Young people are sequestered into a ? camp ? for over eight long months of emotional disconnect from their sexual identity. It is a form of sexual abuse and it is dangerous. They need to be shut down by society. I can imagine the flood of tears that goes on in the beginning for a good six to eight weeks until a young man or woman now shackled away from society has their will broken and their personal identity assaulted enough to illicite DESIRED behaviors. The gay community needs to address this including demands of investigation of child abuse.
ZAHN: Behind the scenes at a gay-to-straight camp. Does it really work?
In a minute, we're going to take you inside a controversial religious camp, its aim, to make gay teenagers go straight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REV. JOHN SMID, LOVE IN ACTION: Our goal is to help teenagers discover a way to live in sexual self-control.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: So does it work? We're going to take you inside the conversion process next. And you will meet a man who has been through it himself.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: Welcome back. Last night we met a gay teenager whose parents sent him to a religious program to turn him straight. It's a fascinating and controversial subject. So we want to continue now with part two of our report. Here's Deborah Feyerick.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Last summer, Ben Marshall's parents told him he was going to camp. It didn't go over well.
BEN MARSHALL, LOVE IN ACTION GRADUATE: I was just so angry that my parents were accepting who I thought I was. And that they were sending me to get fixed. I told all my friends they were sending me to straight camp.
FEYERICK: The program is called Refuge. It claims to help gay and lesbian teens turn away from homosexuality and what it calls other addictive behaviors.
SMID: My hope is that people will realize through Christ you absolutely can find the victory to say no to those temptations.
FEYERICK: Reverend John Smid says he renounced his own homosexuality two decades ago. He claims the program is not about curing or converting, it's about choices he believes teenagers can make.
SMID: Our goal is to help teenagers to discover a way to live in sexual self-control. FEYERICK: The teens are cut off, isolated from everyone who's not in the program. When they do go out, they travel in groups of threes.
SMID: Father, I just pray for these men Lord, that --
FEYERICK: As in the adult program, the teens study Bible. A lot of passages dealing with what's described as sexual immortality. There's also group therapy where teens talk about their parents and their sexual experiences. Everyone keeps a journal, what the program calls moral inventories.
MARSHALL: That was one thing, one of the recurring assignments that they gave me was, tell me who you are, tell me about yourself, and I couldn't answer those questions.
FEYERICK: Refuge is not a registered mental health clinic. Only one counselor is licensed. Mainstream psychiatrists oppose conversion treatment.
DR. JACK DRESCHER, AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSN: There are people who have tried to commit suicide because the treatments didn't work.
FEYERICK: Dr. Jack Drescher is an expert on psychoanalysis and homosexuality.
DRESCHER: Religious people who are struggling with homosexual feelings are a very desperate patient population. These people are in a lot of pain. And they are desperate. And this movement is praying off that desperation.
FEYERICK: Brandon Tidwell, an Evangelical Christian, says he was one of those people desperate to have what he calls a straight lifestyle. He spent three months at the adult program.
BRANDON TIDWELL, LOVE IN ACTION GRADUATE: They are creating an unrealistic environment which then creates an unrealistic hope for their participants that they can live their lives like that outside of those four walls. And it's just not a reality.
FEYERICK: Rather than deny his homosexuality, Tidwell embraced it. He says two other friends he met at the program did the same. They are also gay. Aren't some of the young men afraid that once they leave here, they're not going to be in a safe environment, they're going to be exposed to temptation?
SMID: Yes, when men leave here I think that's one of the biggest awareness they have, is that the world that they're going back to can be a dangerous place.
FEYERICK: Twenty four teenagers have gone through the program since it began three years ago. Reverend Smid says he doesn't know how many of them have straightened out. Yet for now, one of them seems to be Ben Marshall. He stayed with the program for eight months and has now joined a church group. He says he no longer lusts after men as much as he used to. Did they fix you? Did it fix you? MARSHALL: Not by the standards that I was thinking. I was thinking their goal was to make me come out on the other side lusting towards women. I was going to be epitome of straight. I was going to be the big burly athlete. I thought they were going to totally try to change who I was. And they didn't. I guess it fixed me, yes. I mean, I'm happy where I am.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And that was Deborah Feyerick taking us inside the process. Joining me now is Gerard Wellman, who last year went through a similar program for adults. He now works for Love In Action International, which runs the Refuge program -- Refugee or Refuge, whatever you want to call it. Let me ask you this, you have been through this programs that we just said, and yet you still fantasize about men. You think about men. So how can you tell us tonight that's successful conversion?
