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Blood In The Water

by Open-Publishing - Sunday 8 May 2005

Discriminations-Minorit. USA Wayne Besen

by Wayne Besen

"The blood is in the water."

With these Soprano-like words, the right wing’s most fearsome sharks circled Magellan Health Services. Like Microsoft, only a week earlier, the ruthless killing machines quickly devoured the nation’s leading behavioral health company. Magellan was easy prey and surrendered to the savage attack so quickly, the Jaws music barely hit its first note.

Let me explain.

In March, Dr. Warren Throckmorton, who recently produced a video on ex-gays called, "I Do Exist", had been removed from Magellan’s National Professional Advisory Council because of his controversial and unorthodox view that some homosexuals could become heterosexual through therapy.

Shortly after his exile, Throckmorton joined forces with Concerned Women for America and the Illinois Family Institute to try to overturn their wise decision. In April, Magellan mysteriously reinstalled the right wing doctor.

Amazingly, Erin Somers, vice president of public relations and communications at Magellan, downplayed the influence the right wing pressure campaign had on their decision to reverse course.

"We got feedback [on the initial decision to remove Throckmorton from the panel] from both sides of the issue—folks who thought we had done the right thing in retracting the invitation and folks who thought we had not," she told The Advocate magazine.

The stubborn facts, however, belie the lies told by Magellan and betray the company’s betrayal of the gay community. Evidence of the right’s coordinated campaign with Throckmorton first surfaced when I e-mailed Throckmorton to ask why he was eliminated from the Advisory Council. Throckmorton replied to my query by writing, "you will hear more about the Magellan situation in due time."

Almost immediately following this initial exchange, Throckmorton wrote an e-mail to Peter LaBarbera of the Illinois Family Institute, Bob Knight of Concerned Women for America and professional ex-gay agitator Stephen Bennett. I know this to be true because the dolts inadvertently included me on the E-mail chain. Referring to the Magellan situation, Throckmorton wrote, "Just thought I would keep y’all aware that the blood is in the water."

Either he cut himself shaving, or he and his nefarious buddies had hatched a plan to harass Magellan until they capitulated and brought back Wacky Warren, a man with quack-like ideas that the company made clear they had no use for.

Magellan’s absurd spin and daft dissembling has bordered on theatre of the absurd.

First it claims to agree with all respected medical and mental health organizations that homosexuality is not a mental illness, disorder or emotional problem. Yet, they endorse Throckmorton and by extension reparative therapy, a practice that holds that homosexuals are sick and need to be fixed.

The American Psychiatric Association says, "the potential risks of ’reparative therapy’ are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior", that can "reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient." Why would Magellan encourage its patients to explore a barbaric practice that can cause such emotional mayhem?

Next, Magellan speciously pretended its buckling under pressure from the morality mob was not a politically motivated decision.

"Our decision to retract the invitation has made it appear we’re taking sides on the issue of homosexuality," said Somers. "The fact is that we’re not."

What they did was much worse. By reinstating Throckmorton, Magellan signaled that the company would abandon sound science if badgered by right wing bullies. Magellan was correct the first time when their punitive actions declared Throckmorton uniquely unqualified and ill suited to offer unbiased advice to the Council.

Magellan’s forfeiture of conscience is a severe blow to its leadership and credibility. Throckmorton is cynically using his position on Magellan’s Advisory Council to gain respectability and legitimize his backwards and dangerous anti-gay views. Magellan should reverse course and not offer a platform to a politically motivated extremist interested only in furthering his radical agenda.

Moreover, his reappointment is a slap in the face to victims of reparative therapy and an insult to a gay community that has historically been persecuted by practitioners of pseudo-science.

"Individuals have the right to explore a variety of different kinds of treatment for issues that are troubling them," explained Somers.

This is true, in the same way Asians can "explore" eye rounding or an African Americans can get a kin bleaching "treatment" to find acceptance, escape persecution and fit in. While vulnerable and desperate victims may have this right, it is Magellan’s responsibility to dissuade people from experimenting with doctors who practice obsolete and emotionally damaging therapy.

Magellan’s contortions and distortions have fooled no one. Instead of telling the gay community to take a hike, they should give Throckmorton his walking papers. The decisions by Microsoft and Magellan reveal that there is a lot of blood in the water. It is time the gay community rises to meet this challenge. Shark hunting, anyone?

http://www.waynebesen.com/columns/2005/05/blood-in-water.html