Lawsuit Against Debunked Abusive Jewish Gay To Straight "Conversion Therapy" Group Favored By Haredi And Orthodox Rabbis Proceeds

Chaim Levin prayed to God to cure his homosexuality—and Alan Downing promised to answer his prayers. Levin, an 18-year-old orthodox Jew and a victim of childhood sexual abuse, believed his attraction to men was a disorder; Downing, a gay conversion “therapist,” said he could heal him. At one therapy session, for which Levin’s parents paid $100, Downing told Levin to remove a piece of clothing, say something bad about himself, then repeat the process. Levin complied until he was naked. Downing instructed Levin to touch his penis, then his buttocks, while Downing watched. This, Downing said, would help Levin become straight.…

 

Slate.com reports on the lawsuit filed by Chaim Levin and three other men against JONAH, the horrible Jewish reparative therapy (conversion therapy) group many rabbis in Chabad, haredi groups and even in Centrist orthodoxy endorse (or at least send people to):

Chaim Levin prayed to God to cure his homosexuality—and Alan Downing promised to answer his prayers. Levin, an 18-year-old orthodox Jew and a victim of childhood sexual abuse, believed his attraction to men was a disorder; Downing, a gay conversion “therapist,” said he could heal him. At one therapy session, for which Levin’s parents paid $100, Downing told Levin to remove a piece of clothing, say something bad about himself, then repeat the process. Levin complied until he was naked. Downing instructed Levin to touch his penis, then his buttocks, while Downing watched. This, Downing said, would help Levin become straight.…

[E]arlier this month, Superior Court Judge Peter F. Bariso threw JONAH’s pseudoscience out the window. JONAH had moved to put six defense experts on the stand who would testify that homosexuality is a disorder. The SPLC moved to block all six experts, noting that in New Jersey, expert testimony related to a scientific technique is allowed only where that technique has “general acceptance” in its particular field. Since the vast majority of scientists, doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists believe homosexuality is not a disorder and gay conversion therapy is futile, the SPLC argued, all of JONAH’s expert testimony should be excluded.

In an emphatic order, Bariso agreed. “The theory that homosexuality is a disorder,” Bariso wrote, “is not novel but—like the notion that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it—instead is outdated and refuted.” Bariso barred five of JONAH’s experts from testifying at all, since their opinions would be based in the “obsolete and discredited scientific theor[y]” that homosexuality is a curable affliction. (The sixth expert will be permitted to testify about an unrelated matter.) As a result of this blunt ruling, JONAH has no experts to speak to the validity of its allegedly therapeutic practices. (Update, Feb. 10: Soon after publication, Bariso ruled that, as a matter of law, JONAH’s description of homosexuality as an illness constituted “misrepresentation” in violation of New Jersey’s statute. As a result of these rulings, JONAH has no experts to speak to the validity of its allegedly therapeutic practices and cannot even argue in court that homosexuality is, indeed, a disorder.) The backbone of its legal defense has been effectively shattered.

But it gets worse for JONAH. In addition to barring false and fraudulent advertising, New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act also forbids unconscionable commercial conduct—in other words, any for-profit practice that shocks the conscience. State courts have ruled that this standard must be interpreted liberally to protect the public from dishonest or harmful business practices.

Here, the SPLC would seem to have a slam-dunk case. JONAH conducted group therapy sessions in which young gay men were blindfolded while counselors dribbled basketballs and shouted anti-gay slurs. In other group sessions, clients were made to undress and stand in a circle together, while their counselor—who was also naked—looked on. Other times, counselors and their clients partook in “group cuddling sessions.”

Those therapies were mild compared with some of the other sessions. In one group activity, clients held hands to create a human chain while one person stood behind the chain holding two oranges, meant to represent testicles. Clients then took turns standing on the other side of the chain while the rest of the group shouted anti-gay slurs at them. The goal was to goad clients into pushing through the chain and grabbing the oranges. At one particularly atrocious session, a counselor instructed Levin to select someone from the group to role-play his past abuser. The selected participant was made to yell abusive statements that Levin’s abuser had made, such as “I won’t love you anymore if you don’t give me blowjobs.”

Individual sessions were just as disturbing. Downing appears to have asked most of his clients to undress while he watched. He also instructed at least one client to beat an effigy of his mother with a tennis racket while screaming, as if murdering her. Another JONAH counselor told a client to wear a rubber band around his wrist and snap it every time he felt attraction to a man. And JONAH counselors frequently told their clients to go to bathhouses with their fathers in order to be naked in their presence.

It goes without saying that none of these practices are scientifically proven to change one’s sexual orientation. They are, in fact, entirely made up. Further, JONAH’s humiliating, degrading therapies seem designed to force young gay men to disrobe in front of their counselors—and to touch themselves and their counselors sexually.…

Read it all here.

Comments

[Sarek]

Those "therapies" seem to have come from a sitcom or a poorly-written episode of Law&Order:SVU. I don't have to be a trained shrink to know those activities were created on the fly for the sole purpose of a wallet-ectomy.

[Gay Frum Jew]

Levin is gay. No amount of therapy will change that...myself included.

[Jeff]

Once again, evidence that prayer does not work.

[tucsonjew]

Sarek, I disagree. I think it was for the sexual arousal of the therapists. They can't be licensed.

