You Will Be Made to Care by Erick Erickson

Author:Erick Erickson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781621575269
Publisher: Brisance Books Group LLC
Published: 2016-01-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

REDEFINING GENDER

The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything.

—G. K. CHESTERTON1

Marriage isn’t the only thing being redefined these days. In the same week that the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Obergefell ruling, a less noticed but equally important decision cleared the courts in New Jersey.

A Jewish Orthodox counseling agency, Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH), has offered resources and referrals to counselors for people with different types of sexual issues for the last fifteen years. JONAH has provided resources and materials that share its religious viewpoints on different behaviors. Its ministry has enabled hundreds to overcome same-sex attraction and other sexual temptations of all sorts. JONAH founder Arthur Goldberg has invested thousands of hours in the organization as a labor of love, not charging anyone for the services received.

But in June 2015, a jury ruled the nonprofit agency to be guilty. The crime? Consumer fraud—claiming it could bring “healing” to men who wanted to overcome same-sex attraction. Four young men, former clients of JONAH, claimed that it had committed fraud by saying it could help men overcome same-sex attractions. With the help of the radically progressive Southern Poverty Law Center, the four men sued JONAH using New Jersey consumer-protection laws. JONAH’s attorney, Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund president Charles LiMandri, has been a defender of religious liberty in numerous court cases over the past twelve years. According to LiMandri, New Jersey law made for a challenging defense: “The New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act is the most liberal in the country and is touted as such. You really don’t have to show it was an intentional misrepresentation or even a negligent misrepresentation to subject one to liability. Even if it’s technically true but potentially misleading, it could subject one to liability. Even if the person who hears it doesn’t believe it’s true and doesn’t rely on it, he can still sue under the act. . . .” [emphasis added].2

The essential issue at stake in the case was whether homosexuality is fixed and immutable. Because it is, according to the prosecution, claiming homosexuals can change is fraudulent. Since there is no scientific foundation for making the claim that homosexuality is fixed and immutable, LiMandri and JONAH thought they could defend themselves in spite of the liberal New Jersey laws. But that was before truth was barred from the courtroom. LiMandri explains: “The judge excluded all of our experts. We had six treatment experts in psychiatry, psychology, licensed professional counselors and the like. The court ruled that none of them could testify on the threshold issue as to whether homosexuality is a disorder or abnormal because, from the court’s point of view, that is a misstatement. [The judge said] he’s not going to let people testify to that. . . . So, that was the fatal blow. The other side had experts. We had no experts. We had these adverse rulings that pretty much directed a jury to find against my clients” [emphasis added].3

In a

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