Faith-based Sexual Orientation Change

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A recent issue of The Journal of Psychology and Theology (Winter 1999, vol. 27, no. 4, p. 329) contained a follow-up study on faith-based sexual orientation change for both male and female homosexuals. The research showed that 61% of the males and 71% of the females made and sustained behavioral change in their sexual orientation at a one-year follow-up measure.

One hundred and forty persons (102 males and 38 females) of an original study group of 248 individuals involved with the Christian ex-gay group, Exodus International, returned follow-up surveys that showed some remarkable data:

• Fully 94% reported that they had changed or were still pursuing change in their sexual orientation, from homosexual to heterosexual;
  
• 63% reported success in the behavioral change definition of the project (no oral-genital or anal homo-sex for the past year);
  
• 88% of those who did not succeed according to the homo-behavioral abstinence criteria were still pursuing change and had not given up;
  factors that were correlated with successful change were high religious motivation, the lesser extent to which one had been immersed in the homosexual lifestyle, felt change in homosexual orientation, and a higher level of mental health and emotional well-being;
  
• Factors not correlated with success included gender, homosexual vs. bisexual orientation, involvement in a change group, and involvement in reorientation therapy (this last factor was put forth cautiously for when long-term and brief therapy was distinguished, those in long-term therapy showed a 70% success rate, while those in brief therapy showed a success rate of just 44%).
  

This study is significant both for its high rate of successful behavior change (63% vs. rates of 30-50% generally from most studies conducted decades ago when homosexuality still had the status of a mental disorder), and that high religious motivation and long-term reorientation therapy were both shown to be factors of successful change.

This study affirms empirically what the mental health professions across the board are denying on sociopolitical and not scientific grounds: the validity of conversion, reparative, and reorientation therapy.

This study also shows both the demand for change therapies away from homosexuality by a diverse group of clients (making the coerced denial of such therapy by the major mental health disciplines offensively unethical), and its success as a faith-based, behaviorally-defined treatment goal when sustained for more than just a few sessions.

(Taken from AACC American Association of Christian Counselors,  August 2000)

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