Where is Bryce?

Many months ago I began a website to find Bryce Faulkner and tell of his tragic tale. The young man was forced through economic and emotional intimidation, into a conversion therapy program. Travis Swanson alleges Bryce called him frantic early in the morning and  told him he would be in this program for 14 months. His mother had discovered emails between Bryce and Travis. Being a Fundamentalists Baptist, she went ballistic. (Fundamentalists can be some of the least Christ-like Christians out there.) As is with most college students, their entire economic structure is balanced on the backs of their parents. Using this, she forced poor Bryce to accept going into a conversion therapy program to change his homosexual orientation. Debra Faulkner (Bryce's mother) denies the story and says Bryce "begged" to go into treatment. This was after she told various media he was "with relatives" and "away at camp". Obviously her veracity is in question.

I am still getting letters from those who feel my veracity is in question. This is because there is no way to prove those things I have asserted about Bryce Faulkner. To these people I say, your belief in the story isn't necessary. Even if it were entirely fake (though it's not), it was put forth to bring attention to an ongoing scam be those in the religious community that want to pretend homosexuality is a learned trait. That the homosexual was recruited by some other older homosexual. Basically this is because some heterosexuals are in denial that homosexuals are just as much a divine creation as they are. They have misinterpreted and misused scriptures for thousands of years to put forth this agenda of bigotry. Now they have money making ventures making millions of dollars in order to perpetuate this lie that a persons orientation is not natural. Thousands of homosexuals are being mentally and emotionally abused for profit in some very sick and perverted ways. Indeed, the fact it still continues is sick and perverted in itself.

"There is no documentary evidence showing someone's sexual preference can be changed by therapy. There is only anecdotal evidence, mostly from the therapists themselves, claiming that what they do works. That's not very scientific. On the other hand, there's no scientific evidence to show that this is impossible...It hasn't been studied." Dr. Robert Spitzer,  professor of psychiatry at Columbia University. Even Freud, the father of all psycho therapy, did not believe in conversion therapy.

 

What is truly sad is how many do not know this archaic and abusive therapy is still relatively unknown. Since this story broke I can't count the number of times I have been told "I didn't know they still did this in this day and age." Yet indeed it is still being done. One of the more well known organizations to preform these tactics repudiated by the American Psychological Association is "Exodus International". While they claim a religious cause, in my humble opinion they are simply scam artists that take in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year under the false pretense they can change a persons sexual orientation. The reality is only a small percentage of those who go through these programs "claim" to have changed while the vast majority report long term mental trauma. That of course does not include those who have committed suicide because many of those who are proponents of these programs (i.e. pastors, priests, ministers, etc) firmly state a person is better off dead then alive and homosexual. Indeed there are reports of Pastors who have spoken for the organization the "Association of Christians Athletes" have said specifically that any young person who is homosexual should kill themselves rather then live as a homosexual.

What is extremely sick are some of the techniques used by these deprogramming "counselors". "Counselors" with no license with state or federal regulation do all sort of despicable things to individuals. In the past, researchers attempted to change sexual orientation through psychotherapy, aversion therapy, nausea producing drugs, castration, electric shock, brain surgery, breast amputations, etc. All failed. These methods were largely (though not completely) abandoned by the mid-1970's. Reparative (conversion) therapy and  transformational ministries emerged in the early 1970's.

One needn't believe me. There are movies about this. "Latter Days" is one about one person who went through the incredibly perverted Mormon conversion therapy. "Shock To The System" is a fictional film, but has true to life scenes of conversion therapy. "Fixing Frank" is also a good movie on the subject.

Nowadays, isolation is used. The victims (opps, I mean clients) are not allowed to have any contact with the outside world. Even their bathroom activities are monitored. During therapy, the gay client is encouraged to enter into an emotionally close, non-sexual, non-erotic relationship with another male adult. Once he achieves this, heterosexual feelings are expected to emerge over time and homosexual feelings are expected to fade.

As mentioned above, no peer-reviewed study has been published on conversion therapy. No longitudinal study has ever been conducted into its long-term effectiveness and hazards. However, many of the larger conservative Christian organizations, like Coral Ridge Ministries and Focus on the Family claim that this and other therapies have a high cure rate. Meanwhile many psychiatrists (who do not support this therapy) report anecdotal evidence of gays and lesbians who have become seriously depressed after the inevitable failure of their therapy; leading many to commit suicide.

"Why," I must ask " is for profit psycho therapy being allowed to be performed on individuals without and oversight or regulation?" Just because someone claims constitutional "Freedom of religion" does not mean it should be allowed. We don't allow human sacrifice for religious rites. We don't allow sexual exploitation of children for religious rituals. Yet we allow mental health clinics to operate under the guise of religious camps with no oversight or regulation or even documentary evidence that what they are doing has a decent success rate. Indeed there is more evidence to the contrary and how damaging it is. It is disgusting that we allow this to go on in America. So I ask Where is Bryce...or Denise...or Doug...or Lorrie....or Brian...or Lisa...or Van...or Debbie...or...well you get the picture. This is the reason I founded the Friends of B.R.Y.C.E.

WHERE ARE ALL THE GAY CHILDREN OF GOD IN CONVERSION THERAPY? 

May the light and love of God shine upon you and through you, now and forever.