Elton Moose, founder and director of Springfield’s New Pathways, will be speaking at Sinclair on Feb. 23 “to give the science of same-sex attraction, from the secular point of view,” said Vickie Lair, the faculty advisor for Sinclair’s Traditional Values Club.
According to New Pathways’ website, it is “a Christian organization that helps individuals to overcome the power of homosexuality.” Moose said that although “faith plays a big part in it,” his talk on campus will be “only dealing with the psychological side” of his treatment.
Moose holds a bachelor’s degree in Theology and Arts from God’s Bible School and College in Cincinnati and a master’s degree in Science and Counseling from Evangelical Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.
He has also been billed as having a doctorate in philosophy and psychology from Trinity Southern University in Texas. However, Trinity Southern is an unaccredited internet-based organization that was shut down in 2005 after granting a MBA to an assistant attorney general’s cat, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
New Pathways has been operating in Ohio for 24 years and specializes in the treatment of gender identity issues, same-sex attraction and sexual addictions, said Lair. Moose said that his average patient is in his or her 20s, and that the center does individual counseling with teenagers only with permission from parents.
Moose himself is a “former homosexual,” Lair said.
“It’s very hard to leave the homosexual lifestyle,” she said, “It took him eight years of counseling.”
“I’m not against people that choose to continue in the lifestyle,” Moose said. “I’m just there to help people that do want to bring about change, and I’ve been very successful at doing that.”
Therapies aimed at changing a patient’s sexual orientation (known as ‘reparative therapies’) are not effective and may harm patients, according to multiple resolutions adopted by the American Psychological Association.
“Same-sex attraction is a naturally occurring condition,” said Dr. Kip Alishio, director of student counseling service at Miami University. “If someone feels uncomfortable with their sexual attraction, therapy should be directed toward helping them feel more comfortable. The goal should be to help the person come to terms with this aspect of themselves.”
Bonnie Borel-Donohue, president of the TVC, sees the issue as a competition of paradigms.
“The gay identity paradigm believes that gay people can never become heterosexual…and they have then all these consequences that follow from that belief,” she said. “Their agenda is not innocuous, it’s not harmless to the rest of society. We want to address those implications and discuss rationally and calmly the evidence for and against their assertions and our assertions.”
Borel-Donohue and Lair said that homosexuals don’t necessarily have to become heterosexual, but they can stop engaging in homosexual behavior.
Alishio said that the scientific evidence shows that although people may change their behavior, the “basic underlying attraction does not change.”
“This is a place of education and awareness, not indoctrination,” said Lair. “We want to educate and make them [homosexuals and promiscuous heterosexuals] realize what they’re getting themselves into.”
Questions can be directed to ethel.borel-donohue@my.sinclair.edu or vickie.lair@sinclair.edu.
TVC presentation:
“A Scientific Overview of Homosexuality”
When: Feb. 23
Time: 11 a.m. and noon (two presentations)
Where: Library loggia