Psycho-therapist and Voice of the Voiceless president Chris Doyle (pictured) has announced that he conducted a secret undercover investigation last month to see if Virginia’s public universities were providing adequate information on ways to become “ex-gay.”
Detective Doyle visited seven of the state’s 15 public universities posing as an emotionally tormented graduate student seeking information on becoming “ex-gay.”
One of the places he went was the LGBT counseling center at George Mason University in Fairfax.
“Our investigation was an effort to see what a student would experience if they were to go into this office and speak to a counselor, Ric Chollar, who is the director there, and I did that,” Doyle said.
In a press release, he claims when he met with Chollar he practically had to “beg” for a pamphlet of information about how to become “ex-gay.”
“[Chollar] told me that if I sought therapy to change, I would likely become psychologically-damaged, depressed and even commit suicide,” Doyle said afterwards. “That is absolutely and scientifically inaccurate.”
Chollar, however, has a different version of the story. “As soon as someone asks me for information about [“ex-gay”] groups, I tell them we have the information and if they would like some, I’ll get that for them… I have [the brochures] sitting in my file drawer,” he told the university’s newspaper.
He continued: “What groups like [Voice of the Voiceless] are asking, in fact demanding, is that written information like brochures be displayed publicly. I will admit that is not what we do. However, he also says that he had to aggressively ask over and over again. That is just not my memory at all.”
At another university he visited, Doyle claims the the LGBT resource center staff said being gay was “natural” and that any therapy claiming to help individuals change their sexual orientation is “not valid.” Doyle says they even went so far as to likening conversion therapy to “brain washing,” which he took offense to, calling it “a deliberate withholding of potentially life-saving information for students who may desire counseling to overcome unwanted homosexual feelings.”
Potentially life-saving? But we thought that was “absolutely and scientifically inaccurate.”
Despite the fact that the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Counseling Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, and the World Health Organization all advise against reparative therapy, Doyle still feels public universities are in the wrong for not offering better information on how to become “ex-gay.” He’s now calling for LGBT counselors to undergo sensitivity training and professional development to be made better aware of how to treat those who want to change sexual orientations.
“The fact that these centers are being funded by state dollars is completely outrageous,” he said. “Every tax-paying citizen in Virginia should be outraged!”
So far it seems like the only person who is outraged is Doyle.
Photo credit: Advocate.
Teleny
What a goofball.
Dakotahgeo
Doyle = Nut job! Or am I being too kind?
Scribe38
I really try to put out positive energy into the world and not negativity. But some people are just asking for it. I want to beat him with a bag of glass dildos until he realizes what a tool he is.
dvlaries
It’s the new American way: my crazy deserves the same serious consideration as your sanity. How else do you think Bachmann, Palin and the Tea Party get a serious foothold…?
Palmer Scott
This is similar to going to the headquarters if the NAACP and demanding information about the KKK.
Dxley
Why is he so bothered by who’s gay and who’s not? I think he craves the male body so bad that he’s starting to make a fool of himself on an international stage. He goes from being gay to being homophobic and expects everyone to feel that way. What a douce! I think it’s funny that he calls himself “ex-gay” because I don’t call myself “ex-straight”. Just gay! He’s lying to himself, he’ll soon be one of those “ex-ex-gays” trying to clean up the sh!t he stirred!
GayAtheistLH
You’re gay, bitch! Just admit it, Mary!
GeriHew
If you wear a t-shirt like this:
http://www.electricblue.tv/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/randygq.jpg
you are sending out mixed messages.
DarkZephyr
I am so sick of these people trying to convince LGBT people that they are broken and in need of fixing. The only reason certain LGBT people are depressed about BEING LGBT is because of the stigma attached to being this way by homophobes LIKE these “ex-gay” douche bags. How dare they promote their insidious hate campaign. I want to say “They have GOT to be stopped” but they are so absurd and the world is changing more and more away from their way of thinking every day that I think its likely they will just self destruct. If not, we need to fight them tooth and nail. They have blood on their hands.
Harley
For this nut job to enter an LGBT resource center and ask for ex-gay literature is like me going into the morman tabernacle and asking to marry my boyfriend, and then be OUTRAGED that that they receive tax free status for denying it too me. What a douche bag. He gets my vote for douche bag of the week. Queerty?
Billysees
@Teleny:
Good comment.
But if he continues to make a scene, he could become more and more famous and then more and more richer from supporters.
And “that’s all” he’s really looking for to do.
Charles175
A lone snake-oil salesman.
Palmer Scott
@Harley: I just have to make two small corrections to your post.
It’s Mormon, not Morman.
And there is only one tabernacle, located in Salt Lake City. It’s used for musical performances. LDS marriages take place in temples, those are the buildings with the big spires and the angel blowing the trumpet.
Harley
@Palmer Scott: and by angel you mean the extraterrestrial by the name of Moroni. Okay. Got your point.
Charles175
@Dxley: “Why is he so bothered by who’s gay and who’s not?”
It’s not him but the religious organizations that created him that are bothered. He is their shining voice of the so called voiceless.
dewin
jerk!
Ogre Magi
I hate christians sooooooooo much
the other Greg
Next step: go to CalTech and MIT to demand a “better” Department of Alchemy.
@Harley: I always thought the angel Moroni was moronic, ha ha.
Cam
What concerns me is that the one state employee is so automatically on the defensive that later they claimed they DID have pamphlets for Ex-Gay therapy.
That therapy has been deemed damaging by psychologists, and the fact that an employee at a State Univ claims to have them should be investigated.