On March 18, 2013 gay activists testified against sexual orientation change effort (SOCE) therapy for minors, using anecdotal evidence and position statements from mental health organizations, to outlaw its use in New Jersey. However, not one published study in peer-reviewed, scientific literature supported the claims made by such witnesses.

One of the witnesses, Brielle Goldani, lied about her experiences in a so-called “conversion therapy torture camp” in Ohio in 1997. Confirmed with the Ohio Secretary State and Attorney General, the camp “True Directions” never existed, except in the 1999 film “But I’m a Cheerleader” starring Drag queen RuPaul.

Youth who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or have unwanted same-sex attractions (SSA), experience homosexual feelings, in some cases, due to trauma, including sexual abuse by the likes of Pedophile Jerry Sandusky.

A 2012 study in the peer-reviewed, scientific journal Child Abuse and Neglect found that “Gay/lesbian respondents had higher odds of exposure to child abuse” and “exposure to victimization in early-life family and romantic relationships explains, in part, sexual orientation disparities in a wide range of mental health and substance use outcomes” compared to the general population.

Outcomes reported from adults who undergo SOCE, summarized in the peer-reviewed, scientific Journal of Human Sexuality (Vol. 1.), show that 100 years of research demonstrates that it is possible for some persons to change from homosexuality to heterosexuality; that such efforts do not invariably result in harm; and that homosexuals have greater risk factors for pathology than the general population.

S2278 was passed out of committee due to fraudulent testimony, insufficient anecdotal data on adolescent outcomes of SOCE, and inaccurate conclusions of adults who underwent SOCE. We therefore call on the New Jersey Senate to reconvene a new hearing, place witnesses under oath, and require an independent, objective scientific panel to review all of the research on SOCE outcomes before this bill advances through the Legislature.

Scientific research reveals that children are not simply born gay, and New Jersey victims deserve the right to receive treatment as the result of unwanted SSA brought on by Pedophiles such as Jerry Sandusky.

Trenton, NJ, May 2, 2013 – Citizens Against the Jerry Sandusky Victimization Act, also known as Senate Bill 2278, will hold a press conference on May 6, 2013 at the State House Building in Trenton, NJ (Room #209) to announce major developments in the fight to stop this destructive legislation, which threatens to further harm victims of sexual abuse from Pedophiles such as Jerry Sandusky, who seek to resolve unwanted same-sex attractions with the help of licensed mental health providers.

     After years of emotional portrayals of same-sex relationships in T.V. sitcoms, movies, and now in blatant advertising campaigns, there is a creeping cultural shift taking place. A Pew Research poll cited the biggest reason 32% of those who changed their minds and now support same-sex “marriage”, did so because they know someone who is gay. This change of heart comes from a sense of compassion for the individual, but marital ideals and standards that encourage society to aspire for the best possible outcomes cannot be abandoned to accommodate every individual. Speeding laws are not waived for the unfortunate soul who has to catch an important flight. Orchestral standards are not waived for the musician because he has devoted his or her life to studying an instrument, is a wonderful person, and needs the job to support a family. It is either right to maintain the ideal man-woman definition of marriage – our most important social institution, or is it not. We must not base our decision on compassion for gays (or misunderstood sense of fairness) whether the gay is our child, a sibling, friend, or anyone else.

     Same-sex couples in NJ already receive equal benefits under civil union law and these unions deserve distinction for good reason. A new gold standard, peer-reviewed, family structures study released in June 2012 by sociology professor Mark Regnerus from the University of Texas, indicates that the social experiment of homosexual “marriage” will cause serious harm to children. Children raised by gay and lesbian parents are significantly more likely than those raised in a two-parent heterosexual home, to have social and mental health problems requiring therapy, identify themselves as homosexual, choose cohabitation, be unfaithful to partners, contract sexually transmitted diseases, be sexually molested or raped by a parent or adult, have lower income levels, drink to get drunk, and smoke tobacco and marijuana. A key difference that sets this study above all others is it uses a data set of 2,988 persons ages 18 to 39 — including 175 adults raised by lesbian mothers and 73 adults raised by gay fathers — marking the first research from a new dataset, which initially included some 15,000 persons. The research not only showed that there was a major difference between children from both groups but highlighted that family instability is a “characteristic mark” of same-sex relationships .

