Jersey City, NJ – One of four plaintiffs who sued a nonprofit that promised to turn them from gay to heterosexual wept on the witness stand Wednesday as he described cutting off contact with his mother after being told she was the cause of his homosexuality.
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Benjamin Unger also described for jurors an exercise in which he was encouraged to take a tennis racket and repeatedly beat a pillow, meant to symbolize his mother.
“I had a gash in my hand” from taking so many swipes with the racket, Unger said.
The four men sued Jersey City-based Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing in 2012 under New Jersey’s consumer fraud laws, claiming the group violated state consumer fraud laws by characterizing homosexuality as a mental disorder and claiming it could successfully change patients’ sexual orientation.
The plaintiffs say they underwent treatment that included being told to spend more time naked with their fathers and participating in role-playing in which they were subjected to anti-gay slurs in a locker room setting.
The group’s attorney said during his opening statement Wednesday that even the plaintiffs’ experts will testify that its methods are commonly used by therapists and that some patients have reported successful experiences.
Three of the four plaintiffs were young men from Orthodox Jewish families, plaintiffs’ attorney David Dinielli said, who were grappling with their sexuality in a culture in which “there were no gay people” and there was pressure to marry and have children. The fourth, Michael Ferguson, is a Mormon who sought out JONAH.
“My clients needed help but JONAH lied and JONAH made it worse,” Dinielli told jurors. “All they got was junk science and so-called cures.”
Attorney Charles LiMandri, representing JONAH, said none of the four men asked for their money back at the time.
“All four of these men left JONAH on good terms, speaking glowingly” of their experience and referring it to friends, he said. It was only after being contacted by activists that they denounced the organization, he said.
“The plaintiffs became aggressors after they left JONAH to destroy JONAH,” LiMandri said.
Cross-examining Unger, LiMandri displayed emails Unger had sent at the time of the therapy in which he sounded pleased with his progress. His questioning sought to show jurors that Unger had willingly sought out the treatment but discontinued it after 10 months – well before the two years to four years JONAH suggested it would take for conversion.
The trial is scheduled to resume Monday.
The lawsuit is the latest court battle in New Jersey regarding conversion therapy, a practice that has come under fire from gay rights groups, which are trying to ban it in more than a dozen states.
Lawyers for JONAH have argued that debate continues among scientists about whether sexual orientation is fixed or changeable and whether conversion therapy is harmful. They charge that plaintiffs are seeking to “shut down the debate by making one viewpoint on the issue literally illegal.”
Republican Gov. Chris Christie signed a law in 2013 banning licensed therapists from practicing conversion therapy in New Jersey. Two court challenges to the ban, one by a couple and their son and one by a group that included two licensed therapists, were dismissed by a federal judge. Those decisions were later affirmed by a federal appeals court.
Most likely there faygelheit is a vitamin defishency which can be treated successfilly in the outpatient format. What I do understand is that many programs fail like weight loss, but you you don’t sue, gevald. Usually only wealthy families can afford these services so why sue? We are a mockery to ours selves.
Please help me understand. I thought these gay stuff is not yet part of the Jewish population.
Nebach!
Every confused / angry person is looking for any loophole to draw attention to themselves.
They are nebach insecure and starved for attention – the fashion today is sue sue sue.. they really should object to the fact that the word sue is too feminine sounding and it should have an alternative term.. like maybe sam???
Hashem help us all!!
This is funny at a certain level. The Queer are looking to bait the Queer and the Queer are looking to bite the Book of Torah. That is not funny of course, but Torah is not bitten. It will bite back So these poor toevah children that somehow get places in the custody of the Jonah queer value system are sadly sheets of paper to go through the rumor mill. Stop the toevah and you can be friends with anyone you want. But the toeivah is so bad that the simple ear of a bad joy is not anything but penny loss for the queer and unrespectable. Was Torah young and stupid? No. Do not make me throw up.
Can you please delete the obnoxious anti-gay description from Mazal1? She is clearly nuts (apart from her illiteracy.) However, she is right in one thing, nobody sues Weight Watchers when they don’t lose weight. Well, I didn’t….but that’s an idea! Wonder what the statute of limitations is on fat?
I don’t care how much therapy these guys get, I don’t want them marrying my daughter!
All the treatment they received was unethical and against therapeutic practice. Your likelihood of turning a gay man straight, is as likely as turning a straight man gay.
Guys, these people have a mental issue and went for treatment. That is very praiseworthy of them for doing so. It sounds like the institution they went to uses baseless and abusive therapy, and the patients have the right to sue. Why are you are putting them down? It’s not their fault for being born gay, and they are seeking to get out of it.
If someone is openly gay and doesn’t care about publicizing it, then I agree to put them down. But if someone is working to go away from it, no one has any right to put them down. To the contrary, we must praise their efforts.
HankM, you said you are afraid of your daughter marrying them, watch out for Hashem listening to you and putting her in the hands of someone else or in the hands of nobody…there are too many cases out there.
why are there pictures with names in this headline picture? I’m sure the people in the picture are embarrassed enough
This organization is not a fraud. Every type of therapy might work or not work when it comes to different patients. Compare it with drug addiction therapy. So now every druggy out there who still has an urge to take drugs should sue the rehab center???
This organization JOHNA is a legit and have helped number of people.
If this sort of treatment works, that is one thing. Since there seems to be no proof it does work, well then it is something else altogether. I suspect what it is is fraud and quackery.
When did you choose to be straight?
Was there even a debate?
Did you wake up hearing a small voice
Urging you then and there to make your choice?
Who was it that spoke to you on that day
When you decided that you wouldn’t be gay?
Did you quickly choose what works for you
Or did you hesitate between the two?
You say being gay is just a selection
And that upon its detection
It can be cured by rejection
But upon further reflection
The truth is not at all as you say
No one chooses to be gay
Surely those who so spitefully depict it
Are themselves deeply conflicted
From homosexuality Yidden were never immune
So for our fellow gay Yidden let us all make room
You can’t catch gay it even if you try
And you can’t hide it forever, even when you lie