A six member task force of the American Psychological Association is set to review the organization's decade-old policy on counseling gays and lesbians, prompting concern from religious right organizations like Focus on the Family and hope from gay rights groups that they'll excoriate “ex-gay” therapy methods and institutions.
According to the AP, Focus on the Family and other groups sent them a joint letter, which read, in part: “We believe that psychologists should assist clients to develop lives that they value, even if that means they decline to identify as homosexual.”
As they should, the APA says they'll base their findings on “scientific research, not ideology.”
Said Clinton Anderson, director of the APA's Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Concerns Office: “We cannot take into account what are fundamentally negative religious perceptions of homosexuality — they don't fit into our world view.”
Hopefully the review will result in the public condemnation of “ex-gay” programs and their attendant negative societal repercussions.
