Gay conversion center lured men by offering ‘junk science,’ jury told

A jury in northern New Jersey heard opening arguments Wednesday in the fraud trial of a nonprofit organization that offers so-called gay conversion therapy based on what lawyers contend is “junk science.”

Four men — Michael Ferguson, Benjamin Unger, Sheldon Brook and Chaim Levy — sued the Jersey City–based organization Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) under New Jersey's consumer fraud laws in 2012.

The plaintiffs contend that JONAH violated the laws by characterizing homosexuality as a mental disorder and by claiming the organization could change patients' sexual orientation.

The men 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.

"My clients needed help, but JONAH lied, and JONAH made it worse," the plaintiffs' attorney David Diniello told jurors Wednesday. "All they got was junk science and so-called cures."

The four young men suing JONAH, along with its co-founder and an affiliated counselor who provided conversion therapy, underwent the treatment for varying periods from 2007 to 2009.

JONAH argues that there is still debate over whether human sexual orientation is changeable and that it isn't an issue for courts to decide.

In court Wednesday, JONAH’s lawyer Charles LiMandri 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 continued.

Before Wednesday’s session, Ferguson spoke publicly about his ordeal. "Sadly, there is no accountability for those who practice conversion therapy," he said in comments carried by local news website NJ.com.

“They play blindly with deep emotions and create an immense amount of self-doubt for the client,” he was quoted as saying. “They seize on your personal vulnerability and tell you that being gay is synonymous with being less of a man. They further misrepresent themselves as having the key to your new orientation."

The New Jersey lawsuit is the latest court battle regarding conversion therapy, a practice that has come under fire from gay rights groups that are trying to ban it in more than a dozen states.

There have been other cases regarding the practice in the United States, and some jurisdictions, including California and Washington, D.C., have banned the practice.

According to the lawsuit, one plaintiff said he was told to beat a pillow, representing his mother, with a tennis racket. The lawsuit says additional methods used by counselors included making patients strip naked during individual or group therapy sessions and subjecting them to anti-gay slurs.

The plaintiffs claim JONAH violated New Jersey's consumer fraud laws by engaging in "unconscionable practices, deception, fraud, false pretenses, false promises and misrepresentations" by characterizing homosexuality as a mental disorder and by claiming the organization could change patients' sexual orientation.

Lawyers for JONAH have argued that the plaintiffs are seeking to "shut down the debate" over conversion therapy by “making one viewpoint on the issue literally illegal."

"This is not a situation in which people are forced into something they don't want to do. They are trying to deprive plaintiffs of freedom of choice. Americans want people to have the right to free self-determination," said LiMandri, who is the president of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, in comments before Wednesday’s hearing, according to NJ.com. "I believe when the jury hears all the facts, they will ultimately decide in favor of our clients."

New Jersey’s Republican Gov. Chris Christie signed a law in 2013 barring licensed therapists from practicing conversion therapy on minors in the state. Two 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, and those decisions were affirmed by a federal appeals court.

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press