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WATCH: Gay Teens Forced Into Christian Reform School In “Kidnapped For Christ”

Kidnapped For Christ is a documentary that tells the shocking stories of American teenagers who were shipped to an American-run Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic. They are raising funds on Kickstarter to fund their movie and with 18 days to go, they’re almost halfway to their $25,000 goal. They even have A-gay Lance Bass, who is an executive producer, doing a promo video for them.

Director Kate S. Logan spoke with The Huffington Post about the atrocities that go on in these schools:

The “treatment” was called “Culture Shock Therapy” by the administrators. So their actual methods involved jarring kids enough that they were more malleable emotionally and mentally. That was Step One, and it involved strenuous and intense physical labor and exercise, constant repetition of religious and program-written texts, and severe punishments for students who “acted out.” Those punishments could be hours of manual labor, exercising, or actual physical beatings, which they called “swats.”

That was the program. All of that stuff is in their handbook. Then there was so much physical and emotional abuse that went on besides that, combined with a generally oppressive atmosphere of conformity and helplessness. These kids were afraid to speak out, afraid to tell their parents about was was going on, and as a result a lot of them just felt helpless and alone, like they were stuck in this horrible place with no one to talk to and no one to help them.

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