Rachel Maddow has made the argument
that Dr. Robert Spitzer's recent repudiation of “ex-gay” therapy
could bolster the case for marriage equality.
Spitzer's highly-criticized 2001 study
which was published in the prestigious Archives of Sexual Behavior
concluded that “highly motivated” gay men and lesbians could
alter their sexuality.
The study was touted by gay rights foes
most notably because Spitzer had led the charge in the early 70s to
declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association and
therefore was viewed as unbiased.
Referring to the ongoing lawsuit
challenging the constitutionality of California's gay marriage ban,
Proposition 8, which took away existing marriage rights, Maddow said:
“The case around Prop 8 hinges in part on the question of
immutability. Is being gay an immutable characteristic? Can you
change it? If you find yourself gay for some reason, do you have to
stay that way?”
“One of the arguments the anti-gay
rights side makes is that being gay is a choice. So marriage then
isn't a question of equal rights. Everybody has an equal right to
get married already. If you want to get married and you're gay, you
can get married. You just have to stop being gay. Choose to become
straight, now you can get married. Presto, change-o, here comes the
bride.”
Maddow noted that Spitzer's work was
lauded by Proposition 8 supporters during its 2010 trial.
“It was important for the lawyer on
the anti-gay side to get it on the record that this prominent study
by this prominent expert psychiatrist proved that gay people can
change. It is relatively central to their argument that denying gay
people access to marriage isn't some kind of second class citizenship
for gay people. Gay people have first class citizenship, all they
have to do is change into straight people and then they can have all
the rights they want.”
Noting that Spitzer has recanted his
study and this week even apologized for the possible harm he might
have caused, Maddow added: “That argument has just fallen apart.”
(Watch the entire segment at HRC.org.)
Spitzer, now 80, told the American
Prospect that such therapy “can be quite harmful.”
And in a
letter to the editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior,
Spitzer added: “There was no way to judge the credibility of
subject reports of change in sexual orientation. I offered several
(unconvincing) reasons why it was reasonable to assume that the
subject's reports of change were credible and not self-deception or
outright lying. But the simple fact is that there was no way to
determine if the subject's accounts of change were valid.”
“I believe I owe the gay community an
apology for my study making unproven claims of the efficacy of
reparative therapy,” he added. “I also apologize to any gay
person who wasted time and energy undergoing some form of reparative
therapy because they believed that I had proven that reparative
therapy works with some 'highly motivated' individuals.”
In a follow up to a previous story, a
Maddow staffer posted
on her blog an email from the American Psychoanalytical
Association: “We emphasize that anti-homosexual bias, just like any
other societal prejudice, negatively affects mental health and
contributes to feelings of stigma and low self-worth. Reparative
therapy is nothing more than quackery fueled by bias.”