TWO Outs ‘Ex-Gay’ Therapist Who Claims to Cure Gays, Yet Solicits Sex on Manhunt, a Gay Dating App | Truth Wins Out

Norman Goldwasser, by day, is an Orthodox Jewish therapist at Horizon Psychological Services who compares homosexuality to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and misleads clients by claiming that their sexual orientation can be changed with his special brand of quack therapy, which is rejected by every respected medical and mental health association. By night, an undercover investigation by Truth Wins Out has found, he solicits sexual partners on Manhunt, a gay dating App, using the profile “Hotnhairy72.” During our operation, Goldwasser, going by the pseudonym “Dave”, offered to meet for sex with our operative, “Brandon,” at a Fort Lauderdale motel room. Goldwasser also had a profile on Bear Nation by the same name.

This latest scandal comes as the new movie Boy Erased (Starring Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, and Russell Crowe) has brought a renewed spotlight to the issue of the harm caused by “ex-gay” programs.

“Norman Goldwasser’s double life of unconscionable lies highlights the rank hypocrisy and predatory nature of the fraudulent ‘ex-gay’ industry,” said Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen. “We urge every state to ban the scourge of conversion therapy that attacks the mental health of LGBT youth and puts them in harms way.” Besen is the author of Anything Bust Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth.

TWO Outs ‘Ex-Gay’ Therapist Who Claims to Cure Gays, Yet Solicits Sex on Manhunt, a Gay Dating App | Truth Wins Out

See also:: 'Ex-gay' therapist allegedly found soliciting 'hookups' on gay dating apps

Finish the Job: Ban Conversion Therapy for Minors | Advocate.com

When I founded Truth Wins Out in 2006, the myth that one could “pray away the gay” was a central part of the Religious Right’s strategy to demonize and legislate against LGBT people. In less than a decade, this elaborate hoax is in ruins — with only hard-core dead-enders peddling this manufactured lie.

In 2006 my organization was battling Focus on the Family’s Love Won Out program, which was a traveling road show that featured “ex-gay” activists. This program dissolved years ago after it stopped making money and attendance dwindled. We were also at war with Exodus International, which is now defunct after the group’s leader admitted that conversion therapy does not work and that 99.9 percent of clients were not changing their sexual orientation.

I am still in periodic contact with the “ex-gay” antagonists of yesteryear. Usually it is in the form of randomly stumbling upon their Facebook posts. One former “ex-gay” leader writes about how he is in love with the man he married. Another emotes on the joy he had when he came out to his son and found acceptance. Yet another posts on his journey coming out of the closet and his entrance into the world of dating.

The “ex-gay” industry is a shambles — albeit one that has left a trail of blood, pain, tragedy, and tears. No serious person promotes this charade — and those who do are viewed as as backward and delusional. The future is bleak for practitioners of this psychological voodoo.

Finish the Job: Ban Conversion Therapy for Minors | Advocate.com

ADDENDUM::What Is Conversion Therapy, Exactly?

"It is not therapy; it is quackery, pure and simple, often legitimized in the name of religious freedom.”

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At its core, conversion therapy assumes incorrectly that sexual orientation and gender identity are caused by environmental factors within the family. “Conversion therapy is a pseudoscience that blames homosexuality on bad parenting. Specifically, the practice claims — without evidence — that a rift between a child and a same-sex parent can lead to a child rejecting that parent and his or her gender role. At puberty this leads to sexualizing the same sex,” says Wayne Besen, founder of Truth Wins Out, a nonprofit group that speaks out against the ex-gay movement and anti-gay messages.

“Conversion therapy seeks to reverse this alleged process through a combination of prayer, talk therapy, and creating non-sexual same-sex friendships. It also includes masculinity exercises for men, such as touch football and drinking Gatorade, and lipstick seminars for girls,” Besen tells Yahoo Health.

Experts agree that the practice is not only ineffective — it can be dangerous, especially for children and teens, who are still developing their sense of self and trying to figure out their place in the world, Pettus says.

