Posted on 06/26/2015 6:30:37 AM PDT by xzins
A Jewish counseling center in New Jersey has been found guilty of consumer fraud for offering help to people with unwanted same sex attraction.
The Southern Poverty Law Center sued the center on behalf of four clients, saying they were tricked into believing the center, Jews Offering Alternatives for Healing (JONAH), could relieve them of unwanted sexual orientation.
A judge ruled against the center Thursday and the four clients were awarded $72,000.
Critics of the ruling say this will likely set a dangerous precedent for organizations helping people with unwanted same sex attraction.
"They've already said they will take aim at 70 other Christian and other religious counseling groups who help people with same sex attraction," Maggie Gallagher, chairwoman of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, said.
Gallagher, who's organization represented JONAH, said that the counseling has helped many.
"Some of them are living chaste lives as Christians or as Jews. Some of them are living married lives," she continued. "It's not clear what every single person can do, but everyone can gain control and orient their sexual desires to their higher values. And people with religious identities have the right to do this - no one has the right to interfere."
Defense attorney Charles LiMandr explained that the plantiffs had spoken in positive terms of their time at JONAH. But after they joined activists seeking to shut the center down, they began changing their stories and "making stuff up" about what they were forced to do.
"None of them wanted to identify as gay when they came to JONAH," he contended. "They have a right to seek help and my clients have a right to provide that help."
The center's co-founder, Arthur Goldberg, testified that he believes homosexuality is a disorder caused by emotional wounds occurring in childhood and adolescence. He said it can be cured through methods used by his organization.
"This is a sad day, not just for my clients, but for America," LiMandri said. "Our freedom to choose to live according to biblical values is being restricted by powerful forces, which in this case included a judge who refused to allow highly qualified expert witnesses to testify that change is possible for many people."
The judge will rule later on a request to revoke the company's license.
My memory of the success of any counseling are rates of less than 50%. Whether marital, family, etc.
...Southern Poverty Law Center - I stopped reading after that...
I’m unsure what southern poverty has to do with a therapy center in New Jersey, but as I recall, Gov Christie signed legislation last year making it illegal to perform...was it conversion therapy for kids with same sex attraction?
So, our newest GOP presidential contender probably helped get the ball rolling on this.
Nothing. That's just a front for a Communist propagandist association.
let’s see....where is the “Fraud” in acting out on same sex attraction......?
Seems to me the FRAUD is in the denial of the plumbing and the DNA.....
So what's next? Some alcoholic suing AA after they refused to follow their highly successful program, thereby "proving" that it didn't work?
And it is close to 0% if the people seeking the counseling don't actually want to be helped.
And Christie defended his signing of this law by saying that he doesn't believe homosexuality is a sin.
So, it can be inferred, by signing a law that literally bans a person from attempting to help another person, who freely seeks such help to be delivered from his or her same-sex attraction that they know in their spirit to be unnatural, that he does believe that those of us who believe that homosexuality is a sin, are in fact sinners upon whom he will inflict punishment, including fines and likely incarceration in future.
Given we’re told they’re born this way, why is there no search for a cure? All other manner of abnormalities have a “search for a cure”. Just In the natural/humanist understanding of how species survive, it makes no sense. In the practical observation, you see a higher incidence of disease and lower life expectancy in homosexual males. Again, where’s the search for a cure?
Exactly. If doing couple marriage counseling and one party refuses to quit an extra-marital relationship, then there is no reason to continue.
maybe a silver lining will be that all psychiatrists will now be open to be sued for fraud.
There is an all out war against America
Yes, after today’s court ruling, be assured that persecution is coming our way.
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I have several members of my family with varying degrees of OCD, it is almost impossible to eradicate, that doesn't mean it's not worth trying.
The center was set up just like the bakeries and florists. Welcome to hussein’s hope and change.
You’re thinking logically instead of devilishly.
Why is this fraudulent but sex reassignment is not?
From what I read about this case, the judge pretty much decided it, not the jury. The judge wouldn’t let any experts for the defendant testify since
“their opinions are based on the false premise that homosexuality is a disorder, writing that “the theory that homosexuality is a disorder is not novel but — like the notion that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it — instead is outdated and refuted.”
I can’t find it, but also read that his instructions to the jury pretty much left no other option for their decision
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