‘Conversion therapy’ quackery boss admits being gay

This 31 August 2019 video from the USA says about itself:

Former conversion therapy leader McKrae Game disavows movement he helped fuel

In June, McKrae Game publicly announced he was gay and severed his ties with the conversion therapy movement. Now, the man once billed as a leading voice in the movement is trying to come to terms with the harm he inflicted while also learning to embrace a world and community he assailed for most of his adult life.

McKrae Game is not the first ‘conversion therapy‘ boss to admit the bankruptcy of this quackery. Earlier, David Matheson, bigwig of a Mormon church version of that quackery, also admitted it was all a con game.

From The Hill site in the USA:

Conversion therapy group founder comes out as gay, apologizes

By Jessica Campisi – 09/03/19 12:17 PM EDT

The founder of one of the nation’s largest conversion therapy programs, who spent decades leading the organization, now says he is gay, apologizing for his role in the practice.

McKrae Game, who founded and led Hope for Wholeness in South Carolina, publicly announced he was gay in early June, more than two years after the organization’s board of directors abruptly fired him.

In a Facebook post last week, Game, 51, said he was “wrong”, adding: “Please forgive me.”

“I certainly regret where I caused harm,” he wrote. “Promoting the triadic model that blamed parents and conversion or prayer therapy, that made many people believe that their orientation was wrong, bad, sinful, evil, and worse that they could change was absolutely harmful.”

“It’s all in my past, but many, way TOO MANY continue believing that there is something wrong with themselves and wrong with people that choose to live their lives honestly and open as gay, lesbian, trans, etc.,” he added. “Learn to love yourself and others.”

In an interview with The Post and Courier published Saturday, Game called conversion therapy “a lie” and “false advertising” and called for the dissolution of conversion therapy practices or ex-gay ministries.

Game is one of several former gay conversion therapy leaders who have since cut ties with the movement and have come out as LGBTQ.

Almost 700,000 LGBT-identifying adults have gone through some form of conversion therapy as of 2018, according to UCLA’s Williams Institute, The Post and Courier notes.

Eighteen states and at least 50 cities and counties across the country have laws or regulations “protecting youth from this harmful practice”, the Human Rights Campaign says.

USA: MILLIONS OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS ARE GOING TO SCHOOLS THAT PUSH CONVERSION THERAPY Calvary Christian Academy is one of at least nine private schools that participate in voucher or tax credit programs and appear to push LGBTQ students to attend a form of conversion therapy. A 2017 HuffPost investigation found that at least 14% of religious schools in voucher programs advertised anti-gay policies or barred LGBTQ students and staff from admission and employment. Now HuffPost has found that some of these schools go so far as to push a medically discredited and often harmful treatment on their students in an attempt to change their sexual orientation. [HuffPost]