A New Jersey jury is hearing testimony in a lawsuit alleging that Jersey City-based Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing, or JONAH, violated state consumer fraud laws when it promised to turn gay people straight.
In the process, exactly went on inside JONAH’s so-called “conversion therapy clinic” is being made public, and it’s not pretty.
This week, JONAH co-founders Arthur Goldberg and Elaine Silodor Berk along with “life coach” Alan Downing admitted under oath to employing what even the group’s own defense attorney calls “bizarre” conversion therapy methods.
Related: Grieving Mother Says “Gay Conversion Therapy Killed My Son”
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Here are just four of the methods:
1. Forcing clients to stare at their own fathers’ genitals.
2. Duct-taping men together and then lecturing them about the “gay deathstyle” and “bowel disease.”
3. Asking men to masturbate in front of a mirror while therapists watched (Downing insists this was voluntary. “I do not tell someone they should take off their clothes,” he testified. “It’s an invitation.”)
4. “Journeys Into Manhood” or “Journeys Beyond.” These 48-hour weekends included taking victims to a secret location and insisting they participate in exercises ranging from getting completely naked with counselors to blindfolding them while screaming homophobic slurs. Props in the bizarre activities included duct tape, bed sheets, rope, oranges, baby powder, and handcuffs. (According to Downing, “[The duct tape] is a metaphor … the idea of the tape is to create some level of resistance. We try to create an external metaphor to take the story outside of the man’s mind.”)
Neither Downing, Goldberg, Berk nor any of JONAH’s staff mental boast any real mental health credentials. Yet they insisted to the jury that they “try to adhere to … ethical guidelines.”
Right.
In 2013, Gov. Chris Christie, A Repubican presidential aspirant, signed a law banning conversion therapy in New Jersey.
Related: The Horrors Inside A Christian Conversion Cult Are Exposed First-Hand
h/t: Mic
Ladbrook
Ghastly and horrific.
I assume the blindfolds on the participants were added so that they wouldn’t notice that their therapists were jerking off as they physically tortured and humiliated their patients.
SammySeattle
“I do not tell someone they should take off their clothes,” he testified. “It’s an invitation.”
I make that invitation regularly. Nothing gay about that.
Creamsicle
I hope people start seeing these places for what they are. I’m glad that so many states have made these practices illegal for minors. While from a distance they’re insane, and the butt of many a joke, they also legitimately drive men to suicide.
billeetee
And they all need to totally exposed as the danger that all of them are. It’s time to pull back the sheets and see the ‘lice in the bed’. And as Jews, I would venture that they’re the Sheldon Adelson Variety.
Dakotahgeo
These JONAH people, nd their ilk need to be xterminated ASAP! Totally disgusting and horrific!
sfcarlos65
I’m glad they’re being exposed. It’s karma, bitch!
captainburrito
These therapists are seeing more naked men and enjoying more kinky activities with them than me. I am a failed gay man by comparison…
Hillers
@captainburrito: Seriously, I’m practically a puritan by comparison.
And anyone who has a hankering for joining the staff of any ex-gay conversion therapy scheme is probably himself hoping for a little clandestine man-on-man action with the prisoners. Let’s be honest.
OzJosh
Interesting how most of these “therapies” seem to provide ample opportunity for the “therapists” to be voyeurs and sadists than, while the “patient” gets no clear benefit. The approaches listed don’t even have the twisted logic of classic aversion therapy.
Jacob23
I read a little of the trial testimony. This bitch Elaine Berk testified that she would go a Listserv and try to convince people that conversion therapy works. She would tell these people about how you can reorder the neural pathways and go from gay to straight. So the plaintiff’s lawyer establishes that she’s not a neurologist, not a doctor and has had no medical training. And then he asks whether she even knows what neural pathways are. She admits she doesn’t know. /smh/ How many desperate people latched on to her bullsh!t and wasted years of their lives trying to reorder their neural pathways?
Redpalacebulleaglesox
Doesn’t binding and blindfolding another person (sensory and physical deprivation) qualify as torture? How about BDSM? Not to mention sheer quackery. Remember, Skippy Bush’s nominee for Surgeon General, James Holsinger, believed this utter crap was effective. He was also a high ranking official of the United Methodist Church. Then there’s everyone’s favorite closeted moron, Marcus Bachmann. How does the AMA allow these quacks to practice? How did Congress ever allow Holsinger to be Department of Veterans Affairs Chief of its Health Administration? Thank God Ted Kennedy made sure Holsinger could never get close to being the country’s chief medical officer.
jwtraveler
@Dakotahgeo: I have no sympathy or defense for these hateful, misguided people, but did you really say “xterminated”[sic]?
Dakotahgeo
@jwtraveler: Oops! Typo… EXterminated… as in, “Where’s the Orkin Man when we need him?? Thanks.
Dakotahgeo
@jwtraveler: Or as the government calls it… XPD… Expedient Demise.
Mikah
Absolutely repulsive.How sick and insane can homophobes be?
jane45
I’ve been forced and coerced into conversion therapy along with being flat out discriminated against for speak of any LGBT issue to such a therapist, labeled bipolar for liking adventure time, Star Trek, my little pony, and a few video games, and called an extremist for liking lady gaga, Marilyn manson,and told I am an extremist rebel for not believing in the same belief system as my family, because I’m science based. This was in Illinois, through a chain LLC counseling service. The counselor was An LCPC with a community service certificate in community counseling, no where did she have any, any medical doctorate to prescribe, diagnose in any sound way any mental health issue or disorder. And this, was In Illinois, 6 months ago. I have lost 15 lbs, bordering on the line of 80 lbs, depressed, anxiety ridden, and fear ridden. I made a report with the states licensing board to only have the Woman rebel against my report and write a letter home to snitch on me to my parents about writing a letter to the listening board in the first place, so I made a second report indicating she was attempting to dispute and obstruct a legal and constitutional state-allowed report. Nothing, absolutely nothing has been done to her. Nothing. And mind you- this is from a chain counseling service in the Chicago-land area, who purportedly SUPPORTS LGBT individuals as they have “the Howard brown center” sponsored on their website, along with books for parents and kids on LGBT issues, but this women decided to go against the place she worked at, the ethics her colleagues carry, and plays God, for God, because of God. This is sickening, it’s wrong, and it’s being forced to minors AND young adults OVER 19. All conversion therapist must be stopped, arrested, and charged for the homicide and murder, abuse they perpetuate. It’s no better than Isis or the shooter from South Carolina.
phillybb
I am a gay therapist and this story makes my head explode!!!! There is no type of legitimate therapy that involves nudity, sex or touching!!!! This is some sick stuff! It is beyond unethical and unprofessional! In fact, hugging a patient is only done with the permission of the therapist and the patient.
ait10101
This seems like simple fraud to me for money and kicks. Religion is just a pretense. They should go down.