Knives out in New Jersey for Jewish non-profit helping people with unwanted gay attractions
A shocking attack on the freedom and privacy of the relationship between private counselors and their clients is currently underway in New Jersey. The wealthy left-wing activist group known as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is seeking to destroy a small Jewish non-profit known as JONAH—Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing. JONAH’s offense? Referring clients with unwanted same-sex attractions (usually, but not always, Jewish) to counselors who can help them to overcome those attractions and live lives consistent with the biblical teaching of the Torah.
The weapon being used by the SPLC is New Jersey’s unusually draconian “consumer fraud” statute, with SPLC arguing that to claim sexual orientation is changeable and that counseling can help effect such change is inherently fraudulent.
One might think that homosexual activists, who have long demanded respect for their own personal autonomy in making choices about how to respond to their own sexual attractions, would shrug their shoulders and ask, “What’s it to me?” when discussing the fact that for some people, same-sex attractions are experienced as unwanted. However, the fact that some people change their sexual orientation undermines the claim that “sexual orientation” is an immutable characteristic like race—a claim that has been useful to such activists in their campaign to win official public affirmation and celebration of homosexual relationships under the guise of “non-discrimination.”
Instead, a concerted effort to discredit what are called, broadly, “sexual orientation change efforts,” or “SOCE,” has gone from professional organizations like the American Psychological Association to legislative chambers, where California, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia have already enacted laws to outlaw SOCE for minors by licensed mental health providers. The JONAH lawsuit (which targets SOCE for adults as well as minors, and activity conducted by unlicensed “life coaches” as well as licensed mental health providers) is a second prong of this new legal attack.
Pro-family activist and writer Austin Ruse has provided a valuable service by covering the first two weeks of the JONAH trial for Breitbart.com. Since the secular media shows bias in favor of the plaintiffs, coverage by Ruse (and an article by therapist Christopher Doyle, himself a former homosexual) provide a valuable counterpoint.
Austin Ruse gives a preview of the trial during jury selection in this article: “Powerful Leftist Group Sues to Close Jewish Counseling Service for Gays”
Christopher Doyle describes Day 1 of the trial here: Highlights from the JONAH Trial: Day 1
Media Has Already Pronounced Judgment Against JONAH in “Trial of the Century”
Ruse reports on Day 2 of the trial, including contradictory statements made by one of the SPLC’s plaintiffs, here: “Trial to Punish Counseling for Gays Underway in Jersey City”
Ruse describes the history of JONAH here: “Medical Choice at Stake in Gay Counseling Trial”
Ruse describes death threats received by both JONAH’s co-founder, Arthur Goldberg, and their attorney, Charles LiMandri, in this piece on Day 4 of the trial: “Death Threats Rock Defendants in Gay Counseling Trial”
Ruse reports that LiMandri has done an outstanding job in cross-examining the plaintiffs and their witnesses. His organization, the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, needs support from freedom-loving Americans of any religion to pay the mounting expense of this drawn-out suit, which began in 2012. For continuing coverage of the trial and to support the defense, go to www.ConscienceDefense.org.
Reprinted with permission from Family Research Council.
