Media Gets Brazil Ruling on Sexual Orientation Therapy All Wrong
By Peter
Sprigg
The
LGBT activist movement has long been notorious for using a variety of untruths
and/or distortions to advance their social and political agenda.
For
example, we are repeatedly told (falsely) that scientific evidence has proven
that all SOCE is harmful. Yet even the Left-leaning American Psychological Association—although critical of SOCE—was
forced to admit:
Early and recent
research studies provide no clear evidence of the prevalence of harmful
outcomes among people who have undergone efforts to change their sexual
orientation. . . Thus, we cannot conclude how likely it is that harm will occur
from SOCE [emphasis added].
The
mainstream media’s complicity (or ignorance) in all this is highlighted by the
continuing use of the term “conversion therapy” in reference to a practice
whose actual practitioners refer to it as “sexual reorientation therapy,”
“sexual orientation change efforts,” or “SOCE;” or the more recent “sexual
attraction fluidity exploration in therapy” or “SAFE-T;” or “reparative therapy”—but not “conversion therapy.”
Another
claim made by critics of SOCE is that it is premised on the belief that
homosexuality is a mental disorder—a belief they claim was discredited by the
American Psychological Association’s vote in 1973 to remove homosexuality from
its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). However, the
1973 decision was not based on any clear-cut body of scientific evidence
proving that homosexuality is normal, natural, and harmless. Instead, as a
result of aggressive political activism, the APA simply changed the definition
of a “mental disorder” in such a way as to exclude homosexuality, by making it
contingent on the presence of “subjective distress.”
While
it is probably true that most therapists who assist with sexual orientation
change efforts do not consider homosexuality to be a normal and natural variant
of human sexuality, it is not necessary to classify it as a “mental disorder”
to justify their work. Many people who experience same-sex attractions do
experience “subjective distress” about those feelings, and that alone is
sufficient to justify allowing therapists to assist in overcoming those
attractions, if that is the goal the client chooses.
All
this background is necessary to understand why I was skeptical about an Associated Press article published recently under the
headline, “Brazil ruling that homosexuality is disease to be appealed.”
According to the article, Brazil’s “Judge Waldemar Claudio de Carvalho ruled
last week that homosexuality could be considered a disease that could be
treated with sexual orientation conversion therapies.” The article suggested
that the ruling had the effect of overturning a 1999 resolution by Brazil’s
“Federal Council of Psychology” (abbreviated “CFP” in Portuguese) aimed at
“prohibiting psychologists from treating homosexuality as a disease.”
An
article from the British newspaper The Guardian offered more detail, noting that
the case was “brought by Rozangela Justino, an evangelical Christian and
psychologist whose license was revoked in 2016 after she offered ‘conversion
therapy.’” However, I was still doubtful that we were getting the whole story
on this so-called “ruling that homosexuality is disease,” so I reached out to
Julio Severo, a Brazilian pro-family activist and Christian blogger, for more
information.
After
researching the issue, Severo confirmed my suspicions with an article on his English-language website. Severo offers an
English translation of the CFP’s “Resolution 001/1990” which includes the
following:
*
[H]omosexuality is not a disease, disturbance or perversion;
* Psychologists
shall not use any action for making homoerotic behaviors or practices
pathological, nor shall they use coercion to direct homosexuals to unsolicited
treatments.
* Psychologists
shall not offer their opinions, . . in regard to homosexuals as sufferers of
psychic disorders.
However,
the private practice of sexual reorientation therapy with consenting clients
who are distressed about unwanted same-sex attractions does not, in and of
itself, violate any of these restrictions. In addition, a Google translation of
a Portuguese language news article says explicitly, “The preliminary
decision of federal judge Waldemar Cláudio de Carvalho maintains the full text
of Resolution 01/99.”
However,
Severo does say that the resolution also included a paragraph saying:
* Psychologists
shall not collaborate with events and services proposing treatment and cures of
homosexualities.
This
appears to be the only part of the CFP resolution that the judge actually
modified, by ordering, as Severo translates it,
that the Federal
Council of Psychology [must] not interpret [its resolution] to hinder
psychologists from promoting studies or giving professional care, in a private
setting, regarding . . . sexual (re)orientation, thereby ensuring to them full
scientific freedom about the subject, with no censorship or prior permission
from the Federal Council of Psychology.
The
translated article quotes the judge as expanding on the importance of
“scientific freedom,” saying that a total ban on such therapy would
prohibit the
deepening of the scientific studies related to (sexual) orientation, thus
affecting the scientific freedom of the country . . . insofar as it prevents
and makes unfeasible the investigation of the most important aspect of
psychology [which] is human sexuality.
The
translated article also says the judge’s decision “underscores the reserved
nature of the service and prohibits advertising and publicity” for sexual
reorientation therapy.
Nevertheless,
a spokesman for the CFP condemned the decision, taking issue with the idea that
the CFP policy interferes with research. According to The Guardian,
“We have no
power over research,” he said. “The way it was put by the judge gave the
impression that we prohibited research which is not true.”
Yet
it is hard to understand how anyone could do “research” on sexual reorientation
therapy if no one is permitted to engage in such therapy.
In
summary, a very modest ruling by a Brazilian judge in defense of freedom for
clients, therapists, and researchers has been distorted by the media
(especially the Associated Press) into a judicial ruling that homosexuality is
“a disease.” The media urgently needs to abandon its caricature of sexual
orientation change efforts—and the U.S. needs more judges with the wisdom and
courage of Judge de Carvalho.
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