First there were the “flirting classes” designed to teach the gay teenage boy how to socialize with members of the opposite sex.
Then came the orders to masturbate to women’s images.
And — with his parents’ consent — there were electric shock treatments twice a week and medicine to induce vomiting when a therapist flashed a photo of two men holding hands.
That young teen, now Brielle Sophia Goldani, a transgender woman from Toms River, told a packed hearing room in Trenton Monday that this is what she went through during “conversion therapy” at a camp in Ohio where counselors tried to change her sexual orientation.
"I live with the psychological damage this program did to me every day," Goldani said.
She told lawmakers she had tried to kill herself — three times.
After a tense-three hour hearing in Trenton, the Senate’s health committee approved a bill that would ban licensed counselors from using “conversion therapy” on gays. Supporters called the practice damaging and demoralizing, while bill opponents accused state lawmakers of interfering with the counselor-patient relationship and intruding on parents' rights.
Only California has enacted a ban on the practice, which sponsors say is opposed by the American Psychological and American Psychiatric associations.
The bill’s Assembly sponsor, Tim Eustace (D-Bergen), said he introduced the measure after “several constituents — young people — came to our office complaining that this still exists."
Last fall, four men sued a Jersey City-based gay conversion therapy group, claiming they suffered psychological abuse during treatment sessions.
“It constitutes child abuse," said Eustace, who is openly gay.
Troy Stevenson, executive director for Garden State Equality, recounted a tragedy from his high school days in Oklahoma. He and boy from a rival school exchanged a kiss witnessed by members of the football team after practice. "We ran for what felt like our lives," he said.
"When we made it to our homes safely, my first call was to my friend to make sure he was OK. He told me he 'couldn't go back,' then described the camp his parents sent him to when he told them he was gay," Stevenson said. The next day his friend committed suicide.
Mordechai Levovitz, co-director for Jewish Queer Youth, a support group for about 700 people from the orthodox Jewish community, said his parents started his conversion therapy when he six years old because he wanted to play with dolls.
"There was one message made clear to me as a child ... there was something very wrong with who I was," he said.
Supporters of the therapy, however, said it helps thousands of people happily live as heterosexuals.
Christopher Doyle a counselor at the California-based International Healing Foundation who said he is a former homosexual, called Goldani's story was "heart-breaking," but urged the committee not to believe "this is a mainstream practice. . .These are the exceptions to the rule."
Doyle held up a poster-size photo of his pregnant wife and two young children, "to give you an idea of who you will marginalize" with this bill.
Carol Gallentine of Roseland, another opponent of the bill, angrily told the panel it was every parent's civil right to raise their children as they see fit. "I'm a voter and I want to encourage you to stay out my family life," she said.
Republicans on the committee expressed reservations. Sen. Sam Thompson (R-Middlesex) said the bill may drive some parents to unlicensed therapists. Sen. Dawn Addiego (R-Burlington), said the bill troubled her because she didn't want it to limit the kinds of issues therapists and their patients could talk about.
Tara King, a licensed therapist in Brick urged the committee not to interfere with her work. "When clients comes to me, I address what they want," she said.
King said she sought counseling when she was 19, only to be told she had no choice but to accept that she was a lesbian. "It wasn't until I was 24 and a former lover told me she was seeking therapy specifically to get out of homosexuality that for the first time in my life I had heard it was a choice."
The Senate panel approved the bill (S2278), 7-1, with two abstentions. It now advances to the full Senate. -By Susan K. Livio/Nj.com/March 18, 2013
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No Matter How Supreme Court Rules, The Time Has Come For Gay Marriage
How that the U.S. Supreme Court has heard the arguments in two landmark cases on the constitutional rights of gay Americans, the waiting begins.
Court rulings on California’s ban on gay marriage or the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage solely as a union of a man and a woman, are not expected until later this year.
While the public debate and demonstrations over the court cases have been intense, many young people find it difficult to fathom all the fuss. Their parents may remember a time when gay men and lesbians were a target for ridicule, when homosexual couples were marginalized as engaging in a lifestyle of perversion.
Thankfully, those benighted attitudes are rapidly changing. The majority of Americans now believes that gay equality is just as much a civil right as racial and gender equality. The fights have been fierce, but they are finished. Now the Supreme Court has an opportunity to declare a TKO of discriminatory policy in the latest battle for parity.
There will be pockets of resistance — there always will be misguided individuals who believe in the superiority of the white race or detest women for “taking” jobs away from men.
But this movement is as inexorable as the fall of the Berlin Wall. The time has come for artificial and arbitrary boundaries to give way to the will of the people.
It’s evident in every segment of society.
No less an authority than the Pentagon is expanding benefits to same-sex partners of military personnel. The NCAA has released a handbook for coaches and administrators on how to confront discrimination against gay athletes. In November, Maine, Maryland and Washington approved ballot initiatives legalizing same-sex marriage. And the American Academy of Pediatrics has backed the right of gay couples to wed, saying it fosters the good health and well-being of their children.
Robbed of the rhetoric, the DOMA case is about states’ rights — the federal government has been asked to recognize the legal marriages of same-sex couples so they are eligible for the same protections and benefits as heterosexual couples.
The ruling on California’s Proposition 8 is expected to be more nuanced, narrow and incremental.
“The problem with this case is that you’re really asking for us to go into uncharted waters,“ Justice Anthony Kennedy cautioned Theodore Olson, a lawyer arguing against the ban.
To navigate the uncertainty, the justices need only consult the compass of the Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment’s promise of equal protection under the law will guide them to a ruling that same-sex couples are guaranteed the right to marry in the U.S. –By Times of Trenton Editorial Board/March 28, 2013
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A gay teen was stoned to death after pleading guilty to sodomy charges.
A gay teenager in Somalia was reportedly stoned to death as punishment for being gay by Islamic rebels while villagers were forced to watch.
According to Identity Kenya, Mohamed Ali Baashi, 18 was buried in the ground up to his chest, and assaulted with rocks Friday in Barawe, about 50 miles from Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. The group reportedly tied to the murderous attack was Al Shabaab, which is linked to Al Qaeda.
Baashi was charged with sodomy along with another man, who had also been charged with murder. They both admitted to their crimes, and the man who admitted to murder was sentenced by a judge to be shot to death. However, Baashi was stoned to death because of his sexual act.
"We investigated, and this man did what Muslims shouldn't do and as a result, he will be stoned to death and the one that killed someone will be shot because homosexuality is more punishable in Islam," the judge is alleged to have said. –By Michelle Garcia/Advocate/March 20 2013
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