ABC News(NEW YORK) — Advocates of long-discredited gay conversion therapy programs say they are heartened by the election of Donald Trump, and are counting on Vice President Mike Pence and congressional Republicans to help fight-off efforts to make such programs illegal.
“I certainly hope that this administration will pull back from some of the aggressive activism that the Obama administration engaged in,” said Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council, a conservative lobbying group in Washington, which actively supports sexual reorientation efforts.
The Surgeon General appointed by President Obama, Vivek Murthy, publicly stated that that “conversion therapy is not sound medical practice” and such programs “are harmful, and are not appropriate therapeutic practices.”
Conversion therapy has been outlawed for licensed mental health providers in California, Oregon, New Jersey, Vermont, Illinois and the District of Colombia, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a LGBT advocacy group.
The Family Research Council and Sprigg have helped to fight legislative proposals in 20 other states that would similarly make gay conversion illegal.
“They certainly should not be outlawed. They certainly should not be prohibited by law,” Sprigg said in an interview to be broadcast on the ABC News program 20/20 this Friday which investigates gay conversion therapy programs.
“As a Christian, I believe that the Bible teaches that to choose to engage in homosexual conduct is a sin,” he said, adding that he believes therapy can cause people to make different choices.
The 20/20 report includes revelations of two programs which conducted conversion therapy in Alabama, including one where the Christian pastors overseeing dozens of teens were convicted of child abuse amid stark allegations of beatings administered to teens who resisted efforts to change their sexual preferences.
The camps practicing conversion therapy uncovered by the ABC News 20/20 investigation were not operating as licensed mental health facilities, and are therefore not covered by laws prohibiting the practice.
At the Republican National Convention last year, delegates voted for a party platform that appeared to tacitly endorse the right of parents to send their teens to conversion programs, supporting the “right of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children.”
The RNC position mirrored the position of the Family Research Council, which considers such sexual reorientation therapy to be mental healthcare.
“If someone is experiencing something mentally, like same sex attractions, that is causing distress, then that’s a mental health issue,” Sprigg said.
Sprigg said that there is no place for physical abuse in therapy programs.
“The kind of therapy that we support is ordinary talk therapy like anyone would have for any type of psychological issue,” he said.
Sprigg said that his groups does not believe “same-sex attractions are a choice,” but that he also does “not believe that experiencing same sex attractions is a normal and natural variant of human sexuality.”
Sprigg also said he believed that Pence would be helpful in any battle with what he called “gay lobby.”
As a candidate for Congress in the 1990’s, Pence’s campaign website included a statement that fueled belief that he was in support of conversion therapies for gay youth.
“Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior,” the website said, under a header reading, “The Pence Agenda.”
While ABC News has not received a comment from Pence, despite repeated requests, a spokesman for Pence told the New York Times in November that Pence was calling for federal funds to “be directed to groups that promoted safe sexual practices,” and that it was “patently false,” that the vice president, “supported or advocated,” conversion therapy.
The Family Research Council is optimistic Republicans will back their position.
“I see it as unlikely that any sort of legislative – federal legislative attack upon sexual reorientation therapy will – will go anywhere,” Sprigg said.
The practice however has long been discredited by respected medical and mental health institutions.
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its diagnostic manual — the industry’s definitive book of mental disorders.
Following this move, in 1975, the American Psychological Association asserted that “homosexuality per se implies no impairment in judgment, stability, reliability, or general social and vocational capabilities; Further, the American Psychological Association urges all mental health professionals to take the lead in removing the stigma of mental illness that has long been associated with homosexual orientations.”
And in 1993, the American Academy of Pediatrics also denounced the practice, saying, “Therapy directed at specifically changing sexual orientation is contraindicated, since it can provoke guilt and anxiety while having little or no potential for achieving changes in orientation.”
Despite these unequivocal positions from the foremost mental health organizations, the ABC News 20/20 investigation found a cottage industry of so-called conversion camps operating across the country.
To learn more, and hear the harrowing story of how two gay youths escaped such camps, tune into 20/20 on Friday at 10 p.m.
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