Russian Lawmaker Wants to Offer Free 'Ex-Gay' Therapy

[William769]

A senior Russian lawmaker wants to offer LGBT Russians free psychotherapy to become heterosexual, reports the Russian Times.

Mikhail Degtyarev, a parliamentarian from the populist-nationalist party LDPR, said he and members of the lower house of Parliament, known as the State Duma, are drafting a proposal to offer LGBT people anonymous, voluntary consultations with psychologists, psychiatrists, and "sexologists" to help them "return to normal life and become heterosexuals, as are 95 to 99 percent of our citizens," according to the state-run news agency RT.

Every major scientific and medical organization in the U.S. has determined that "ex-gay" therapy, sometimes called "conversion" or "reparative therapy" is not only ineffective at turning gay people straight, but also seriously harmful to the mental and physical health of the person undergoing "treatment." California and New Jersey have both passed laws barring licensed therapists from engaging in the practice with minors.

Given Russia's harsh national ban on broadly defined "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations," which imposes fines and possible jail time for anyone supporting or discussing LGBT identities in a format that might be visible to minors, it would seem Degtyarev's bill could feasibly present an alternative to incarceration for those convicted of "propagandizing."

http://www.advocate.com/politics/2013/08/26/russian-lawmaker-wants-offer-free-ex-gay-therapy

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

[MNBrewer]

1. Lysenko would be so proud

[stevenleser]

2. For comparison's sake, Russia and Mr. Putin and Mr. Degtyarev are to the right of Chris Christie on

LGBT rights. Even friggin' Chris Christie outlawed this kind of quackery here.

[nomorenomore08]

3. So yeah, what exactly is the rest of the world going to do about this? So far looks like not much -

to me anyway. The Russians have done nearly everything short of LGBT "ethnic cleansing" at this point.

[stevenleser]

4. Well, I emailed my friends at Genocide Watch this morning telling them that they don't have Russia

listed in their alerts and they should. Genocide Watch has three levels of alert, Watch, Warning and Emergency. I said Russia should at least be at the Watch level with regard to LGBT rights.

If and when Genocide Watch puts that out there, it will be a huge deal.

[William769]

5. That was great of you Steve.

[nomorenomore08]

6. If they post about it, do you think you could PM me the link? Thanks!

[Zorra]

7. I'm offering Russians free "Ex-Bigot" therapy!

Here's a small sample of our clinic's revolutionary therapy methods!