Mission America

Christian Commentary on the Culture

Coat Hangers, Electric Shock and Other Leftist Myths

A consumer fraud complaint has been filed with the Federal Trade Commission by a consortium of counselors and physicians against the deceptive practices of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and others.

Yet the same old, same old lie about counseling for unwanted same sex attractions was repeated in a recent article by Reuters.  Here it is:

“Gay conversion therapy methods range from counseling, hypnosis and dating-skill training to aversive techniques that induce pain or electric shocks in response to same-sex erotic images, according to California officials…” ( Emphasis added)

So is Reuters correct? Is electric shock or pain-inducing therapy commonly used on teens to “make them straight”?

NO. This claim is a fraud right out of Propaganda 101. It is doubtful even one appropriately-licensed counselor could be identified doing such therapy.

Yet once again, the fake news media peddles the lies of “LGBTQ” advocates.

The Reuters article gleefully reported the latest “victory” in this campaign. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of a discriminatory California law banning counseling for teens who want to leave homosexual feelings behind. The high court has turned down other similar cases.

And once again, America’s youth are betrayed. Many of these teens were molested by predatory adults or older peers, causing sexual confusion that most likely would have been absent otherwise.

Such incidents are nonconsensual and often meet the legal requirement for statutory rape.

But California is cool with child sexual exploitation. It permeates their schools. Their streets embrace “pride” events with school clubs marching, even though  proud pedophilia advocates are sometimes parade leaders ( Harry Hay, Larry Brinkin).

California even mandates an adult predator celebration day in public schools—Harvey Milk Day -- on May 22 each year.

The National Task Force on Therapy Equality filed the FTC complaint because they are fed up with the fascist tactics of HRC and SPLC. The horror of “electric shock” fits the left’s prejudices about conservatives and Christians, so when unverified “testimony” is given for bills banning such therapy, and salacious details are offered about forced conversion camps and such, Democrats nod in agreement: “We knew it all along.”

For example, a 2014 bill to ban sexual orientation change therapy proposed by Democrats in the state of Washington alleged that ice baths and shock therapy were being used, although the state’s department of health had never received any complaint along these lines.

In March 2013, a bill proposed in the New Jersey Senate heard shocking testimony from Brielle Goldani, a man identifying as a woman. Brielle recounted an Ohio camp for “conversion therapy” where in 1997, she (he) allegedly received shock therapy. The camp was called “True Directions.” Contacts with Ohio’s secretary of state and attorney general failed to find records of any such camp. But this account lines up almost verbatim with the plot of a low-budget homosexual movie called “But I’m a Cheerleader.”

These ideological bullies keep pushing the “born that way” mythology. But noted experts are revealing the truth. Drs. Paul McHugh and Lawrence Mayer at Johns Hopkins have dared to challenge “gay” orthodoxy and publish an extensive compilation of studies refuting the “born gay” claim.

But what is supported by research is a higher incidence of child molestation in the backgrounds of those who later profess same sex attractions/identity.

This is all reminiscent of the coathanger abortions imagery, useful for politics but slim in evidence.

I was a teen and not a conservative Christian before the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. You would think among my friends and relatives, if back alley/coathanger abortions were pretty common, I’d have heard of at least one.

But no. I wondered why my friends, while sharing every detail of every date with every boyfriend, somehow omitted this information.

There’s a reason. If this ever happened, it was rare—just as incidents of homosexual victimization are embellished today or sometimes, invented.  

And the “electric shock” therapy narrative has been similarly amplified. Has this ever happened? If so, it was in the distant past or only offered by Fred & Ethel’s Storm Door Company and Drop-in Counseling.

It’s been relegated to the dusty file that includes “Lobotomies.”

I pray that someday, “transgender” medical and surgical treatment of minors will be in that same trash heap, a shameful period of abuse in our culture’s history.

But what about those coat-hangers?

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of NARAL, who later had a complete change of heart about abortion, admitted how in the fight to legalize the practice in the 1960s and 70s, scary statistics were simply invented by the abortion lobby to advance their horrific agenda.

Where there is a complicit media, a predominance of cowardly GOP lawmakers, and a mute evangelical church, propagandists can get away with anything.

And they have. There is no “gay” gene, homosexuality is terribly harmful, homosexuals do sometimes prey on kids, and we are seeing an increase in this deviance among our youth. Does anyone care?

It was in the context of this frustration that I was jubilant to see this highly-respected group of physicians and counselors file the FTC complaint against HRC, SPLC and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Here’s a portion of what the complaint says:

“The three Respondents have actively and knowingly engaged in deceptive and fraudulent marketing…”

“The three Respondents have supported witnesses on the state, federal, and international level that have delivered unverifiable and fraudulent testimony …”

“The three Respondents, through their marketing campaigns, are actively raising large sums of money in the effort to ban psychotherapy…”

The report also cites these organizations’ misrepresentation of the positions and findings of the American Psychological Association, and their record of knowingly distorting research, including circulating the “born gay” hoax. They have also engaged in smear campaigns against those who offer reparative therapy.

Let’s all pray that the FTC objectively reviews this material and that finally, truth will win the day.