Conversion Therapy, a Hoax that Stays Alive



World history is full or hoaxes about health. During my lifetime there have been some. One was "Hadacol." It was heavily advertised as a mineral and vitamin supplement. One could buy it over-the-counter in drug stores. People felt "good" after taking it. Eventually, it was determined the good results were from it 12% alcohol content. Government provided a public warning and the stuff was pulled.

Conversion Therapy is not alcohol but a drug of religion. It is a "therapy" or "cure" for gay people by training the minds to think of gay urges as evil and harmful. Gay people enroll and learn an important thing in their minds, their gay partners and friendships in the gay community, even approval by their own families, is evil.

While there are a few gay people who live out their lives as heterosexual, a large proportion return to their natural same sex attraction. A former head of a national Conversion Therapy group resigned and apologized for harming people. How many live out their lives as heterosexual and how many return to their gay lives? We will never know because Conversion Therapy places will not tell anyone. We have a demanding protocol for medicines to be as certain as we can be the public is protected from medicines that are harmful and/or worthless. Conversion Therapy, however, continues to escape any outside evaluation by claiming it it exercising "freedom of speech."

The state of Michigan banned Gay Therapy. That ban was recently overturned by the courts on the basis of freedom of speech so it is again available there. 

The cultural bias against gay people lives on even though it has been tamped down in many ways. There are religious vultures circling above the unhappy gay person looking for a change to exploit their relationship with such vulnerable people.


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