Pray Away the Gay?
EmailABC News’ Tara Evans reports:
Is counseling someone to abandon homosexuality a legitimate form of therapy?
“What Would You Do?” tackled this controversial question by hiring two actors to portray a gay teen and a religious counselor promising to help the teen “pray away the gay,” and change his sexual orientation. We wanted to see how customers at a Stacks Pancake House in Paramus, N.J. would react to the counselor’s efforts and the teen’s obvious discomfort. While one couple was supportive of the counselor — watch a sneak peek below — many others were opposed to his actions.
The effort to change someone’s sexuality through therapy — known as reparative therapy or conversion therapy — made national headlines after it was learned that the husband of a Republican presidential candidate runs a clinic that reportedly practices reparative therapy.
Marcus Bachmann, husband of former GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann, has a clinic in suburban Minneapolis. One former Bachmann & Associates patient Andrew Ramirez, who was 17 in 2004 when he was treated at Bachmann’s clinic, told ABC News, “[One counselor's] path for my therapy would be to read the Bible, pray to God that I would no longer be gay. And God would forgive me if I were straight.”
Marcus Bachmann was asked in 2006 by a local newspaper if his clinic attempted to convert gay patients. “That’s a false statement,” he said.
“If someone is interested in talking to us about their homosexuality, we are open to talking about that,” he reportedly said. “But if someone comes in a homosexual and they want to stay homosexual, I don’t have a problem with that.”
The official stance of the American Psychological Association is that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. As such, it need not be cured and reparative therapy could be harmful.
How do you feel about the idea of trying to “convert” someone away from homosexuality? Let us know by voting below and watch the whole scenario play out on “What Would You Do?” tonight at 10 p.m. ET.
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Please…anyone who believes in this crap should have their head examined…you can’t pray away being gay…
Posted by: RalphF | February 10, 2012, 7:40 pm 7:40 pm
Yes, you can definitely ask God to remove the desire for the same sex, permanently, and if you are sincere, and absolutely repentant, He will definitely remove it from you. However, you must be willing to walk in harmony with your prayer; rid yourself of all people in your life who are bad influences.
Posted by: Bonnie | February 10, 2012, 7:55 pm 7:55 pm
Bonnie, I really hope you do not belive you can “pray the gay away”. If for some reason society decided being “straight” was bad, could you pray to be gay????
Posted by: Really???????? | February 10, 2012, 8:40 pm 8:40 pm
Who cares if he’s gay? I suppose his parents do, but they’ll get over it …or not. If they don’t, that will be ther loss. Sexuality is no one’s business.
Posted by: Mike | February 10, 2012, 9:14 pm 9:14 pm
Don’t be so quick to dismiss this, we all prayed to get Bachman out of the presidential race and she is gone. Our next prayers are to get rid of all religious idiots; that is not going so well.
Posted by: vissionquest | February 10, 2012, 9:25 pm 9:25 pm
My friend once told our class, “It’s was Adam and Ever, not Adam and Steve.” I agree with this statement completely, but you can’t pray the gay away. It’s something that the mind produces, but I do not agree that you are born that way. It’s something that develops over time.
Posted by: Macy | February 10, 2012, 10:11 pm 10:11 pm
This brought tears to my eyes. You cannot pray the gay away. Its none of your business “bonnie” what anybodys sexuality is. Everyone is beautiful the way they are! It is NOT a sin to be gay. Men could sleep together in the bible! Its 2012, not 1950s anymore. its now fine to be gay. The younger generation is much more accepting and its very refreshing not to have such narrow minded people about to take over our country anymore. Youre going to have to deal, because the world is changing and no one has to change who they are to be “normal” anymore. Have a great night.
Posted by: Scott | February 10, 2012, 10:16 pm 10:16 pm
I’m a fan of “What would you do?” but I’ve never seen such a biased episode. It was completely ridiculous. They wanted the the people around to dislike the idea of therapy. They get some creep who looks like a failed Mr. Rogers impersonator to act a counselor, being completely unorthodox. I wish they would try this one again with a professional approach, to have the counselor be more professional and not so creepy, they could even leave the “Pray the gay” phase out. The reaction of the spectators would be totally different. Most would agree with with counselor. But like I said it was completely bias and I’m disgusted. I thought “what would you do?” was better than that.
