Fixing the Gays and Continually Moving the Goalpost

 

There's a new method of "fixing the gays" that is descending from heaven. Or more correctly stated, since previous methods and therapies to convert those who are homosexual to heterosexuality have become the negative subject of movies, books, and documentaries, and have been found by experts and LGBTQ people themselves to be damaging, ineffective, and even illegal in some states, the ever-shifting goalposts of expectation set by social and religious conservatives are once again moving.

And, we've got yet another remedy.

Continuing in the footsteps of his recently deceased father, Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, Jr. has created Reintegrative Therapy Association and trademarked his "reintegrative therapy" technique. Reintegrative therapy is described as: "help(ing) the client to "reintegrate" the split-off parts of himself that were created due to childhood trauma. Using established, mainstream, evidence-based treatment interventions, the client and therapist enter into a collaborative relationship, with the client ultimately in the driver's seat."

Nicolosi Jr. is in the early stages of launching his new technique which may appear to be quite similar to reparative therapy because it is. Nuanced subtly to create microns of space to distance itself from reparative therapy, reintegrative therapy seeks to heal childhood wounds so that homosexual feelings vanish, or even disappear.

Nicolosi, Jr recently appeared on the radio podcast AskDrBrown (author of several the-gays-must-change-and-are-endangering-the-culture-and-assaulting-Christianity-books) to explain his methods and upcoming plans, including a book on the topic and international training sessions for therapists who want to use this technique.

Another devotee of the reintegrative therapy method, Dr. David Pickup, appeared on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk  (Full Transcript Part 1 and Part 2 ) on September 5th and 6th lauding the efficacy of reintegrative therapy.

During the two-part interview, Pickup asserted that his counseling methods were based on love, wisdom, compassion, truth, and respect for the rights of his clients. Along with Dobson, he rehashed old, disproven causes of homosexuality along with benefits of therapy, including:

• clients, in every case, and almost without exception, discover the root of their homosexual experience and they heal toward heterosexuality
• the mother relationship is likely the most problematic one because she frequently refuses to begin detachment from her boy between 18 months and 5 years thus allowing attachment to the father
• "masculine" lesbians take on such an identity because of childhood abuse, hence they objectify femininity
• client's homosexual feelings dissipate or vanish all together
• reintegrative therapy is not about shaming clients for their feelings. Rather, it is about naming objectified masculinity and healing it
• reintegrative therapy accompanies biblical truth
• a gay man feels like a woman in a man's body
• ad nauseam, ad nauseam

Along with the launch of Reintegrative Therapy Association, they've produced Free to Love, a new documentary espousing the benefits of its techniques in the telling of stories of four men. Juxtaposed to calm, well-spoken ex-gays, or no longer gays, or mostly heterosexual gays, every depiction of an interview with a member of the LGBTQ community is carefully selected to feature "more colorful people" and is within the setting of a California gay pride event. The authentic lives of same-sex married couples, same-sex families, LGBTQ Christians, and pastors have no space within the documentary's disingenuous stereotyping.

So, here we've been offered another way to fix the gays and transgender people. You might think it could be time to realize that human sexuality does exist along a natural and healthy spectrum, but, once again, some are seeking to create a "new" technique to fix what is not broken.

Though brief, here is a quick overview of the goalposts of expectations that have been created for the social and personal lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. They've continually moved along slowly over the past 150 years:

• Prior to 1868, —men who participated in same-sex behavior were seen as taking the debased and degraded social and sexual role of a woman
• The 1870s to 1920s—psychotherapists and sex experts tried to come up with theories as to why people of the same-sex were attracted to one another
• The 1920s to 1940s—homosexuality was viewed as incomplete heterosexuality and a mental illness
• The 1940s to 1970—homosexuality is seen as a mental illness, often with an added component of criminality
• 1973—homosexuality is seen as a normal part of the spectrum of human sexuality
• The late 1970s to 2010s—Christian reparative therapy introduced asking gay people to change to heterosexual, marry heterosexually, or be celibate for life. The blame gradually shifts from bad parenting to rebellion against God on the part of gay people themselves, to the sinful result of The Fall.
• The 2010s—with a focus on the damaging effects of reparative therapy, in some Christian environments, a "gay identity" becomes more acceptable, but with it, a lifelong demand for celibacy. Transgender people become additional targets.
• Now—laws banning reparative therapy are passing and being introduced in many states, so . . . reintegrative therapy, the "new" offering and expectation descends into the social and religious conservative world. With it, the LGBTQ community is being asked to step back to the 1960s-ish.

It might be time to stop lugging around this expectational, already proven ineffective, and damaging goalposts and just let LGBTQ people live their lives along with us heterosexuals. Perhaps then Christians, in particular, can get on to weightier things of the Gospel than goalpost lugging: take care of the poor and hungry, lift oppression, fight injustice, serve others, and make disciples of those that you treat in such a way that they want to know God.