“Young people perceive conversion therapy as a form of family rejection. Family rejection of LGBT youth has been demonstrated to greatly increase their risk for depression, HIV or other sexually transmitted infections, drug use, and suicide,” Gill says. “Family acceptance, on the other hand, is a critical protective factor that helps LGBT youth to grow and thrive.”

Conversion therapy can also have lasting negative effects into adulthood, Haldeman explains. “Adults who have been through some form of this so-called ‘treatment’ as youngsters often become depressed and suicidal due to inner conflict about sexual orientation — and guilt over the inability to change it. Such survivors of conversion efforts often become unable to form intimate relationships in adult life,” he says.

What Is Conversion Therapy, Exactly?

Pray the Gay Away | National | News | SFGN Articles

The next thing Brinton remembers, he woke up in the commune’s emergency room – his father had knocked him out cold. The beatings continued for the next two months whenever he talked about his feelings towards boys, but he never understood why. Finally, seeing that the beatings weren't working, his parents took him to see a therapist who promised he could cure him of his homosexual thoughts.

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“I can walk away from the exorcism and say, ‘That was so weird and the most ridiculous thing ever,’” Prentiss said. “But when I think back it’s mostly the talk therapy stuff that’s really the most damaging…it gets in your head and it cultivates that self hatred.”

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As Besen so eloquently notes, you can not change the core of one's being; the essence of who one is as a person.  Anyone one who tells you they can "fix" you is a fool, a lair, or both. They ignore one of the simplest, and oldest  principles in life, in order to love and accept others, one most love and accept self.  But you see within the Reich, that will never happen.  It can't happen:

https://www.facebook.com/WEAREUAA/photos/a.200085766695305.42584.200082823362266/905695336134341/?type=3

The whole charade is predicated on demonizing an "other" to gain power and fuck all who get in their way.

“Being gay is not a disorder. Being transgender is not a malady that requires a cure. Had I been Leelah Alcorn’s physician, I would have told her exactly that,” Dr. Murthy said.

Conversion therapy is nothing new – when simply threatening the wrath of God on people was no longer working, churches took a new approach, said Wayne Besen, the founder of Truth Wins Out (TWO), an LGBT advocacy group working to eliminate anti-gay bias.

“Conversion therapy is the hijacking of medical language to justify religious persecution and beliefs,” said Wayne Besen, the founder and executive director TWO. “The ministries use the medical language and the therapists use the religious language. It’s the same damn thing.”

TWO made waves in 2011 when it took down Bachmann and Associates for practicing reparative therapy even though its founder, Marcus Bachmann, the husband of former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, claimed they did no such thing. TWO conducted an undercover investigation into the practice for a week with cameras. During the investigation, a TWO staffer went through reparative therapy and was promised that he could be turned straight and that they had done it before.

The report came out in the midst of Michele’s run for president.

“It takes the most beautiful part of one’s life and turns it into something ugly, and when you do that, you’re destroying the person spiritually and emotionally and physically,” Besen said. “When you turn it into something painful, you destroy the very essence of the person.”

Pray the Gay Away | National | News | SFGN Articles

Gay conversion therapy still has its stalwarts | TBO.com and The Tampa Tribune

Culligan founded the Tampa-based New Hearts Outreach, which caters to all who are “sexually and relationally challenged,” after living as a homosexual for 20 years, he said. He says New Hearts Outreach offers the sort of counseling that helped him convert from being a homosexual about 30 years ago.

While gay conversion therapy, as it’s commonly called, has been widely discredited, including by the American Psychiatric Association, and is illegal in some states, such treatment still is practiced in a dwindling number of places throughout the country, including Florida.

The Christian organization Restored Hope Network serves as a national directory for those looking for conversion therapists and lists two psychiatrists and two religious organizations in Florida that offer the practice. One is New Hearts Outreach, the only group in the Tampa Bay area on the list.