Posted by: Beau | February 10, 2012, 10:24 pm 10:24 pm
I have no idea if you are born gay or not. See earlier comment if it gets published. But as the Bible says sexual immorality is a sin, and a man laying with another man is an abomination. Living a gay lifestyle is a sin. You may be wired that way but you have a choice as to whether or not you live it. We all sin being gay is no more a sin that telling a little white lie. We all fall short of the Grace of God. Love the sinner hate the sin. We are ALL sinners, love each other.
Posted by: Chris | February 10, 2012, 10:27 pm 10:27 pm
Hey REALLY?????
When you have faith it really doesn’t matter what society thinks. Have you ever felt that strongly about anything?
Posted by: chris | February 10, 2012, 10:38 pm 10:38 pm
Wow!! I didn’t watch the video. You faked a counselor??? You don’t even know what it is about? Fake dialog made up with what YOU think they might say to kids. Pathetic…
Posted by: Travis | February 10, 2012, 10:58 pm 10:58 pm
God would want us to respect each other with dignity and kindness. He created gay & lesbian people so why should they be punished for it.
And even if being gay was a choice, it is no business of anyone else what people do privately.
Posted by: Julian | February 11, 2012, 1:27 am 1:27 am
How dare you! You set up the scene to mock the Christian faith and our belief in the power of prayer. That is stooping pretty low. Tell me would you dare to set the scene to reflect what devout Islam’s response would be? Execution!
Posted by: Sherry | February 11, 2012, 1:53 am 1:53 am
Yes Chris, I am gay, a Christian, and have faith. If it was not for faith, I would not be a Christian. I have faith that one day people will treat each other with basic human respect. I have to answer to God for my decisions the same as you, however so many people focus on what I do behind closed doors. Focus on you and your relationship with God, not what you “believe” others are doing wrong.
Posted by: Really????? | February 11, 2012, 6:17 am 6:17 am
the issue has never been about prayers and changing an orientation. the issue is about praying for changing because one orientation was deemed better than another. being gay in essence is spiritually equal to being heterosexual. this mandates that both are absolutely equal to each other.
Posted by: feetxxxl | February 11, 2012, 9:59 am 9:59 am
This is beyond disgusting how ABC has set up a sham counseling session in a public place mocking the process. The “religious counselor” was an obnoxious actor saying all the liberal talking points making the whole process look bad. He was being cruel saying he was operating in love? The guy says, I”‘m religious, I’m wearig a cross”. This is an insult to our intelligence ABC! This is so such a perverted hit piece by ABC it is laughable.
Posted by: DinoBravo | February 11, 2012, 9:59 am 9:59 am
Just a note on the Muslim family, in case anyone drew broad conclusions from their participation in the show: Remember the son felt differently than his parents did on the issue. So we can’t make any inferences about all Muslims or Arabs (if in fact the family were Arabs – I don’t know) by the couple that seemed to agree with the gay kid’s parents. I’m a gay Arab guy (though not Muslim) and pretty much all my Arab and Muslim friends are pro-gay and pro-gay marriage, many of them outspokenly so. Just putting out the word on that… thanks.
Posted by: Daoud | February 11, 2012, 10:51 am 10:51 am
Why do former heads and founders of ex-gay ministries all say that it does not work, that you cannot “pray away the gay”? This includes Michael Bussee, Darling Bogle, Jeremy Marks and most recently John Smid plus a host of many others. Ex-gay ministries do much more harm than good and at least three of the above names have issued formal apologies for the harm they have caused gays in the past.
Hundreds and hundreds of people have tried these ministries and it has been a massive failure. They may have helped with issues of self-esteem, sexual addictions, family dysfunction, waywardness from church, etc. But, for the most part they do nothing to take away the attraction that gays or lesbians have for the opposite sex. Even the current leader of Exodus, the most prominent ex-gay ministry today, appears to be living in a happy heterosexual marriage. Yet he admits he still has same-gender attraction.
People can get married and pretend fairly effectively to live a heterosexual life and even function biologically to have kids. But, most of this is just a sham considering they still continually fight their attraction to the opposite gender. For most gays and lesbians they are designed by God to love someone of the opposite gender. No amount of praying seems to take that attraction away. To date there are no scientifically peer-reviewed medical or scientific studies that would indicate any effective therapy (including prayer) that can change gay people into straight people. NONE.
