Is NOM on the side of Malaysia or tolerance and acceptance?

By Adam Bink

NOM’s Maggie Gallagher likes to ask “Do I have blood on my hands?” and defend herself against attacks by folks like GetEqual as being responsible for gay kids killing themselves. Yet I have trouble seeing the difference between this:

Malaysian authorities have sent 66 boys to a four day reparative therapy camp to “cure” them of the gay, the AP reports:

Gay rights advocates decried the measure as a symptom of widespread homophobia in this Muslim-majority country where gay sex is illegal.

The boys between 13 and 17 years old reported Monday for what is officially being called a “self-development course” after their schoolteachers in Terengganu state (in red on map) identified them as students who displayed effeminate mannerisms, said Razali Daud, the state’s education director.

They will undergo religious and motivational classes and physical guidance, Razali said. He declined to give further details.

The camp is meant “to guide them back to the right path in life before they reach a point of no return,” Razali told The Associated Press. “Such effeminate behavior is unnatural and will affect their studies and their future.”

And this:

National Org. For Marriage’s Ruth Institute now pushing ‘ex-gay’ therapy

In a new post to their blog, the Ruth Institute, an official National Organization for Marriage affiliate, is lending credence to the “ex-gay” advocacy of one Dr. Phillip Sutton, who is himself an affiliate of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) [and who is also editor of NARTH’s so-called Journal of Human Sexuality, a self-published document they’ve been trying to push out as a credible scientific journal]. Here’s the kind of “change” mentality that NOM’s Ruth Institute is working to cultivate among their supposedly civil-marriage-focused flock:

“Reparative therapy technically is an approach to providing psychological care for unwanted SSA which is strongly influenced by the ideas and techniques of the psychoanalytic and other psychodynamic schools of therapy. Joseph Nicolosi is perhaps the best known therapist practicing and teaching this approach at the present time.

While I certainly have studied and received professional training in the conduct of “reparative therapy”, and do use some of the interventions commonly practiced for helping clients become aware of, feel and express or otherwise resolve feelings about which they are unaware, my own approach looks and sounds different. To those knowledgeable about psychotherapy, my approach reflects a number of influences: cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT), assertiveness training, family systems (especially structural, strategic, conjugal relational enhancement), the Twelve Step model (fraternal and mentor support to achieve sobriety — sexual self-control, the resolution of “core issues” in the pursuit of “serenity”, or peace of mind and joy of heart). I also encourage the regular practice of journaling, relaxation and meditative prayer in my work (as do many “reparative therapists” and others trained in other approaches to psychotherapy).”
…
“Please do not condone, excuse or enable behavior that ultimately will be harmful to their medical, psychological, relational, and spiritual health. ‘Misguided mercy’ is not loving, even if in the short run it avoids or minimizes conflict and leads them to feel less rejected by us and us less rejected by them.”
FULL INTERVIEW WITH SUTTON: Same-sex attraction: a therapist’s view [Mercator via NOM’s Ruth Institute]

There’s no shock therapy (we think) or violence, but its two ends to the same means. One is in an extremely anti-gay country… the other is within the confines of an extremely anti-gay group. No one should “tsk tsk” at the former and give scientific credence, or a pass, to the latter.

Make up your mind, Maggie and NOM. Are you on the side of Malaysia or tolerance and acceptance?