NARTH – National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality Loses Its Tax Exempt Status

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Warren Throckmorton reports:

In September 2012, the tax exempt status of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) was revoked due to failure to file Form 990 for three consecutive years. The notice of revocation was yesterday according to the IRS website. NARTH’s website advises prospective donors that their donations will be tax deductible but it appears such deductions after September 15, 2012 may not be allowed. It is difficult to know what this means. NARTH has never been a wealthy organization and conference attendance has declined in recent years.

NARTH was founded in 1992 by Benjamin Kaufman, Charles Socarides, and Joseph Nicolosi because according to them the American Psychiatric Association and similar professional organizations “had totally stifled the scientific inquiry that would be necessary to stimulate a discussion [about homosexuality].

NARTH pushes the idea, with the zeal of a religious movement, that no one is born gay and that a person’s sexual orientation can be changed through what is known as “reparative” or “conversion” therapy, aka “ex-gay” therapy.

NARTH ia the go to source for “junk science” from the religious right — psychology that underpins the anti-gay movement’s fervent opposition to equal rights and stigmatizes LGBT people as mentally sick.

In 1995, for example, NARTH featured Scott Lively, co-author of The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, at its annual conference. Lively’s book argues that the Nazi Party recruited gay men because of their inherent savagery and that gay men largely orchestrated the Holocaust — a claim roundly rejected by all reputable historians. NARTH has also promoted the work of Paul Cameron, who remains director of the Family Research Institute despite being ejected from the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association (ASA). The ASA declared, “Dr. Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism.”

One NARTH critic, a former member, says these associations are the results of work that has been patterned to conform to an ideology.

In recent years, NARTH has suffered several embarrassing episodes, caused not by its alliances but by its own members.

In 2007, Joesph Nicolosi NARTH’s President came under fire after an essay seeming to justify slavery appeared on NARTH’s website. In the piece, “Gay Rights and Political Correctness: A Brief History,” Dr. Gerald Schoenewolf, a New York psychotherapist and member of the group’s science advisory committee, wrote, “Africa at the time of slavery was still primarily a jungle. … Life there was savage … and those brought to America, and other countries, were in many ways better off.” (Nicolosi stepped down as NARTH president after criticism mounted, but he remains instrumental in the group.)

Then, in 2010, George Rekers, a psychologist and also a scientific adviser to NARTH, was photographed at Miami International Airport with a 20-year-old male prostitute who had accompanied him on a 10-day European vacation. Rekers insisted he had hired the man, who advertised his services on Rentboy.com, merely to carry his luggage. The man disagreed. He told reporters he had given Rekers daily nude massages that included sex.

Countdown until the  Family Research Council, American Family Assocciation and Focus on the Family blame the ” powerful and hateful gay lobby” for NARTH’s tax exempt status removal in three……two…..one……

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