WorldNetDaily’s efforts to whitewash the effects of anti-gay conversion therapy continued with a Dec. 18 article by Bob Unruh. He began by complaining that “The U.S. Supreme Court recently ignored the need for a ruling on so-called “gay conversation therapy,” which actually is counseling that addresses unwanted same-sex ideologies and encourages people to live as the gender they were born,” by declining to hear the appeal of “a Washington state counselor who is being censored by the state,” calling this an “abandonment of speech rights.” What actually happened is the court refused to get involved with the therapist’s demand that Washington state’s ban on conversion therapy be overturned. Unruh then shifted to a related subject:
And now a new report reveals that the “evidence” used to support such content-based speech restrictions is faulty – and that the risk of suicide actually increases where officials impose such speech limits.
The report from The Federalist stunningly offers evidence directly contradicting the oft-made claim from LGBT activists that such counseling increases the risk of suicide.
The report noted some 26 states impose some level of speech censorship on the issue, “at least partly based on studies claiming ‘conversion therapy’ increases LGBT Americans’ suicide risks.”
But the report confirmed, “Yet every existing study that makes this claim is seriously scientifically unsound, several research reviews recently found.”
In fact, the actual information in one study often used to support the censorship schemes shows the opposite of what its authors claim, the report said.
The Federalist report explained, “Every study published since 2009 on therapy for people struggling with sexual orientation distress used the same major scientific flaw [Ruth Institute researcher Paul] Sullins identified in a 2020 paper, Christopher Rosik, a psychologist at Fresno Pacific University, found in 2022 with a research review. All failed to control for suicidal thoughts and actions LGBT people expressed before they went to ‘conversion therapy.’
“The studies claim ‘conversion therapy’ caused the LGBT study participants to have more suicidal thoughts and attempts, but not one separated the suicidal thoughts and attempts that occurred before starting therapy,” the report confirmed, “It’s not only logically impossible but scientifically invalid to say something that came after a first thing caused the first thing. But that’s what every single one of these studies did.”
Sullins explained, “The evidence shows that SOCE [sexual orientation change efforts] is fairly effective at preventing suicide attempts.”
Unruh failed to mention that the Ruth Institute, where Catholic priest Sullins works, is a right-wing Christian organization that claims to “uphold the ancient Christian teachings about marriage, family, and human sexuality” and, thus, would manufacture research designed to promote conversion therapy and deny its harms. Further, others have pointed out the flaws in Sullins’ study on the purported lack of harm from conversion therapy, stating that it’s “built on problematic timing data, the use of a 1 year suicide attempt as an outcome that is far removed from the potential exposure to SOCE, and the overcontrol in his causal models.”
Unruh didn’t mention any of that, of course; instead, he uncritically repeated Sullins’ attacks on the purportedly flawed methodology of other studies.