homosexual desire -- in other words, therapy produces three sorts of results; all-straight, mixed (i.e., glass half-empty, half-full, howver you wish to slice it), and all-gay (i.e., complete failure). Whether this split is 33-33-33 or 20-40-40 or 5-5-90 is neither here nor there, ontologically. The point is that change is possible. The rigid division of persons into "gay" or "straight" orientations blinds us to this fact.

The problem is that "sexual orientation" (as our society understands and constructs that term) is not "one's essential being." To ask the question in reverse ... can a breeder change his behavior to the point where homosexuality becomes habitual and "normal" for him? Sure. And if he's propagandized sufficiently with the notion that he's now discovered his "true nature," he can develop the "orientation" as much as anyone else.

I agree that people should go into these programs, if at all (I have not) only with their eyes wide open, knowing what the chances of "success" are, and with realistic expectations. All too often, this caveat is undermined both by marketers eager to sell their product, and by the hopes of potential customers who want to be rid of what they see as a scourge (understandably also ... hey, remember that episode of The Brady Bunch where Dad warned eager-beaver pitcher Greg that out of millions of young boys, only one will go up to be a Don Drysdale. And Greg said, "well, I'm gonna be the one." It's like that.)

So yes, I agree that these things often are unsuccessful and shouldn't be oversold. Shame on those who do. I hope you enjoy your money. But the thing is, I don't think the APA/gay activist concern on this subject is disinterested and unideological. The general prevalence of failure or only-partial success doesn't distinguish anti-gay therapy from any other non-drug, non-intrusive (think "A Clockwork Orange") psychological treatment. And keep in mind that only the believing and highly-motivated should even enter such efforts in the first place (which BTW makes the "unscientific" charges ring hollow). If there were a (say) 30 percent success rate, that wouldn't mean 3 of 10 random men on Dupont Circle. But again, this doesn't distinguish anti-gay therapy. No therapy can ever work on someone determined to resist it or who thinks his condition is good.

Therapy shown *somewhat* effective

The most encouraging news last month from the study by Stanton Jones and Mark Yarhouse of ex-gays was how realistically it was reported, in some quarters at least. In the words of Christianity Today, it's "an older, wiser, ex-gay movement" that

... is certainly clearer about what it has to offer. Early hopes for instant healing have given way to belief that transformation occurs through a lifetime of discipleship.
...
Alan Chambers, the low-key opening-night speaker, emphasizes that there is no step-by-step formula for overcoming homosexuality. "Hear me loud and clear: You're not going to get cured this week. … We don't choose our feelings, but we do choose how we are going to live. I choose every day to deny what comes naturally to me. … I have to rely on Jesus Christ every day."

The companion article at CT makes it clear that this research cannot be dismissed as simple advocacy research, precisely because the results were relatively modest and in some ways cut against whatever biased interests the researchers may have.

Jones and Yarhouse emphasize the imperfections of their research, carefully noting points at which their method could be criticized. For example, they had hoped for 300 or more participants, but found many Exodus ministries mysteriously uncooperative. In the end, they settled for 98 people in their initial sample.
...
As Jones and Yarhouse themselves note, both skeptics and true believers will find evidence for their arguments.
...
They found that 38 percent could be described as "Success: Conversion" or "Success: Chastity," with another 29 percent continuing hopefully, even though they could not yet demonstrate convincing change. They compare this "success rate" to results shown in a recent, reputable study of drug therapy for depression.
...
Jones and Yarhouse found, contrary to professional consensus, that change is possible. But they did not find that change is possible for everyone. They write, "The fact that some human beings can break the four-minute-mile barrier establishes that running a four-minute mile is not impossible, but that same fact does not establish that anyone (every human being) can break the four-minute-mile barrier."

Here's the relevant breakdown, in my opinion, from a more-laudatory Baptist Press article (the source of the pie chart up top):

At the end of the study, the subjects were placed in six categories, in order from success to failure:
-- 15 percent reported their conversion was successful and that they had had "substantial reduction" in homosexual attraction and "substantial conversion" to heterosexual attraction. They were categorized as "success: conversion."
-- 23 percent said their conversion was successful and that homosexual attraction was either missing or "present only incidentally or in a way that does not seem to bring about distress." They were labeled "success: chastity."
-- 29 percent had experienced "modest decreases" in homosexual attraction and were not satisfied with their change, but pledged to continue trying. This category was labeled "continuing."
-- 15 percent had not changed and were conflicted about what to do next.
-- 4 percent had not changed and had quit the change process, but had not embraced the "gay identity."
-- 8 percent had not changed, had quit the process and had embraced the "gay identity."

