 | |
| Abbreviation | CORE |
|---|---|
| Type | Christian |
Key people | Mike Davidson |
| Website | www.core-issues.org |
The Core Issues Trust is a British Christian fundamentalist organisation that provides conversion therapy for LGBT people.
| | |
| Abbreviation | CORE |
|---|---|
| Type | Christian |
Key people | Mike Davidson |
| Website | www.core-issues.org |
The Core Issues Trust is a British Christian fundamentalist organisation that provides conversion therapy for LGBT people.
The Trust offers psycho-therapeutic [1] therapy to those who experience unwanted homosexual behaviour and feelings. [2] Core Issues Trust states it believes human sexuality in both men and women is a choice, and that sexual preferences can change. The Trust says it does not consider homosexuality a native human behaviour, but rather a relational or sexual damage that causes deviancy that may be cured. [3] The group's leader, Dr. Mike Davidson, describes himself as ex-gay; he is not a physician but has a doctorate in education. [4] [5] He had been a trainee therapist in psychodrama before being suspended by the British Psychological Society. [4]
In June 2011, the Core Issues Trust organized a one-day event in a church in Belfast entitled "Interrogating the Pejoratives: Considering Therapeutic Approaches and Contexts for those Conflicted in Sexual Identity". Some of the topics on the agenda were "How parents can help their children avoid homosexuality" and "A Christian and psychological perspective on overcoming obstacles to freedom from homosexuality". Gay rights groups protested against the Church of Ireland that the event was being held in one of the country's churches. [6]
In April 2012, the organization received media coverage following a public campaign, which included advertisements on London buses claiming that therapy could change sexual orientation, and including the message Not gay! Ex-gay, post-gay and proud. Get over it!. Although the campaign was passed by the Committee of Advertising Practice, it was subsequently banned by then- London Mayor Boris Johnson. [7] [8] The Trust lost an appeal at the Court of Appeal against the ban, although it secured a review of the Mayor's actions. The Trust lodged a further case in the High Court in January 2014, alleging that Johnson had unlawfully used his position to ban the ad. The Court ruled against the Trust, stating that the decision had been made by the Transport for London Board. [9]
In 2018, the Trust released the documentary Voices of the Silenced which follows 15 gay and lesbian people going through conversion therapy. [10] The documentary was criticized by LGBT rights charity Stonewall, who stated "LGBT people aren't ill. Being gay, lesbian, bi or trans is not something that should be 'cured' or changed." Humanists UK stated it contained "outdated religious views about sin and sexuality". [3] [11]
In 2019, the Core Issues Trust produced and promoted the film Once Gay: Matthew and Friends about the X Factor Malta contestant Matthew Grech who announced his renunciation of homosexuality on television. Mike Davidson argued that individuals have the right to "leave unwanted homosexual practices" if they want to. [12] [1] The film sparked protest. [13] Afterwards, Matthew Grech stated in an interview that he still identified as gay. [14]
In May 2020, the National Secular Society lobbied the Northern Ireland Executive over the charitable status of the group, writing "Bogus therapies which encourage people to change or suppress their sexuality are harmful and widely discredited. Those promoting them shouldn't enjoy the tax breaks and public recognition that charitable status brings" [15]
Within Christianity, there are a variety of views on sexual orientation and homosexuality. The view that various Bible passages speak of homosexuality as immoral or sinful emerged in the first millennium AD, and has since become entrenched in many Christian denominations through church doctrine and the wording of various translations of the Bible.
The Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity (ATCSI), which until 2014 was known as the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), also known as the NARTH Institute, is a US organization that promotes conversion therapy, a pseudoscientific practice used in attempts to change the sexual orientation of people with same-sex attraction. NARTH was founded in 1992 by Joseph Nicolosi, Benjamin Kaufman, and Charles Socarides. Its headquarters were in Encino, California, at its Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic. NARTH has not been recognized by any major United States-based professional association.
The ex-gay movement consists of people and organizations that encourage people to refrain from entering or pursuing same-sex relationships, to eliminate homosexual desires and to develop heterosexual desires, or to enter into a heterosexual relationship. Beginning with the founding of Love In Action and Exodus International in the mid-1970s, the movement saw rapid growth in the 1980s and 1990s before declining in the 2000s.
Exodus International was a non-profit, interdenominational ex-gay Christian umbrella organization connecting organizations that sought to "help people who wished to limit their homosexual desires". Founded in 1976, Exodus International originally asserted that conversion therapy, the reorientation of same-sex attraction, was possible. In 2006, Exodus International had over 250 local ministries in the United States and Canada and over 150 ministries in 17 other countries. Although Exodus was formally an interdenominational Christian entity, it was most closely associated with Protestant and evangelical denominations.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in Germany rank among the highest in the world and have evolved significantly over the course of the last decades. During the 1920s and the early 1930s, lesbian and gay people in Berlin were generally tolerated by society and many bars and clubs specifically pertaining to gay men were opened. Although same-sex sexual activity between men was already made illegal under Paragraph 175 by the German Empire in 1871, Nazi Germany extended these laws during World War II, which resulted in the persecution and deaths of thousands of homosexual citizens. The Nazi extensions were repealed in 1960 and same-sex sexual activity between men was decriminalized in both East and West Germany in 1968 and 1969, respectively.
