Christian Psychologist Blasts NARTH Advisor's Inflammatory Views on Slavery, Homosexuality, Civil Rights
by Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
October 17, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A firestorm has erupted over an article written by a member of the scientific advisory board for the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), a group that frequently partners with Focus on the Family and Exodus International. A prominent mental health therapist is criticizing NARTH for posting on its website a commentary that seemed to justify slavery and associate civil rights advocacy with socialism.
The commentary by New York psychotherapist Gerald Schoenewolf, titled "Gay Rights and Political Correctness: A Brief History," linked the civil rights struggle for racial equality with the homosexual rights movement. It also contended that the civil rights movement itself was a Marxist invention and that slavery at the time that institution was legal in America was actually better for the slaves than being in Africa.
Dr. Warren Throckmorton, an associate professor of psychology and director of college counseling at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, calls Schoenewolf's remarks factually inaccurate and offensive. He questions the wisdom of posting it on the NARTH website in the first place, and of failing to disavow it now.
"Why," Throckmorton asks, "is this article that's essentially a critique of the gay rights movement -- but certainly is based on a very loose rendering of the facts and an inaccurate view of history -- why is it even on an organization's website that claims to be simply about science?"
Dr. Joe Nicolosi, president of NARTH, admits that some of the psychotherapist's comments were "poorly phrased." Nevertheless, Nicolosi says he intends to keep Schoenewolf on the NARTH's advisory board. But Throckmorton feels that mental health organization should be doing more to distance itself from the doctor's provocative commentary, published on its website.
"The leadership of NARTH has been very slow to remove the article," the Grove City College psychologist notes. The ex-homosexual mental health organization's officials "were also very slow to [state their position on the article]," he observes, "and still it's hard to tell whether they've condemned it or not."
According to an article posted on AlterNet.org, attributed to Brentin Mock in his Southern Poverty Law Center "Intelligence Report," controversy over Schoenewolf's seemingly pro-slavery commentary "has battered the so-called 'ex-gay' movement with accusations of racial bigotry for the first time." This firestorm has resulted, the report suggests, partly because ex-homosexual movement leaders and their Christian conservative allies have failed to condemn Schoenewolf's inflammatory remarks.