However, there are dozens of scientific and medical studies published in scientific and medical peer-reviewed journals that identify statistically verifiable physiological and biological differences in gays and lesbians that mostly occur in the womb that are different than how they occur in straights. The scientific evidence leads us to concur that being gay is something that occurs in the womb before a person is born and thus is immutable and not subject to being changed.
The same pre-birth development of a child in the womb that predetermines they will be tall or a red head with blue eyes are not the kinds of things one can pray away. It is how God designed one to be. You can pray all you want to change things like that. It is absolutely not a matter of how much faith you have or not. You are still not going to change the color of your hair or your eyes. You can pray and go out and buy colored contact lenses and hair dye. But, underneath you are still the person you were born to be. Trying to be something you are not is folly in this case.
For someone to tell you to pray to change your hair color because you don’t look good in red hair and blue eyes is not going to help you one bit. You can get all the prayer warriars from every church in the nation to pray for you and you are not going to change. The best you can do is dye your hair and keep dyeing it so you can pretend to be something you are not to other people. But, remember you have to keep redying your hair every couple of weeks or your roots will show and people will eventually see the real you.
The same with being gay. You can pretend you are straight. You can get married, and functionally have kids. But, if you are gay you are still going to be sexually attracted to the opposite sex rather than the same sex. No amount of prayer is going to change that.
Posted by: Henry Juhala | February 11, 2012, 11:54 am 11:54 am
It’s not about “praying it away”, Mr. Quinones. One does have to be unhappy enough, though, to want change. Only those (gay & ex) who’ve been there know that kind of unhappiness. Family/friends think they know so much about their gay friend (sorry, but I loath a know-it-all heterosexual), but often they don’t. That unknown part is where pain is sometimes found.
Also, it’s easy when you’re young to believe life is good. I did. How mistaken I was, but it was too late – I was in the thick of it: the bars, and things I cannot mention here. More than anything, though, I didn’t have a clue who I was as a man. If you REALLY love your gay person respect and love them always, but don’t use them as a “token” or “pawn” (always hated that about some heterosexuals too).
Coming “out” of a gay life was not always easy, but my thoughts and beliefs about God were MUCH more the issue than anything sexual. I’ve never felt better about myself – in areas where it really matters. It’s a place every male wants to matter – in his own heart and in his own head. As hard as it’s been I wouldn’t go back for nothing.
Posted by: David | February 11, 2012, 4:38 pm 4:38 pm
I believe the Lord can change anyone. No, we are NOT born gay, it’s a choice, read the Bible. God loves everybody and we should treat everyone with respect and love, not with cruelty and disrepect. We are all equals and God is no respector of persons. What this country needs is to get back to puttting God first…because as you can all see, we are headed for disaster due to the fact people want to push God away which is the worst thing anyone can do.
The “Pray the Gay Away” episode on WWYD this past Friday was very disturbing. Do not say that Lady Gaga is correct in her song, Born That Way…keep your opinions to yourself, ABC. She is not right and noone should look up to her…she is no role model.
Posted by: Lena | February 14, 2012, 7:36 pm 7:36 pm
First of all we are all human and should ALL be able to live our life how we want to live it…nobody has the right to change that or control it!!!!!
Posted by: DEBZ12 | February 24, 2012, 10:04 pm 10:04 pm
That’s the problem with people today. There are too many people in this world that have thier priorites mixed up. You can’t pray away gay. Being gay is not a choice. I could try to go and lay with another woman right now but I wouldn’t be able to. I don’t find it attractive or pleasing. But gays and lesbians don’t find the opposite sex pleasing it isn’t something they are born with but it isn’t like they woke up one day and went I believe it looks fun to be gay I’ll do that. It isn’t like choosing what sport your going to go out for in high school. People who blindly believe too much in the lord are twisted past the objective view of the Bible.
That’s why the current GOP candidates scare the living crap out of me. This country is a country of freedom. Christians hide behind it but want to only limit the freedoms of sexual orientation, religion and separation of church and state to their will and convenience.
Not just Christians but everyone has the right to everything they are allowed to have. You don’t believe in it then no one is making you be gay, or have and abortion, or use birth control. But taking my right away from me for it you are doing worse than allowing people access to it.
If you can burn atheistic books it should be okay if I have a bible burning right?
If you don’t believe in gay marriage then I don’t believe in stop lights and speed limits.
Its subjective not objective and the pray away the gay os one more thing that make the US look like a joke to the rest of the world.
Posted by: Dana | February 27, 2012, 8:56 am 8:56 am