NARTH Features Gay Imprisonment Advocate

NARTH Features Gay Imprisonment Advocate

November 7, 2011 at 10:25 am Ed Brayton

Warren Throckmorton reports that the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is having their annual conference this weekend and it will feature a woman who actively lobbies for the imprisonment of gay people around the world.

This coming weekend, Sharon Slater will speak at the annual conference of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Slater is the President of Family Watch International, an organization that lobbies the United Nations for pro-life and anti-gay causes. In January of 2011, Slater hosted a conference of over 30 United Nations delegates to promote her policy objectives. During the conference, the ex-gay message was prominent with a “the personal testimony of a patient who is successfully reorienting from homosexuality to heterosexuality” and a speech from an expert Slater refused to name.
Earlier this year, Slater claimed that she stopped using Martin Ssempa as a liaison in Africa after she learned about Ssempa’s support for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Slater correctly understands that the bill requires the death penalty for HIV positive gays and she opposes that. However,she refused to condemn prison terms for gays in Uganda or any other country. In essence, her position is the same as Scott Lively’s view – oppose the death penalty but support the stance of African nations who maintain harsh prison terms for GLBT people. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill is once again before Uganda’s Parliament and may be considered on the floor within the next month.
Slater has traveled to Africa several times to speak against relaxing laws on homosexuality. At a Nigerian conference in 2009 – the same year the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was introduced – Slater praised Uganda for refusing to decriminalize homosexuality. Earlier this year, also in Nigeria, Slater commended Nigeria for resisting the UN’s call for decriminalization.

By supporting imprisonment and forced therapy rather than death, this is what masquerades as a “moderate” among the wingnuts. The Ugandan kill-the-gays bill is back in play in that country, by the way. I’m glad to see Sen. James Inhofe, one of the most conservative members of Congress, condemned that bill and called it “unjust and extraordinarily harsh.”