As a child, Culligan had a strained relationship with his father, which he says led to his “addiction” to homosexuality in college.

But words like “conversion” and “reparative therapy” aren’t in New Hearts Outreach’s vernacular, he said. The group is a Christian discipleship ministry for those “looking for relief from the homosexual lifestyle,” Culligan said.

“It’s been said that folks in the lifestyle are looking for love in all the wrong places,” Culligan said. “Scriptural teaching is that homosexuality is not a part of God’s best for people. That doesn’t mean Christians are not to embrace them … but people come to us because they’ve had enough of addiction and hedonism with no lasting intimacy and meaning.”

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Keith Vennum, a licensed reparative psychiatrist in Altamonte Springs, said his work with homosexuals isn’t much different from counseling he offers to any client experiencing an “addiction or unwanted lifestyle.”

According to Vennum, “There’s scant scientific evidence that anyone is born homosexual, and there is good evidence that homosexuals can change. If a person wants to receive counseling for something they desire to change, they should be allowed to have that.”

The therapy is a sound method for those who know their homosexual feelings arise from former emotional abuse, sexual abuse and other unmet emotional needs, Vennum said. He said the focus is on improving self-esteem and repairing broken relationships that may have contributed to homosexual attractions.

Gay conversion therapy still has its stalwarts | TBO.com and The Tampa Tribune

The Religious Right’s 10-Point Playbook For Hijacking Nations

Wayne Besen's (of Truth Wins Out) response to Mary Zeiss Stange Op-ed - Beware the Christian extremists:

I’ve come up with 10-Point Playbook that these homegrown Christian extremists use when they attempt to accomplish their frightening goals. As I go through this list, you will recognize some of the insidious techniques that have, sadly, been woven into our political process: [Brackets mine, all stuff I have posted about]

1) Find inflammatory wedge issues and scapegoats to divide people and force them to choose sides  [Marriage equality]

2) Persuade people to join your righteous “team” in its effort to purify society. Demand absolute loyalty and obedience to that team’s leaders (even above allegiance to the state) [American Family Association, Family Research Council]

3) Identify and cultivate key major donors to fund mission. To reward their support, back conservative economic policies [Koch Brothers, Greens (Hobby Lobby), Waltons (Walmart), John Schnatter (Papa Johns)]

4) Create parallel infrastructure and institutions (i.e. private education, conferences, think tanks, and charities)  [John Birch Society, Heritage Foundation, The Gathering]

5) Build an insular media cocoon to disseminate propaganda. This vast echo chamber is contemptuous of contradictory facts, suspicious of reason, and impervious to mainstream media scrutiny  [Fox News,BarbWire, Glenn Beck,WorldNetDaily]

6) Infiltrate society’s major institutions in a clandestine effort to undermine, influence, and ultimately control (See 7 Mountains Movement: government, education, family, religion, entertainment, business, and media)  [Texas State Board of Education]

7) Facilitate the decline of secular government by deliberately and persistently creating crises in confidence and eroding trust in venerable institutions  {GOP/TP, Gov't shutdown over Debt Ceiling, IRS and Benghazi]

8) Oppose all gun control laws and tacitly encourage local militias, so in the event of insurrection fundamentalists are the most well armed sector of society  [NRA, Gun Owners of America]

9) Constantly agitate and manufacture havoc, because theocracy can only be attained amid chaos. Without a functioning central government, the shadow infrastructure created by fundamentalists makes them the best situated to fill a vacuum, restore order at the price of liberty, and install their regime  [Racism,, see #7]

10) Export model abroad: Send influential emissaries and dedicated missionaries; deploy basic services to create dependence; and dispense money to acquire strategic local alliances; while organizing key international gatherings and fostering opposition at The United Nations…we’ve seen the manifestation of these efforts most notably in Uganda and Russia – with both nation’s veering far to the right, restricting freedom, and passing draconian anti-gay laws  [Uganda, Russie]

The Religious Right’s 10-Point Playbook For Hijacking Nations