Saturday, July 9, 2011

Violating the standards of care

The gay news blogs are all abuzz over this one. Michelle Bachmann, GOP prez. candidate has strongly supported anti-gay policies. Given the way she talks there has been accusations about the practices of her husband Marcus who heads Bachmann & Associates, a Christian counseling center that takes both state and federal funds. Marcus declared that his practice does not engage in reparative (ex-gay) therapy.

Truth Wins Out is an organization that works to discredit ex-gay therapists. These are the people who claim to be able to make a gay person straight. So John Becker of TWO went to Bachmann & Associates, posing as a troubled gay man (he is gay, just not troubled about it, and has a husband) and asking for treatment. He found that yes, Bachmann's staff does ex-gay therapy, which the American Psychiatric Association says is both useless and harmful (as Kirk Murphy found out). His staff does it in a way the even violates the standards of the American Association of Christian Counselors, whose standards are lower than the APA.

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