Panel to review policy on gays

Panel to review policy on gays
By David Crary
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune and The Associated Press
Published July 11, 2007

NEW YORK -- The American Psychological Association is embarking on the first review of its 10-year-old policy on counseling gays and lesbians.

Gay-rights activists hope it will end with a denunciation of any attempt by therapists to change sexual orientation.

Such efforts -- often called reparative therapy or conversion therapy -- are considered futile and harmful by many gay-rights activists.

Conservative groups defend the right to offer such treatment, and say people with their viewpoint have been excluded from the review panel.

A six-member task force set up by the APA will have its first meeting Tuesday.

Already, scores of conservative religious leaders and counselors, representing such groups as the Southern Baptist Convention and Focus on the Family, have written a joint letter to the APA, expressing concern that the task force's proposals would not properly accommodate gays and lesbians whose religious beliefs condemn gay sex.

"We believe that psychologists should assist clients to develop lives that they value, even if that means they decline to identify as homosexual," said the letter, which requested a meeting between APA leaders and some of the signatories.

APA spokeswoman Rhea Farberman said a decision on when and how to reply to the letter had not been made.

The current APA policy, adopted in 1997, opposes any counseling that treats homosexuality as a mental illness, but does not explicitly denounce reparative therapy.

Conservatives contend that the review's outcome is preordained because the task force is dominated by gay-rights supporters.

Joseph Nicolosi, a leading proponent of reparative therapy, predicted the task force would propose a ban of the practice. Nicolosi, who was rejected as a task force nominee, is president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality's board.



Clinton Anderson, director of the APA's Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns Office, insisted the panel would base its findings on scientific research, not ideology.

"We cannot take into account what are fundamentally negative religious perceptions of homosexuality -- they don't fit into our worldview," Anderson said.