[Rocky]

"Another JONAH counselor told a client to wear a rubber band around his wrist and snap it every time he felt attraction to a man." In the movie "Sordid Lives", one of the Texas characters who was trying to quit smoking was told by her therapist to snap a rubber band on her wrist every time she had the urge to smoke. It sounds about as effective as the advice Prissy gave in "Gone With the Wind": If you put a knife under the bed, it cuts the pain in two.

[MosheCohen]

Dr B Sorotzkin argues that there is no scientific evidence if a 'gay gene'.

He believes that in certain circumstances therapy (albeit no reparative therapy as employed by Jonah) can indeed remove SSA. He has helped several such people whose SSA was a sa result of childhood issues.

I can't find the document, but if you Google Dr Boruch sorotzkin SSA , you should find it.

[MosheCohen]

Sorry, I meant Dr Benzion Sorotzkin.

[Cornish]

What a load of crap.

This type of article really gets under my skin.

I'll tell you whats happening here: The so called therapists are doing therapy with Gay people because of their own believe system.

In their twisted minds they believe anyone who is attracted to the same sex is in the same category as a sex offender - ( sorry Gay Frum Jew, the decent folk of society know that is far from correct ).

That is why they use this therapy mistakenly believing being Gay to also about having poor impulse control. WRONG!!!.

Sex offenders do some of those exercises and years ago we even used to tell them to masturbate to music or sounds and stop when we therapists instructed them via a loud speaker from the room next door.

That my friends is where they got the ideas from.

However while those therapies do sort of work with sex offenders when they are in a controlled live in environment for perhaps 2 years and have strict clear boundaries, intensive therapy for their own historical abuse as well as to address their offending it has no relevance whatsoever to what they perceive is "wrong" with Gays.

Being gay is not a disease or mental illness, about poor impulse control or about power and control issues thats who they are end of story.

Yes there will be some ratbags that just happen to also be Gay however that is human behaviour and is no different to the general population

Quite frankly I would much prefer to have a nice loving well adjusted gay couple come look after my kids than one of these so called rabbis.

Being gay or straight isnt actually the issue. Its if they are honest, hard working, well adjusted valued members of society that counts.

And what anybody chooses to do behind closed doors with another consenting adult has nothing to do with anyone else

[Cornish]

MosheCohen,

"Some" people particularly women will enter into a gay relationship because they feel safer with their own.

We see that a lot with women who have been repeatedly abused by angry abusive men ( not saying women dont abuse men because they do but thats for another day ).

In those cases if they work through the abuse they may well decide they are not gay and men arent all bad so feel safer to venture into another male/female relationship HOWEVER thats not because they have been saved from themselves or have had corrective therapy to convert them from gay to straight.

It is they now have a different perception of men and have healed from the abuse.

Frankly while I am very definitely a straight woman and have no desire to switch sides I can see the value of not having to pick up after men or always ending up the cook and dishwasher and
cab service, nurse maid etc and dont get me started on why I need another new dress or why I dislike wet towels that do not know how to walk themselves into the laundry or jump back up onto the towel rail..

Ok, thats tongue in cheek but hopefully you will get my drift

[Jeff]

"Quite frankly I would much prefer to have a nice loving well adjusted gay couple come look after my kids than one of these so called rabbis."

Seconded enthusiastically.

[ah-pee-chorus]

So a guy who seems to like seeing boys naked was paid to rid THEM of their gayness ?

[Shari]

And the best part, ah-pee-chorus, is that Orthodox Jews are arguing in favor of this "therapy." If that's not irony, I don't know what is.

[MPi]

Encouraging a client to wear a rubber band around their wrist and snap it to distract their thinking, is a very common intervention. It's typically used with cutters, anxiety and phobias, and it can actually work. It's a distraction. It stops a thought in the middle of the thought.
However, regardless of its efficacy in therapy, it won't magically change your sexuality or gender. If the thought of being gay is bothersome. . . it's the least ridiculous intervention I've heard listed here.

[surprised]

I'm speechless.

Have read before that JONAH's "therapies" were harmful, but could never have imagined this.

[Gay Frum Jew]

@Cornish
Being gay has nothing to do with being a child molester. You are correct. Its amazing that when news breaks about haredi men messing with boys, the world has it in their heads that they are gay. Its amazing how many fathers told me that if their sons show any "gay" behavior, they will be sent to therapy to be re-wired the right way. "Wouldn't you love them just as they are", I would ask. Firmly shaking their heads...no.
P.S. My partner and I love to baby sit!

[Yochanan Lavie]

Leave Gays alone. Gay gezunteh heit.

[Cornish]

@ Gay Frum Jew

That distorted thinking drives me nuts!.

However my pet hate and all time gripe is poor kids who have been molested by the same sex (also seen quite a few girls abused by women )begin to wonder if they are bad or are gay. Some tell me they lie awake at night worrying how to tell their parents, what the friends will say, how their life will be vastly different and if that is not bad enough the so called parents, people who are supposed to love them unconditionally abuse them further by bullying and intimidating those bad thoughts or even worse shock, horror drag them off to the rabbi, make them learn even more or see some half wit therapist without any formal training or supervision to abuse them further Grrr.

If you are well adjusted, keep Kosher and Shabbos, dont drive like a maniac and don't mind kids who can ask question after question come right over! :).

PS, Ben 7 needs a tooth pulled this afternoon, hubbys outta town, fancy taking my baby for me??

[Gay Frum Jew]

@Cornish

What state are you in? Here in Cali

[An]

@Gay Frum Jew,

Oh lucky you!. Melbourne unfortunately..