This certificate is all it takes to go into the reparative therapy business. There’s no certification. No training. No oversight. Why? Because reparative therapy isn’t therapy.
Metroplex Republicans Vice President Rudy Oeftering attended the Texas Republican Convention in Fort Worth last week, testified before the platform committee and was as horrified as anyone when they endorsed reparative therapy.
To show just how qualified you have to be to offer reparative therapy, Oeftering went to the Dallas County Clerk’s office and registered his new business — Nomo Homo Reparative Therapy. It’s official — with County Clerk John Warren’s signature and everything.
Reparative therapy is unregulated. No medical, psychological or social work organization endorses it. In fact, all of them condemn it. The state of Texas doesn’t regulate it. So now Oeftering is happy to offer it.
He promises no results. He expects any gay “patients,” as the Republican platform refers to the community, to finish his program just as gay as they started, maybe more so. And he plans to charge just what other programs charge — $10,000 cash up front.
Oeftering said at least in his program, his promise of no results is guaranteed. He suggests victims of other programs, which don’t deliver the promised results of changing a person’s sexual orientation, should sue for breach of contract.
He said the person registering the business in the County Clerk’s office looked horrified when he turned in the application for the business certificate, until he assured them he was just trying to make the point that this was all you needed to open a reparative therapy business. No training or qualification is required.