Understand that these are the success rates that *already presuppose* the strongest factor disposing toward success -- a religiously-motivated desire to be rid of same-sex attractions. That applied to everybody in this study. And still, the chances of little or no change were acknowledged to be greater than the chances of satisfactory change (29+15>23+15). Also, the chances were only 1 in 6 of "substantial" conversion. And note the word is "substantial," i.e., not "total."

To be sure, these subjects were not broken down by age and (the Baptist Press notes) they tended to be well-experienced sexually. It simply makes sense that the more ingrained a habit or pattern of behavior is, the harder it will be to unlearn.

I've generally been critical of ex-gay therapy, largely because I think it gets oversold and misses the ultimate point, which is not becoming "straight" but living chastely (whatever that means according to our state of life). But this is a well-designed study within the limits the subject matter inherently imposes, if not a very large one. And its modest conclusions give it credibility and show what scheisse the sniping against it really is.

Against sexual orientation

Despite the appearances in my earlier post, I do have a lot of sympathy for Ted Haggard. I really do. I hope he stays with his family, if for no other reason than to give a thumb in the eye of the gay-activist/prostitute crowd who'd like nothing better than to humiliate and hound him to the ends of the earth for the sin of opposing gay "marriage." And they are such immature brats to deal with.

There is no reason this should end the Haggards' marriage, or be worse than a series of dalliances with a female prostitute. After all, love between persons presumably involves more than sex (as the gay-"marriage" pushers constantly tell us when they protest "reducing our love to anal sex").

But the greater problem is the whole language of "sexual orientation," which Haggard's behavior powerfully gives the lie to. I think the term should be junked, as it presupposes something false -- that human beings are definitively (or at least teleologically) "typed" on the basis of the sex of their beloveds. That some behavior is "authentic" and other "inauthentic." Once gay always gay. And therefore, once straight always straight (or so you would think, but it doesn't turn out that way at all, because we aren't talking about the serious study of sexuality, but a political agenda to rope people in).

This rigid "gay-straight" typology keeps being disproven over and over and over, while the typology itself keeps us from seeing this. It's a pitch-perfect example of the wish substituting for the thought. From Cyndi Lauper in one direction to Anne Heche in the other; from the Athenians in one circumstance to prison inmates in another; from Balzac for one reason to Thomas Mann for another -- there can be no reasonably dispute that people are *capable* (prescinding for the moment from the question of whether they should) of either changing their sexual behavior or of not succumbing to a temptation to do something sexual they don't want to.

What's so aggravating about gay activists' writing about cases like Haggard is that there's a gross double standard. They crow that Haggard is really gay (and self-loathing and all the rest of the carnival of smears). As commenter "thomas tucker" put it at Amy Welborn's Open Book:

Andrew Sullivan is saying that his guy is gay and has been in the closet. Yet, Sullivan and others in the gay lobby always say that reparative therapy doesn't work and "gay" men who decide to become heterosexually involved are fooling themselves and others. In other words, if you dabble in gay sex, you're gay and if you dabble in straight sex, you're gay. They want it both ways.

Exactly. What is the "B" in "LGBT" supposed to stand for? It's obvious, if we must use contemporary typology, that Haggard is bi -- he has five children; that doesn't happen from picking blackberries. And why is it assumed that a "bi" person is making a despicable or self-loathing or self-deceiving choice by marrying the opposite sex and living the breeder lifestyle. Or is gay sex is the psychological equivalent of "negro blood," which was such powerful stuff that one drop made you black (ask Homer Plessy)? Anyone who has ever had a sexual thought toward the same sex (or acts on it) is really gay and cannot be anything other than that? If stating this doesn't suffice to refute it, I am at a loss.

Reflections on the Robinson article, Part 2

Most importantly, Dr. Robinson rubbishes the notion of sexual orientation. I've expressed my doubts about the very concept in the past, noting the fluidity of behavior and the inability of the language of "orientation" to grasp it, beyond post-hoc rationalization. But he goes to town on it, laying out exactly why it cannot do this -- the very concept is circular. We identify the "orientation" as existing because of the behavior, but then want to say that the orientation is causing the behavior.

Do you see it just goes in a circle? It doesn't really add any information; we do that all the time in our society, in our culture: talk about things, label them, and then describe them as having acted as a result of the label. We do it a lot in the social sciences; take, for example, the concept of self-esteem ... what began as a description of what people were doing--saying or thinking good or bad things about themselves--came to be talked about as though it was the reason they were doing it. ...
Now the same thing is true when it comes to talking about homosexuality. Why is that man sexually attracted to other men? It's because he's homosexual. How do you know he's homosexual? Because he's sexually attracted to other men. What makes him do that? Homosexuality. We have created a condition, a trait, a disease, an orientation called homosexuality and given it power to make people do things.