Joseph Nicolosi was an American clinical psychologist who advocated and practised "reparative therapy", a form of the pseudoscientific treatment of conversion therapy that he claimed could help people overcome or mitigate their homosexual desires and replace them with heterosexual ones. Nicolosi was a founder and president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Medical institutions warn that conversion therapy is ineffective and may be harmful, and that there is no evidence that sexual orientation can be changed by such treatments.
The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have developed significantly over time. Today, lesbian, gay, and bisexual rights are considered to be advanced by international standards.
New Zealand lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights are some of the most extensive in the world. The protection of LGBT rights is advanced, relative to other countries in Oceania, and among the most liberal in the world, with the country being the first in the region to legalise same-sex marriage.
Ex-ex-gay people are those who formerly participated in the ex-gay movement in an attempt to change their sexual orientation to heterosexual, but who then later went on to publicly state they had a non-heterosexual sexual orientation.
True Freedom Trust(TFT) is a "UK-based teaching and pastoral support ministry that holds to the orthodox biblical view of sex, gender and relationships". It takes the view that homosexual activity is sinful, but being homosexual is not sinful in and of itself and, therefore, advocates celibacy for those of its gay and lesbian members who do not consider marriage to someone of the opposite sex to be a viable option. While this view is usually strongly rejected by LGBT organizations and individuals, there are some LGBT-identified Christians who emphatically support and practice it.
Brothers on a Road Less Traveled is an American nonprofit organization supporting men who wish to reduce or eliminate their homosexual desires. Formerly known as People Can Change (PCC), the organization was founded in 2000, and is sometimes called Brothers Road (BR). It runs the Journey Into Manhood program. The organization and program are controversial and have been alleged to be consumer fraud in a 2016 complaint made to the Federal Trade Commission. For decades, Brothers Road co-founder David Matheson was one of the nation's leading conversion therapists, but in 2019 he left the organization to date men.
Positive Alternatives to Homosexuality (PATH) is a coalition of groups that purport to help "people with unwanted same-sex attractions (SSA) realize their personal goals for change—whether by developing their innate heterosexual potential or by embracing a lifestyle as a single, non-sexually active man or woman." The predominantly ex-gay member groups promote the "right to decide whether to seek counseling or therapy" and abstinence. The coalition lists studies on reparative therapy and links to organizations that work with people who have unwanted same-sex attractions.
Corrective rape, also called curative rape or homophobic rape, is a hate crime in which somebody is raped because of their perceived sexual orientation. The common intended consequence of the rape, as claimed by the perpetrator, is to turn the person heterosexual.
The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBT topics.
The Youth Mental Health Protection Act, H.B. 217, is an Illinois bill that prohibits mental health professional from implementing conversion therapy, reparative therapy, or sexual orientation change efforts on patients under the age of eighteen. Additionally, the bill outlaws any promotional materials from deceiving consumers and falsely representing homosexuality as a mental health defect in any manner. The goal of the legislation is to protect minors from undue stress and further stigmatization as a result of their sexuality.
Conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of attempting to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. As of December 2023, twenty-seven countries have bans on conversion therapy, thirteen of them ban the practice by any person: Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Malta, New Zealand, Spain, Portugal and Norway; Seven ban its practice by medical professionals only; Albania, Brazil, Chile, India, Israel, Vietnam and Taiwan; another seven: Argentina, Fiji, Nauru, Paraguay, Samoa, Switzerland, and Uruguay have indirect bans in that diagnoses based solely on sexual orientation or gender identity are banned without specifically banning conversion therapy, this effectively amounts to a ban on health professionals since they would not generally engage in therapy without a diagnosis. In addition, some jurisdictions within Australia, Mexico and the United States also ban conversion therapy. In China and South Africa case law has found conversion therapy to be unlawful. Bills banning conversion therapy are being considered in Ireland, Mexico, Poland, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Many health organizations around the world have denounced and criticized sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts. National health organizations in the United States have announced that there has been no scientific demonstration of conversion therapy's efficacy in the last forty years. They find that conversion therapy is ineffective, risky and can be harmful. Anecdotal claims of cures are counterbalanced by assertions of harm, and the American Psychiatric Association, for example, cautions ethical practitioners under the Hippocratic oath to do no harm and to refrain from attempts at conversion therapy.
The history of conversion therapy can be divided broadly into three periods: an early Freudian period; a period of mainstream approval of conversion therapy, when the mental health establishment became the "primary superintendent" of sexuality; and a post-Stonewall period where the mainstream medical profession disavowed conversion therapy.
The International Federation for Therapeutic and Counseling Choice (IFTCC) is a London-based organization that internationally lobbies governments and religious organizations to oppose bans on conversion therapy, the pseudoscientific practice of attempting to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity, which has condemned by medical organizations and human rights groups as "unethical, unscientific and ineffective and, in some instances, tantamount to torture."
Galop is an LGBT anti-abuse charity and police monitoring group in the United Kingdom that campaigns against domestic abuse, conversion therapy, sexual violence, hate crime, and other forms of discrimination against LGBT people. It runs four national helplines for LGBT survivors of rape and sexual abuse, conversion therapy, domestic abuse and hate crime, and supports LGBT people who have problems with the police or questions about the UK criminal justice system.
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