Mar 17, 2006  |  By: RYAN LEE  | COMMENTS     

NEW YORK psychiatrist Robert L. Spitzer was always a rebel, and his rabble-rousing research alternately made people view him as a hero and a saboteur of the gay rights movement.

"I admit, there is something in me that is always looking for trouble or something to challenge the orthodoxy," Spitzer says in an interview published in the new book "Ex-Gay Research: Analyzing the Spitzer Study and Its Relation to Science, Religion, Politics and Culture."

The book brings together for the first time a series of analytical essays, most of which are critical, about a 2001 study by Spitzer that suggested some "highly motivated" gay men and lesbians can change their sexual orientation through "reparative therapy" with a counselor or religious group.

Scores of Spitzer’s mental health colleagues instantly rebuked what they considered methodological flaws in his study, namely that it was based entirely on self-reports gleaned from 45-minute telephone interviews with 200 people who said they were no longer gay or lesbian. More than 65 percent of subjects in the study were referred by religious and social groups dedicated to reparative therapy, and 78 percent of participants at one point served as spokespeople for "ex-gay" therapies.

But despite much of the mental health field denouncing Spitzer’s study — and even Spitzer himself noting that someone converting from completely homosexual to completely heterosexual "rarely, if ever" occurs —-media accounts of the Spitzer report touted it as "proof" that sexual orientation was a choice.

"An explosive new study says some gay people can turn straight if they really want to," read the opening sentence of the Associated Press story in May 2001, which largely set the tone for other media reports.

Religious organizations and groups dedicated to reparative therapy continue to laud the study as a message of hope for those who want to escape "the gay lifestyle."

"Basically what we’re saying is, at last, the Spitzer study is giving legitimacy to this [reparative] therapy," says Joseph Nicolosi, director of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, an ex-gay group also known as NARTH. Nicolosi is also a contributor to the new book examining Spitzer’s study.

Gay rights organizations responded to the study by criticizing its methodology, and by attempting to paint Spitzer — whom they once considered an ally —-as being in bed with religious conservatives. Gay psychiatrists voiced concern about the impact of Spitzer’s study on gay rights.

"The study is deeply caught up in the gay and lesbian civil rights movement based on the implicit idea that people are born gay —-just like people are born black, or born belonging to another minority group —-and so therefore you can’t discriminate against them because they’re born that way," says Jack Drescher, who co-edited "Ex-Gay Research" and is also editor of the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Psychotherapy.

As provocative as the study was, what made it even more explosive was the history of its author, Drescher says.

"If anybody else would’ve done this study, it wouldn’t have ever been an issue," Drescher says. "But the Religious Right and people who market these types of therapy are exploiting Spitzer’s status and history."

IN THE EARLY 1970s, Spitzer became the "ring leader" of an effort to remove homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association’s roster of mental disorders, a listing many critics of gay rights employed to justify deeming gay people sick or diseased.

Spitzer arranged a meeting between gay activists and the task force revising the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, organized a symposium on the matter, and in 1973, marshaled a proposal to eliminate homosexuality from the DSM.

"As far as the ’73 decision itself, I certainly think more people have been helped than have been hurt," Spitzer says in the book. "I’m proud that I had something to do with it."

Ironically, Spitzer became interested in ex-gay research in much the same way.

At its annual conference in 2000, the APA adopted a position statement recommending "that ethical practitioners refrain from attempts to change individuals’ sexual orientation" until there was scientific evidence that reparative therapy produces a greater benefit than harm to patients.

A group of ex-gay protesters at the APA conference caught Spitzer’s eye.

"I got the idea, ‘Gee, well maybe it’s not so open and shut about changing sexual orientation,’" says Spitzer, who then tried to organize a symposium looking at whether some people could go from gay to straight.

After gay mental health experts agreed to participate in the symposium, ...