Religious Left

by Gabriel Arana The Cornell Daily Sun For three years I had weekly sessions with Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, president of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Dr. Nicolosi thought that homosexuality was a pathology, a sublimated desire to reconnect with one’s lost masculinity. The theory: under-attentive fathers and over-attentive mothers create gay children. The purpose of therapy was to put me in touch with my masculine identity and thereby change my sexual orientation. full article

An Irving, Texas "ex-gay" counselor has been convicted of sexually assaulting a male client, ordered to register as a sex offender, and sentenced to ten years in prison. AS Queerty reported in a Sept. 6 posting, Chris Austin, a preacher with Renew Ministries, received seven years’ probation even though he was sentenced to a decade in prison. Austin was also fined $2,500. "The abuse apparently involved a bit of unwanted penetration," Queerty reported, noting that a previous claim from 2001 pitted Austin against a man named Mark Hufford, who brought a civil suit against the preacher based on similar accusations, but later dropped it. Austin was the founder of Renew Ministries, which is a counseling center operating from an Irving, Texas church. Austin was affiliated with NARTH, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, and had presented a seminar at a NARTH convention in 2004 called "Understanding and Treating Compulsive Sexual Behav...