'I Felt Like a Criminal': Conversion Therapy Quietly Persists Among Religious Lesbians in Israel

[4th]

3. Conversion therapy has an interesting *secular* background.

In the 1950s when "operant conditioning" (think Clockwork Orange) was all the rage, someone got the bright idea it could be used to "cure" homosexuality. But when that didn't work, the medical profession abandoned the idea. Still no political controversy about homosexuality at that point, just medical science trying and rejecting something that does not work.

So unlike a lot of other quackery, conversion therapy has been thoroughly scientifically studied and disproven in a context of there not being any political controversy about the outcome.

But later various fundamentalist religious crazies picked it up again and threw in a little prayer to make it look nice.
Fancy that. Religious fundamentalists having faith in operant conditioning. Sort of gives the game away.