From: [email-masked] (DAnder9829)
Date: 9 Jul 1996 01:04:16 -0400

------Feb17, 1994-----
by dennis anderson -- / "We The People"
Sonoma County's (CA) Lesbigay Monthly Newspaper

Love In Action: The Final Indoctrination

Interview with Tom Ottosen, former Love In Action "ex-gay"

--printed MAR 94 issue--
cult: a quasi-religious group, often living in a colony, with a
charismatic leader who indoctrinates members with unorthodox or extremist
views, practices or beliefs. --Webster's New World Dictionary.

"I would rather you commit suicide than have you leave Love In Action
wanting to return to the gay lifestyle. In a physical death you could
still have a spiritual resurrection; whereas, returning to homosexuality
you are yielding yourself to a spiritual death from which there is no
recovery" --The Final Indoctrination from John Smid, Director, Love In
Action (LIA), San Rafael's "ex-gay" clan.

"That's exactly how he put it," states Tom Ottosen, 24, an expressive,
articulate two year ex-LIA group member.

Ottosen says he clearly recalls that experience. He says it occurred in
October of last year during his last one-on-one conference with John Smid,
LIA's Executive Director, who claims to be able to change gay men into
straight men through a live-in rigidly controlled indoctrination program
Smid calls "reparative therapy."

Ottosen says Smid clearly and emphatically warned him, "It would be better
if I were to commit suicide than go back into the world and become a
homosexual again. He felt that a physical deathwith my soul intactwas
much preferable to a spiritual death, which would happen if I were to
leave the group and go back to being gay. John Smid had very strong
feelings on that," claims Ottosen.

Ottosen further states that Smid said this at a time when Smid clearly was
aware he had strong suicidal feelings and was going through periods of
extreme depression, guilt and loneliness.

Ottosen recalls his depression had been building for several months during
his second year at LIA, primarily because of a warm and emotional
relationship he was experiencing with another group member. "It wasn't
sexual at all, but it was strictly forbidden and I was kept from even
talking to him for several months."

Also, earlier in July, "Another house member, who was in his fourth year
with the group and in a position of authority, became depressed and
attempted suicide" and was sent away for observation. "He was taken from
his position of leadership and then he just kinda-disappeared." Ottosen
admits that he too, within a few months was at point where he had never
been before. "I couldn't work. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't do anything."

He says he was so depressed and stressed that he knew he had to do
something different if he was going to survive. "When I found myself
calling the suicide hot line, I knew it was time to get out." If it
weren't for Lea Brown, a lesbian from Spectrum, Marin County's pro-gay and
lesbian counseling and information center, Ottosen says he doubts he would
have survived.

Smid responds that Ottosen's specific reference that he recommended
suicide is "totally untrue," however Smid does not deny that a private
meeting took place between he and Ottosen in October and confirms other
details of Ottosen's account.

It has been reported that former cult members who have been under the
intense intimidation of guilt-centered religious indoctrination, such as
those who escaped the mass-suicide poisoning at Jim Jones "Jonestown" and
the firestorm of self-destruction at the Waco Branch Davidian compound,
often spend years in intensive therapy trying to overcome the
psychological damage which a cult's rigid and uncompromising brainwashing
can cause.

The same kind of psychological damage can happen in the case of sexual
orientation indoctrination, agrees Lea Brown, Spectrum's programs manager.
"In this case, the heavy doses of deception and dishonesty which are
necessary to try to purge strong feelings of love and compassion from a
person's natural affection needs can cause serious problems. What groups
like LIA try to do is force people to choose between serving God and
living their lives. That's not a choice that anyone should have to make."

On the other hand, Psychotherapist Robert Norton, also Sonoma County's
Project 10 co-director who provides professional counseling to clients
such as Tom Ottosen, strongly condemns Smid's tactics. Norton says he was
"shocked and horrified" when he learned of this charge. One wonders "how
many other clients [Smid] has told to commit suicide?" Norton sternly
blasts these "cult-like organizations," and reminds them that telling a
client to commit suicide is clearly "a breach of ethical law."

Easing off slightly, Norton says, "The religious right wants people to
believe that homosexuality is only a behavior and therefore can be
changed. However, it is not just a behavior, it is also a psychosexual and
emotional development which is at the core of an individual's self; and
just like heterosexual development it can not be altered or changed."

Ottosen now understands this, and recalls during his last year at LIA at
least 75 percent of the original participants had either left the program
because it wasn't working for them or reported many "sexual falls"
(homosexual experiences including fantasies and masturbation). Many were
"forced from the group" when they began having serious doubts about the
program's effectiveness in their life. "They tell them they must leave
because the doubters become a threat to the other members. But then on the
outside, most ostracized members still feel intense loyalty to LIA, and
feel like they are betraying the group if they say anything to anyone
about their experience." Ottosen says he was lucky because when he was
told to leave, he immediately started seeing a licensed counselor on a
regular basis, "...but most are having a very difficult time on their
own."

Ottosen reveals that like most cults, the indoctrination program at LIA is
very effective at fostering feelings of intense loyalty because all group
members are isolated within the group homes and all contacts outside the
group are extremely limited. "Due the fact that members are not allowed to
question anything the hierarchy says, most members who were forced out or
who have left on their own end up extremely guilt-ridden, very confused,
dogged by the religious dogma given them by the groups, and most end up
worse than ever before," Ottosen said.
--END--

July 8, 1996

Dennis Anderson
<[email-masked]>
"There are no halfway measures against bigotry, hatred and anti-Semitism.
It's got to be rejected totally." --Abraham Foxman, Holocaust survivor.
(Associated Press, recent "...war of words" battle with Louis Farrakhan)