Gay ‘Conversion Therapy’ Faces Test in Courts

In New Jersey on Tuesday, four gay men who tried the therapy filed a civil suit against a prominent counseling group, charging it with deceptive practices under the state’s Consumer Fraud Act.

The former clients said they were emotionally scarred by false promises of inner transformation and humiliating techniques that included stripping naked in front of the counselor and beating effigies of their mothers. They paid thousands in fees over time, they said, only to be told that the lack of change in their sexual feelings was their own fault.

In California, ex-gay therapists have gone to court to argue for the other side. They are seeking to block a new state law, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in September and celebrated as a milestone by advocates for gay rights, that bans conversion therapies for minors.

In Sacramento on Friday, a federal judge will hear the first of two legal challenges brought by conservative law groups alleging that the ban is an unconstitutional infringement on speech, religion and privacy.

Since the 1970s, when mainstream mental-health associations stopped branding homosexuality as a disorder, a small network of renegade therapists, conservative religious leaders and self-identified “life coaches” has continued to argue that it is not inborn, but an aberration rooted in childhood trauma. Homosexuality is caused, these therapists say, by a stifling of normal masculine development, often by distant fathers and overbearing mothers or by early sexual abuse.

An ex-gay industry of “reparative therapy” clinics and men’s weekend retreats has drawn in thousands of teenagers and adults who hope to rid themselves of homosexual urges, whether because of religious beliefs or family pressures.

But leading scientific and medical groups say the theories are unfounded and that there is no evidence that core sexual urges can be changed. They also warn that the therapy can, in the words of the American Psychiatric Association, cause “depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior” and “reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient.”

Those conclusions will be at the center of the coming legal fights in the state and federal courts.

In the spotlight in New Jersey are a counseling center called Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing, or Jonah, along with its co-founder, Arthur Goldberg, and an affiliated “life coach,” Alan Downing.

Mr. Goldberg helped found Jonah in 1999, after he finished serving a prison sentence and probation for financial fraud he committed in the 1980s. The group describes itself as “dedicated to educating the worldwide Jewish community about the social, cultural and emotional factors that lead to same-sex attractions,” and says it “works directly with those struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions,” including non-Jews.

While many Orthodox Jews consider homosexual relations to be a violation of divine law, Mr. Goldberg’s group has no official standing within Judaism, and many Jews accept homosexuality.

Neither Mr. Goldberg nor Mr. Downing is licensed as a therapist, so they are not subject to censure by professional associations.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a rights group based in Montgomery, Ala., is bringing the suit on behalf of four former patients along with two of their mothers, who say that they not only paid thousands of dollars for useless therapy for their sons, but that they also paid for more counseling to undo the damage.

“The defendants peddled anti-gay pseudo-science, defaming gay people as loathsome and deranged,” said Sam Wolfe, a lawyer with the group.

The suit, filed in Superior Court in Hudson County, calls for monetary compensation and for a shutdown of Jonah.

Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Downing did not respond to telephone and e-mail requests for comment.