If I were a Marxist, I would note that Dr. Robinson is describing the process of "reification" (from Wikipedia: "the consideration of an abstraction or an object as if it had living existence and abilities"). If I were a Foucauldian (which I am kinda), I would say that "sexual orientation" is merely a discourse that attempts to categorize and classify for the purposes of repressing the Other (sorry for the pretentious francobabble). These are objective facts: "John" first became fascinated with male bodies at 8. "John" was aroused while wrestling in gym class at 13. "John" first fell in love with a close male friend at 25. "John" first sinned at 28, to a male image. "John" first sinned with another man at 35. Those are all real events, ones powerfully stuck in my memory. But "John discovered he is gay" can never be anything more than an interpretation of those facts. And a pernicious one, because the discourse of sexual orientation, like all discourses, pushes toward a (self-)identification that represses Other behavior (in this case, chastity). The discourse makes that behavior appear as something one cannot do, not one's category, outside the box that the discourse has put you in. After all, if you "are" something, the only thing that will make you happy is to live out that something ("denial" being bad).

This becomes particularly pernicious in the case of the construction of identity, which depends so much on memory, what one did and what one thinks of it now. The last explains why it's important that so many of Dr. Robinson's patients are deeply introspective. He says he tells them:

"There is no difference between us, except this: you can remember how to be sexually aroused by other men because you've done it. I can't remember how to do it because I've never done it" ... But if this is a memory, if this is something I can remember how to do, how do you get rid of a memory? Amnesia?

Then he goes into a hilarious description of word association and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Buffalo." And how (again) someone very scrupulous and introspective would react so badly to saying "Reindeer" that it makes him worse off than in the first place, analogizing to how struggling in quicksand makes you sink faster. We know there is no "gay gene," but we also know that therapy has only limited effectiveness even among the well-motivated, at least with respect to same-sex-attraction itself (as opposed to issues related to it or growing out of it).

In other words, and without citing Aquinas or Aristotle, Dr. Robinson puts homosexuality in the same category as they would have -- a habit (independent of whether it is a good or bad habit to have). Or a learned pattern of behavior that is very difficult to break, particularly since one can only go through adolescence and maturation once. But also a habit that is absolutely impossible to break either among those who think it's a good habit to have and whose corresponding behavior is freed and/or encouraged. Even the APA, contrary to what the gay activists say, acknowledges that homosexuality is "caused" and not innate, though they do say it is fixed by adolescence. Hence the practicing gays who have convinced themselves that "gay is who I am." They are not exactly "wrong." The great paradox of psychology, in my view is that, because identity is constructed, all psychologies become true for those who believe them and all psychologies become false for those who don't believe them. As Dr. Robinson puts it:

Can you see why a young man who is emotionally sensitive, introspective, and wants to be good, gets caught up in that pattern? It is the introspective young man who over-interprets what's happening to him and focuses on it incessantly. It is the young man who wants to be good, who loathes and hates himself because he is not. It is the young man who is emotionally sensitive, who isolates himself because he cannot bear the thought or the pain of anyone else knowing about this problem. And so he shields himself from all kinds of intimate relationships, or from those who might help him.

We become what we do and do what we become. We do what we justify and justify what we do. We become what we have justified and justify what we have become.

Mental health in Virginia

Catholic blogger Mark Shea has said that history has two phases -- "what could it hurt" and "how was I supposed to know." I suggest that what makes this cycle last, as a continuous dynamic, is found in the "what could it hurt" phase. Namely that "it" is, as often as not, a backlash or reaction against some previous "how was I supposed to know." Metaphors involving generals fighting the last war, 20/20 hindsight, and horses and barn doors, come to mind also.

We're seeing some of that dynamic in the Virginia Tech shootings. I'm convinced there is not really any meaning to be gleaned from them -- crazy, evil people do crazy, evil things. But the number of people who commit acts this extreme are so few that, even when some reason can be attached to a particular case, those cases can only be spotted in retrospect. As the Times blogger notes:

There are millions of American college students, and only one of them has ever committed such a horrific massacre. The factors cited by Miss Paglia affect all students; only one reacted as Cho did. ... Extremely rare events are difficult to explain by theoretical reference to general factors.

