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EARTHA MELZE
Friday, June 24, 2005
The state of Tennessee has begun an investigation in response to allegations
of child abuse at Love in Action, a Memphis facility that advertises homosexual
conversion therapy for adolescents, according to a department of health source.
K. Daniele Edwards, a spokesperson for Child Services at the Tennessee Department
of Health, confirmed an investigation is underway but declined to comment on
the details. She noted that she presumes the Love in Action program would require
licensing by the state.
Love in Action is not licensed by the Tennessee Departments of Health, Mental
Health, Human Services, Child Services or Education, according to Rachel Lassiter
of Gov. Phil Bredesen’s communications office.
“Refuge,” Love in Action’s program for adolescents, became the focus of public
concern earlier this month after a Bartlett, Tenn., teen, “Zach,” blogged
that his parents had responded to his coming out as gay by sending him to a
religious institution to be converted to straight.
“Emotional abuse is difficult to prove in the state of Tennessee,” said Pamela
Dickey, director of the advocacy center for Childhelp USA in Knoxville. “You
have to document that the child is undergoing depression or suicidal ideation,
that he can’t sleep, or can’t eat.”
Officials from Love in Action appealed for “tolerance” of their program at
a June 16 news conference.
“It is our spiritual conviction that sexual behavior outside of heterosexual
marriage is considered wrong in the sight of God,” said John Smid, the program’s
director, who describes himself as “ex-gay,” according to a partial transcript
of the news conference.
“This program is operated on the will of the guardian or parent. We will work
with the minor children as long as they are not overtly distracting to their
own program or the program of others,” Smid added. “If it is shown that the
client is overtly treatment resistant, we will work with the parent towards
alternative options for their care and overall relational health.”
Blogger EJ Friedman said that he had been corresponding with Zach via e-mail
since March and became alarmed when he saw that Zach had begun to write that
his world was coming to an end and that his parents were isolating him.
“When I saw Zach had written in his blog, ‘all I can think of is killing my
mother and killing myself’ I felt that clearly something needed to be said about
the program,” Friedman said.
Word of Zach’s situation quickly spread around the blogosphere. By press time,
more than 1,000 messages of support had been posted to Zach’s blog and an online
petition demanded that he be released from Love in Action. Comedian Margaret
Cho contributed a message of support.
But Zach has not posted to his blog since the first week in June and sources
contacted by the Blade would not confirm Zach’s full name. His parents also
could not be identified. Morgan Fox, 25, who said he was a friend of Zach’s,
said he believed Zach was in a two-week program.
Meanwhile, concerned citizens formed a group called the Queer Action Coalition.
QAC began daily demonstrations in front of Love in Action offices to raise awareness
of the dangers of “ex-gay” therapy.
Homosexuality is not considered an illness by the medical community and no
major counseling or psychological organization supports therapy that aims to
change a person’s sexual orientation.
The American Psychological Association has said that it is unethical to subject
an adolescent to reparative therapy.
According to Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays, “Several major
professional organizations, including the American Psychological Association,
the National Association of Social Workers, and the American Academy of Pediatrics,
have all made statements against reparative therapy because of concerns for
the harm caused to patients. The American Psychiatric Association has already
taken clear stands against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”
Peterson Toscano is a gay man who spent two years in the Love in Action program
as the last stop in a 17-year struggle to suppress his sexual orientation.
He said that the program, which cost $950 per month, was highly restrictive.
While he was in the program he was forbidden to go to most parts of Memphis,
could not touch other men and had to submit to lengthy meetings where participants
criticized each other over the ways that they appeared to be gay. Clients at
Love in Action had to describe their sexual fantasies and deviant behaviors
in front of groups so that they would be shamed, Toscano said.
Toscano, who gave up his efforts in 1999, has written a play about his time
at Love in Action called “Doing Time in the Homo No Mo’ Half Way House.”
Toscano has been in contact with QAC and the Memphis media and said he plans
to travel to Memphis to perform his play for free this weekend.
Though his experience of Love in Action was as a consenting adult, Toscano
expressed serious concern for adolescents who are forced to participate in what
he characterized as an extremely damaging and misguided program.
Although the program is live-in for adults, teenagers are driven to the facility
each day by their parents who are required to stay in a nearby hotel that is
approved by Love in Action.
