Gscene News Archive

The Anglican Mainstream Organisation are holding a second anti gay conference in London this weekend called Sex and the City.

This homophobic conference will advocate the use of Reparative Therapy which aims to 'cure' people of homosexuality.

The organizers are claiming to be collaborating with JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality). JONAH’s co-founder and co-director, American, Arthur Goldberg, JD, serves as President of PATH (Positive Alternatives to Homosexuality), a world-wide coalition of secular and faith-based ministries devoted to sexual healing and is presently involved in several therapeutic networks in the UK.

It was only last month that the recent research carried out by Michael King, a psychiatrist at University College London showed that gay men and women in Britain are being offered such controversial treatments to reverse their homosexuality, despite there being no evidence that such therapies are effective and in reality they can cause harm and distress to the individuals involved.

Andrew Hanuman, a Person Centred Counsellor from Brighton (UK) attended the first conference as part of his research into issues surrounding 'reparative therapy'.

Andrew said:
“What I learned through my research horrified me .I discovered that there were many right wing Christian ministries here in the UK offering to cure both the sickness and the sin of homosexuality.
Not only are these groups here and practicing in the UK offering their cures, they are also fixated on an agenda to erode away what civil rights the lesbian gay bisexual and transgender communities have fought so hard to achieve.

“They wish to oppose civil unions, curtail any sex education in our schools which offers anything but heterosexual marriage as the norm and seek to challenge what they see as a pro gay agenda.

“Reparative therapy and versions of it used to be practiced by psychiatrists employed through the NHS but due to homosexuality being declassified as a mental illness in 1992 it is no longer deemed as ethical.

"In attending the first conference I was interested to gain a deeper understanding of the organisations involved and the motives of the individuals attending. What I witnessed were pseudo psychological interventions dressed up as concern for the “broken” LGBT community and a real belief that it was a God given mission to heal the unfortunate sinners. I was able to give a short speech of defiance before my exit and restated my ethical position that as a counsellor I would never coerce or direct an individual in any way in relation to their questioning of their sexuality. That it is my ethical duty to provide a safe environment where a person can explore these issues without interference and find their own path to whatever sexuality that feels genuine to them.

“If a person is using counselling to explore issues around their sexuality then the therapist should at least be neutral and not manipulate the person with pseudo psychology and encouraging shame in that person.

“These people manipulate religion for their own political motives and they need to be challenged. I do not want to see billboards across the UK advertising the gay cure or people’s human rights eroded by groups who call themselves religious.

The conference is being held on Friday and Saturday, April 24-25 from 9.30 am - 5.30 pm at the Emmanuel Centre 9-23 Marsham Street, Westminster.