Believe it or not, today’s historic Supreme Court declaration that committed same-sex couples have the right to legally marry was actually the second major victory for gay rights in 48 hours. Yesterday, a Hudson County, New Jersey jury delivered a verdict that has the potential to be as earth-shattering as today’s ruling in the long run. The jury found that one of the more notorious conversion therapy outfits, Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing, defrauded its clients when it told them they could be cured of their same-sex attractions. This ruling could potentially put JONAH out of business.
In 2013, four gay men working with the Southern Poverty Law Center sued JONAH–known until 2012 as Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality–contending that JONAH’s “therapy” violated New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act. Their “therapy” consisted of, among other things, stripping naked in front of their counselors, beating effigies of their parents, violent role-playing exercises, and having to endure gay slurs being shouted at them. When their “treatment” didn’t work, they were told that it would have worked if they were really committed to turning their lives around.
One of the plaintiffs, Benjamin Unger, testified that during one of his sessions, he was told that he was too close to his mother–and that explained why he was gay. His counselor encouraged him to beat a pillow representing his mother with a tennis racket. Unger testified that his relationship with his mother was badly strained as a result. He was so traumatized after leaving the program that he was essentially confined to bed for three months.
Another plaintiff, Chaim Levin, testified that he was encouraged to take part in “healthy touch” sessions with his counselor, which included lengthy cuddling sessions. Although Levin sensed that “it didn’t feel right,” he eventually gave in. It doesn’t sound anything like what Chaim’s mother, Bella, thought her son would get when she first spoke with JONAH founder Arthur A. Goldberg. When she took the stand, Bella accused Goldberg and his organization of promising “something that was so far from the truth.”
The plaintiffs won several major victories before the case went to trial. In February, Hudson County Superior Court Judge Peter Bariso barred several of JONAH’s expert witnesses from testifying because their arguments centered around the “outdated and refuted” argument that homosexuality is a disorder. A week later, Bariso ruled that since the consensus of mental health professionals is that homosexuality is not a mental disorder or disease, any “pray away the gay” group that makes claims to the contrary has committed fraud. Lee Beckstead, a member of an American Psychological Association task force that peered into the guts of “pray away the gay,” backed up that consensus when he called JONAH’s program “worse than snake oil.”
Those two pretrial rulings had the combined effect of eliminating any rational basis for these conversion therapy groups to exist. Frankly, I was surprised that JONAH let this case go to trial. You would have thought that with its case torn apart and having been told in capital letters that they committed a crime, Goldberg and friends would have been in settlement talks, stat. Apparently not.
Now Goldberg and his colleagues will have to pay dearly for their folly. The jury ordered JONAH to pay the plaintiffs $72,400 in damages–three times what the plaintiffs paid for their “therapy,” as well as for mental health counseling that they all had to attend in order to reverse JONAH’s damage. Bariso also has the option of yanking JONAH’s business license. If Bariso goes that route, JONAH will have to close its doors.
According to Sam Wolfe of the SPLC, it is the first time an American jury has found that conversion therapy amounts to fraud. Apparently JONAH is a glutton for punishment; their attorney, Charles LiMandri of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, has already vowed to appeal what he called an attempt by “powerful forces” to prevent his clients from living according to “Biblical values.”
As crippling a blow as this is to the conversion therapy movement, some experts think that more cases like this could follow. Steven Shiffrin, a law professor at Cornell who has followed cases like this, told The Atlantic that in the past, conversion therapists have claimed attempts to shut them down violate their First Amendment rights. However, Shiffrin said, “there is no First Amendment right to engage in consumer fraud.” Wolfe agrees, saying that this case will make it a lot easier for juries in other states to find these groups have committed fraud. Let’s hope that there is indeed more where this ruling came from.