GERARD WELLMAN, LOVE IN ACTION INTERNATIONAL: Well it's not about the temptation. It's about behavior. It's entirely about behavior. It's about adjusting behavior, for me, it was adjusting my behavior to fit my faith.
ZAHN: So all you're reality doing then is suppressing your natural instinct?
WELLMAN: Right. Absolutely.
ZAHN: SO what do you consider yourself?
WELLMAN: What do I consider myself? I considered myself someone who struggles with homosexuality. A Christian who struggles with homosexuality.
ZAHN: And do you think that will last your lifetime?
WELLMAN: Probably.
ZAHN: So you don't think these programs could ever effectively do anything other than suppress what you think is a natural --
WELLMAN: Absolutely not. Absolutely, I agree. But the interesting thing is that programs don't claim to change desires. Our program claims to change behavior. And that is where the success is that I found.
ZAHN: In spite of what you're saying, you no doubt know that the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association, both condemn this conversion therapy. And the biggest problem they have with it is they say that the therapy assumes that homosexuality is a mental disorder. Is that the way you see it.
WELLMAN: Well that is an interesting point. What I'd like to clarify is that there's hundreds of thousands of people out there just like me. Who -- before entering the program, I was involved in homosexual behavior that did not fit what I wanted for my life. At that time, I felt desperate and hopeless and lonely. And I think society forgets about those people. And so if any program can help align my behavior with my faith, that's a good program.
ZAHN: And yet we just heard the psychiatrist in Deborah's piece saying that those people who are lonely, those people who feel discriminated against, who are pushed through these conversion programs, often end up feeling more desperate, and in some cases even suicidal. Do you acknowledge tonight that that can be an end result of this type of therapy?
WELLMAN: I think change is definitely possible for people that desire it. People who do not desire it I do not think there's a high likelihood of change, if they don't desire it. People who do desire it do change. And at the end they often report, as we saw in the video, feeling much more happy, that's been my experience. Much more happy, much more contented, because their behavior is aligning with their faith./
ZAHN: But in a way, aren't you denying who you are?
WELLMAN: Aren't we all. I mean don't we all have desires. I mean every married man out there that has heterosexual fantasies does not act on them out of obedience or respect to his wife. It's the exact same scenario.
ZAHN: Once again, though, the criticism of this is you're taking a population of kids, whose sexual identity in some cases probably isn't yet fully informed…
WELLMAN: Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
ZAHN: You're forcing them into which is a different situation, and when you're going through this program, in the 20s. Do you understand the vulnerability of these kids?
WELLMAN: In that regard…
ZAHN: ... and the potential long-term damaging consequences of this type of therapy?
WELLMAN: I don't acknowledge that. Because what we are doing, we are respecting the parents' responsibility to raise their children as they see fit. It's the same thing as music lessons, for instance. Should parents not be allowed to enroll their children in music lessons? Of course not. It's the parents' responsibility to raise their children as they see fit. And what we're dealing with, we are dealing with teens that are reporting by the hundreds to us, in exodus, feelings of suicidal thoughts, desperation, loneliness, and we are helping those teens.
ZAHN: But you know, the critics out there saying, wait a minute, you know, music lessons aren't going to lead to suicide. You know, that's not a fair analogy to make it all...
WELLMAN: Well, it's an interesting point, but there are no studies that show that suicide is a result... ZAHN: And there are probably no studies too that point to any hard-core evidence that this stuff works.
Very brief answer to this: Do you think these programs promote homophobia?
WELLMAN: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. There is no question in my mind that that is not the case. If anything, it's the exact opposite. Entire exact opposite.
IF THIS WEREN'T HOMOPHOBIA, it would also encompass heterosexuality and controlling their sexual urges. This entire focus is an outrage !!
ZAHN: Yeah, I'm sure you've heard from some of those people on Web sites who feel quite the opposite. So there is a lot to debate here, on both sides.
WELLMAN: Oh, there certainly is. The debate is not over.
ZAHN: All right, Gerard, thanks for traveling here tonight.
WELLMAN: Sure thing.
ZAHN: Appreciate your time.
WELLMAN: Sure thing.
ZAHN: Coming up next, we change our focus dramatically -- a cold remedy millions swear by.
I HAVE A BETTER remedy. Turn the channel selector to off !!
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0507/28/pzn.01.html