Toscano said that Smid has taken the 12-step program designed for drug addiction
and is trying to apply it to homosexuality.
Protesters
gather at Love in Action facility where a teenage blogger
known as ‘Zach’ was reportedly sent by his parents, after coming out as
gay. |
The “ex-gay” operators of the camp are themselves victims of a system that
has convinced them that the only way that they can serve Jesus is to run an
“ex-gay” facility, Toscano said.
“If they really understood that what they were doing was causing harm they
would be horrified.”
Psychotherapist Joe Kort echoed those sentiments.
“My own judgment about reparative therapy is that it is a covert form of sexual
abuse and assaultive to the sexuality of those who participate,” he said. “Every
mental health association has made a statement that reparative therapy is unethical
and dangerous to the mental health of those who receive it.”
Kort is an adjunct professor teaching gay and lesbian studies at Wayne State
University’s School of Social Work.
Jeffry Ford is a licensed psychologist who served as a leader in the “ex-gay”
movement for years but left and is now in private practice in Minnesota.
Ford said that Love in Action resembles a cult in that officials there monitor
their clients’ behavior and clients are not allowed to be alone with just one
man or woman.
“Fear and threats play a big role. The biggest one being ‘losing your salvation
and going to hell,’” Ford said. “Suicide is perhaps the most dangerous consequence
or side effect of RT. Since the therapy never works, the client feels like a
failure. This always impacts self esteem.”
According to Julie Neils, spokesperson for Exodus International, an umbrella
group for “ex-gay” projects, Love in Action’s Refuge program is the only project
they are affiliated with that focuses on gay teens.
Love in Action has only offered services to adolescents for two years. Administrator
Tommy Corman said that the program has treated 23 adolescents and that there
are currently two teenage boys in the program, both signed up for six-week programs.
Corman confirmed that teens are sometimes forced to participate in the programs,
but dismissed the idea that this is wrong.
“Youth camps, vacation bible school, Sunday school, how many places do parents
put their children against their will,” Corman said. “It’s like when I tell
my three-year-old to take a bite of broccoli. You have a legal, moral and ethical
obligation to mold a child.”
Corman has worked at Love in Action for about a year and a half. He said that
though the program advertises treatment for problems associated with drugs,
alcohol and pornography, it is homosexuality, which the organization sees as
a “deviant sexual behavior,” that is the main focus of the program. Corman said
that some clients come to Love in Action after de-toxing from drugs to “heal”
themselves of homosexuality.
Corman said that he has helped clients convince insurance companies to cover
the costs of the program.
Danny Cobsy is the only staff member listed on the Love in Action Web site
who is licensed by the state of Tennessee as a counselor.
Cosby is an alcohol and drug treatment counselor and works directly with the
clients at Love in Action.
Cosby said that adolescents and adults are treated together as a group and
that in addition to the two teenagers who are currently in the program there
are between five and 15 adults. Cosby said that the presence of adults in the
group is critical in helping teenagers “not glamorize the lifestyle.”
Cosby asserted that absent fathers and enabling mothers can cause children
to become gay.
Cosby downplayed the organization’s focus on homosexuality.
A source in the State Board of Certification of Health Related Boards said
that the ethical requirements for drug and alcohol counselors licensed in Tennessee
forbid counselors to discriminate based on sexual orientation. The National
Association for Addiction Professionals also requires that members not discriminate
on the basis of sexual orientation.
Dr. David Kaplan, chief professional officer of the American Counseling Association,
said that it is a violation of that group’s code of ethics for a counselor to
practice outside of his area of training.
Dr. John Nardo, a psychiatrist in Georgia, is among those who have begun to
publicly question the legality of forced treatment at Love in Action.
Nardo said that if Love in Action were a mental health facility it would be
bound by the Tennessee code that gives children 16 or older the same rights
as an adult with respect to mental health treatment.
“To me this is something of an unimaginable situation, reminiscent of the mid-19th
century when people were committed to hospitals by families for all sorts of
things,” Nardo said. “Though it is possible that there are some other factors
involved, Zack [sic] appears to be a person who has been deprived of his constitutional
rights without due process of law — because he is gay.”
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