David Matheson, a protege of the late NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) therapist Joseph Nicolosi and the founder of the Mormon ‘ex-gay’ therapy group The Center for Gender Wholeness and the Journey Into Manhood ‘ex-gay’ retreat, has quit the “ex-gay” movement and is now dating men exclusively. He’s also unapologetic about the harm he caused hundreds of men who fell prey to his bogus programs.
Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out got word of Matheson’s via a private Facebook group run by Matheson’s Journey Into Manhood director Rich Wyler who told the group “[Matheson] has gone from bisexuality to exclusively gay.”
Matheson spoke with Besen on Sunday night and said: “My time in a straight marriage and in the “ex-gay” world was genuine and sincere and a rich blessing to me. I remember most of it with fondness and gratitude for the joy and growth it caused in me and many others. But I had stopped growing and was starting to die. So I’ve embarked on a new life-giving path that has already started a whole new growth process. I wasn’t faking it all those years. I’m not renouncing my past work or my LDS faith. And I’m not condemning mixed-orientation marriages. I continue to support the rights of individuals to choose how they will respond to their sexual attractions and identity. With that freedom, I am now choosing to pursue life as a gay man.”
Said Besen: “If conversion therapy does not work for authors like David Matheson who write books on the discredited practice, it is naïve to expect it to work for those reading such deceptive publications. Conversion therapy employs guilt and shame to browbeat desperate and vulnerable people into renouncing their humanity. This is the latest evidence that conversion therapy is consumer fraud and ought to be outlawed in all 50 states.”
