On the weekend of June 15-17, the “Restored Hope Network” met at City View Church in San Diego for a conference on so-called conversion therapy, which purports to “cure” people of same sex attraction or transgender identity. There is no evidence to suggest that such “therapy” is effective even on its own terms; it is in fact harmful. Nonetheless, the Restored Hope Network still attempts to push their agenda of intolerance and hate.
San Diego activists– including the Party for Socialism and Liberation as well as the San Diego Coalition Against Gay Conversion and members of the LGBTQ community–were ready for them. Actions were held June 16 and 17 at City View Church and in the evenings of June 15 and 16 at the Hilton Hotel in Mission Valley where the conference attendees stayed for the weekend.
The initial press release Thursday night drew a crowd of over 200 people protesters. No doubt, part of what drew the people out that weekend was the horrific track record of so-called “conversion therapy.”
Conversion therapy is an umbrella term for various forms of physical and psychological torture. Also known as reparative or restorative therapy, it’s all the same hatred with different names. For far too long it has been used as an attempt to “fix” what is not broken. Targeting LGBTQ youth, this “therapy” has in the past included electroshock therapy, castration, aversive conditioning, isolation from friends and loved ones as well as constant shaming. All too often after undergoing this treatment and “relapsing” many youths will attempt suicide because they feel that there is no better option for them.
Since the late 1990s, the country’s leading mental health organizations have spoken out against the baseless practice and it has even been banned in some states (including California since 2012).
The American Psychiatric Association put out a statement in 2000: “The potential risks of reparative therapy are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient. Many patients who have undergone reparative therapy relate that they were inaccurately told that homosexuals are lonely, unhappy individuals who never achieve acceptance or satisfaction.”
Other organizations that have spoken out against conversion therapy include the American Psychological Association, American Counseling Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American School Counselor Association and the National Association of Social Workers.
Protesters echoed these sentiments on their signs and their chants: “We won’t stand for what you did! Gay conversion tortures kids!” Standing together in solidarity with each other and their allies, the activists who came out that weekend put pay to the idea that LGBTQ people are “lonely, unhappy individuals who never achieve acceptance or satisfaction.”
Given that conversion therapy does not work and there is nothing wrong with being LGBTQ, all this conference really did was talk about and provide the tools for abuse–for a profit! Among the abusers in attendance were three U.S. citizens who were involved in writing the bill in Uganda that made homosexuality an executable offense, as well as Donald Welch, who was involved in the court case that made conversion therapy a crime in the state of California. Welch was, coincidentally, also the keynote speaker for this conference.
There is no question that those involved in the conference are bigots who have the blood of LGBTQ youth on their hands. With this knowledge in their minds and fire in their hearts people shouted their anger and defiance to this disgusting practice all weekend, even in the face of ridicule from convention goers and the ominous looming threat of violent police reprisal.
From San Diego the message was clear: “Go home bigots, get out of our city!”
