Nope, this story did not arrive courtesy of The Onion. I wish is had, though.
An American church is promising gay men they will be cured of their homosexuality if they stroke horses.
The Cowboy Church of Virginia, led by chief pastor Raymond Bell, believes homosexuality and other ‘addictions’ can be cured by Equine Assisted Psychotherapy.
Horse therapy, in the right hands, can be used to help overcome fears, develop communication skills, and is generally beneficial to mental health.
The Cowboy Church. The name’s just… odd.
But Bell says the horses in his church, a cowboy ranch in the south, are part of teaching men to stop being gay and encourage them to be more masculine.
‘EAP can help any person who is living the homosexual lifestyle or involved in it in anyway,’ he told Gay Star News.
‘The first common misconception is that homosexuality is genetic, or hereditary, or as some say “born this way”.
‘Homosexuality is actually a type of addiction. It is not “curable” as a disease because it is a “choice driven” by the person.’
Here we go again. A “choice.”
I’d love to see a photo of this minister and his congregation. I wonder how many of them wear mixed fabric clothing? How many cut their hair? Are any of them overweight? The Bible is pretty specific on some of those “sins” and yet they obsessively focus on homosexuality.
When asked if the therapy ever worked, or if it was even valid, the pastor said ‘it is not now, nor has it ever been, in question’.
That’s not exactly accurate.
On April 2012, the father of gay cure therapy Bob Spitzer said he now wants to retract his 2001 study which proclaimed gay and lesbian people could change their sexual orientation.
He said: ‘I believe I owe the gay community an apology for my study making unproven claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy.
‘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.’
The American Psychological Association went on the record in 1975 stating homosexuality is not an illness and views ‘gay cure’ practices as ‘inappropriate, unethical and inhumane.’
*Update*
The Cowboy Church has this on their website. I don’t know what part of the story is “erroneous,” the statement is vague. But here it is nonetheless:
Update 01-02-13: The erroneous article continues to grow and circulate. It is now a national and international issue. Each new media source is given the same option as before – to retract the article.
Our rebuttal to Instinct Magazine; Gay Star News Magazine; Huffpost; and recently published articles:
Emails began coming in this morning to our office. A search on the internet quickly led us to the articles published.
Interesting that these media groups would publish an article alleging communication with us when we had never heard of them.
They have all been given the option to open a dialogue regarding how EAP works. However, to make claims that are not in existence, let alone inflammatory and degrading to their readers, is at the least defamation of character and slander. At the most it is malice with criminal intent.
O.A.T.S. in Virginia
