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Faith-based therapies to 'cure' unwanted homosexuality being 'mainstreamed'
Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindus have tried to make people straight
Ex-gay movement emerged in Australia during early 1970s independent of U.S.

By Stephen Johnson For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 03:03 EDT, 17 October 2018 | Updated: 03:39 EDT, 17 October 2018

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Australia's underground gay conversation therapy movement is becoming more mainstream despite moves to outlaw the psychologically-harmful practice.

Faith-based therapies to 'cure' homosexuals of unwanted same-sex attraction have existed in Australia since the early 1970s and emerged independently of a similar approach in the United States.

Despite moves by state governments in Australia to crack down on the practice, gay conversion therapy has in fact continued to grow, a report by the Human Rights Law Centre and Melbourne's La Trobe University found.

Australia's underground gay conversation therapy movement is becoming more mainstream despite moves to outlaw the practice for causing psychological harm (stock image)

'Rather than receding, our research suggests that conversion practices and ideologies are being mainstreamed within particular Christian churches,' it said.

Gay conversion therapies aren't confined to fundamentalist Christian congregations, with a Sydney Muslim clinic also offering counselling to turn people straight.

The report found conservative parts of the Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist communities also actively promoted prayer-based approaches to address unwanted sexuality.

'Ex-gay and ex-trans ideology, counselling and pastoral activities are still being promoted in the messages and teachings of many churches, mosques and synagogues, through print and digital media and through some Christian radio programs,' they said.

At least 10 groups in Australia and New Zealand continue to offer conversion therapy, including Liberty Christian Ministries in Sydney which offers 'pastoral care' with one-on-one meetings to address same-sex attraction.

Earlier this year, Victoria's Labor government ordered an inquiry into gay conversion therapy, with a view to outlawing it, and federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has vowed to crackdown on the practice.

Amid heightened scrutiny of the practice, movements claiming to cure homosexuality have shifted their language since 2012, and have instead encouraged same-sex attracted people to lead celibate lives, the report said.

Faith-based therapies to 'cure' homosexuals of unwanted same-sex attraction have existed in Australia since the early 1970s (stock image)

The Preventing Harm Promoting Justice report said 10 per cent of same-sex attracted Australians were 'still vulnerable to harmful conversion therapy practices'.

'Psychological research has produced overwhelming clinical evidence that practices aimed at the reorientation of LGBT people do not work and are both harmful and unethical,' it said.

Until the early 1970s, when homosexuality was still considered a mental disorder, mainstream doctors had tried hormonal medicine, brain surgery and shock therapy in a doomed bid to make their patients heterosexual.

After that time, faith-based groups in Australia established gay conversion therapies, and during the 1980s affiliated with like-minded international organisations.

The Australian Psychological Society today declared that is strongly opposed 'any form of mental health practice that treats homosexuality as a disorder, or seeks to change a person's sexual orientation'.