But that doesn't stop us from trying to explain such events, and therefore worse yet, to try to "fix" them. Other people can take up gun control or concealed-carry laws (Virginia Tech may have been a gun-free zone, but, to quote Gen. Turgidson, "Well, sir, I would say that [Cho] has already invalidated that policy!") Or violent entertainment. But I can speak to my experience with one thing -- the metal-health laws of Virginia, which have been taking a beating. In an Associated Press article headlined "Va. law makes intervention tough," a variety of "warning signs" in Cho's pre-shooting behavior are alluded to.

The 23-year-old immigrant -- an outcast by his own account, a bully and a perverted loner by others' -- who took his life and 32 others at Virginia Tech this week had troubled classmates and professors more than a year earlier with his dark writings and brooding.
He had been kicked out of class, and two women complained to campus police that they had received annoying and unwanted messages from him. Their complaints and an acquaintance's concern that Cho was suicidal were enough to get him taken for a psychiatric evaluation.

And then, the criticisms that this didn't amount to reason under Virginia law to force the commitment of Cho.

But they weren't enough to have him committed under Virginia law, one of the most restrictive in the nation when it comes to forcing treatment on a person showing signs of mental instability. Mental health experts say his case will heighten a discussion about whether it is time to revise those laws. ...
State law allows involuntary commitment only if a person is determined to pose an "imminent danger" to himself or others or is "substantially unable to care for himself."
Only Georgia, Hawaii, Montana and Ohio have similar standards, according to the nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, Va. Other states don't use the word "imminent" in conjunction with danger or harm, making it easier to force treatment.
Retired state police superintendent Col. W. Gerald Massengill, who was appointed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to head an investigation into the shootings, said he expects the review will cover mental health issues as well as law enforcement response.

As a Virginia resident, this law has affected me too. I first went to a therapist at the behest (the politest possible term) of my confessor and the strong counsel (ditto) of some of my Courage brothers, in response to some behavior that they said proves that "this is not about sex." I had always resisted seeing a head-shrinker for a variety of reasons -- a bad experience with a psychiatrist as a pre-teen; my intellectual-moral distaste for the whole psychiatrist-therapy racket as excuse-making witch-doctory for atheist New Yorkers with too damn much money; my general stoic temperament, which detests complainers and emotional exhibitionism.

But I relented. I went into this Catholic psychiatric ministry late one Friday afternoon, near weekend closing time because ... well, just because. And the therapist on duty, who I think was just hanging around at 6 to finish some work, agreed to take me on after an hour's meeting. But at the first appointment proper, I asked him something that mattered a great deal to me -- what are the circumstances under which I could be committed against my will. After all, I knew it wouldn't take Freud to diagnose me as suffering from depression and recommend putting me on meds; I had a suicide attempt in my past (not a very competent one, but still ...); I had deliberately engaged in some dangerous sexual behavior (barebacking, anonymous sex, masochism); in many respects, my life was out of control. "I'm at the end of my rope" is something I have said more than a couple of times.

But I told the therapist that if I judged that involuntary commitment was a plausible risk, I would not come. Under no circumstances was I gonna be publicly humiliated like that.

As it happened, he told me, I had nothing to fear. He told me that Virginia law is fairly restrictive on commitment and it would take much more than the kinds of things I quickly outlined to him. He said, close as I can recall, "you have to be more than just badly depressed." I don't recall that he used the word "imminent," but post-Cho reporting makes it clear that this is part of the law, as is the phrase "can't take care of yourself," which I do remember my therapist using. He also later told me that the records of our sessions would be destroyed after a set time (five years, if memory serves). So, I was satisfied and went to see him once or twice a week for several months.

Now, I'm not gonna pretend I'm anything like as disturbed as Cho. I'm also known to be a bit moody, and had many of the same problems in grade and high school, common to loner boys with academic inclinations. I can always function as a normal person day-to-day (as could Cho, who was evaluated thus: "his insight and judgment are normal"). But the chances of me going postal like Cho are effectively zero, because even in the darkest times, I turn inward in despair, not outward in anger. The chances of me committing suicide are thereby greater, but not high.

Still, if in my judgment Virginia had made it too easy to commit me against my will, merely on the basis of suicidal thoughts, occasional "weirdnesses" (aka "warning signs") and the kinds of things I knew I would have to tell the therapist, I would certainly have walked out of that Arlington office, never to return. And I fear that Virginia and several other states, in their eagerness to do something -- anything -- to respond to this massacre, will do something stupidly counterproductive, like make it easier to commit people beforehand based on fears about what they might do. Even apart from the fact that almost all the time, these cases wouldn't have resulted in something like Virginia Tech, easier commitment will make the marginal cases -- the person sane and competent enough to decide whether he should seek psychiatric help -- from doing exactly that.