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Bariso wrote, “is not novel but—like the notion that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it—instead is outdated and refuted.”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.