     These poor life outcomes will require greater government tax dollar assistance and encourage more young people to accept and experiment with same-sex behavior. For those who believe changing the definition of marriage will not hurt their marriages, consider that the social mistakes we as a society have already made, and are headed towards now will weigh most heavily on the shoulders of children. They are the innocent victims of social experimentation who have become morally and even physically broken in the name of so-called “freedom, equality, and progress.” Since 1994, the number of homosexual men has increased 18 percent, but women who identify as such has gone up 157 percent . This clearly suggests there are strong cultural factors at work in encouraging same-sex behaviors, and at least indirectly, it undermines the whole theory of “being born that way”.

     This month Doug Mainwaring, a gay man, wrote an insightful article for thepublicdiscourse.com sharing that intellectual honesty and experience as a gay person raising children can lead to opposing same-sex marriage. “There are perhaps a hundred different things, small and large”, he said, “that are negotiated between parents and kids every week. Moms and dads interact differently with their children. To give kids two moms or two dads is to withhold .. someone whom they desperately need and deserve in order to be whole and happy. It is to permanently etch ‘deprivation’ on their hearts”. A genderless union, with or without adoption, may be considered a family but it is not a marriage. While similar in some ways, it is no more a marriage than a polygamous union, and does not bring the same benefits to children or society that marriage brings.

     New Jersey’s gay activist organization, Garden State Equality, is launching a new campaign asking legislators to “vote their conscience” and override the governor’s veto of a bill that would redefine marriage for all of us. Our conscience should always tell us to put children first, ahead of adult desires, and legislators have a responsibility to pursue public policy rooted in the well-being of all children.

Click here to read the amicus brief

OFFICIAL RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2013
CONTACT: Len Deo (800) 653-7204

On Monday, March 18, 2013, the NJ Senate Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens Committee held a three-hour hearing on S2278, a bill to ban minors who experience unwanted same-sex attraction from receiving therapy from licensed counselors. Testimony came overwhelmingly from homosexual activists, who relied on unsubstantiated emotional and anecdotal arguments to support the bill.

The most dramatic story came from Brielle Goldani, a man living as a woman in Toms River, NJ. Goldani claimed that, as a teenager in 1997, his church in New Jersey sent him to a “conversion therapy” camp in Ohio called True Directions, run by an Assemblies of God church. There Goldani says he was forced to masturbate to heterosexual soft-core pornography, flirt with members of the opposite sex, and submit to electroshock “therapy” and chemical IV injections in order to restore heterosexual inclinations.

International Healing Foundation Director Christopher Doyle, who testified in opposition to the bill, said afterward, “I was shocked and horrified to hear about such abuse. As a former homosexual and practitioner of Sexual Orientation Change Effort (SOCE) therapy, I had never heard of such inhumane treatment, except from anti-ex-gay activists who often claim that SOCE employs such barbaric methods.”

Investigation revealed Goldani’s story was fabricated. The Ohio Council of Assembly of God Churches denied the camp ever existed. The Ohio Secretary of State and Attorney General’s office confirmed this. No ethics complaints were ever filed to indicate the existence of such a camp, SOCE practitioners in Ohio had never heard of it, and the current pastor of Goldani’s former church said no one from his church would have been complicit in such a scheme. Instead, Goldani’s testimony was virtually identical to a 1999 movie called I’m a Cheerleader, where the abuse he described occurs at a camp called True Directions.

NJ Family First’s Director of Government Affairs Greg Quinlan said, “Everyone is entitled to think as he chooses about the merits of SOCE. But people should be able to form those opinions based on facts—not movies. The New Jersey legislature has been taken for a ride by activists desperate to force their agenda, whose desperation displays their fear of having a real conversation. S2278 is an unconstitutional bill that violates minors’ autonomy, parents’ rights, professionals’ judgment, and individuals’ consciences, and it is a serious matter for everyone’s freedom when cynical mockeries like this are allowed to influence policy. Regrettably, committee chairman Joseph Vitale did not seem overly concerned.

“While Senator Vitale may not care that a key witness lied, the parents, teenagers, and professionals this bill will affect deserve a truthful hearing. The legislature should not suffer such an insult or permit illegitimate testimony to determine binding votes. The right thing for Senator Vitale to do would be to call another hearing and bind witnesses under oath.”

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New Jersey Family Policy Council (1-800-FAMILY-1) is a non-profit, multi-issue organization, working to strengthen the family through informed citizenship and improved public policy. For more information regarding our Marriage, Citizen or Youth Builder Programs, please contact us at the above number.

OFFICIAL RELEASE DATE: December 6, 2012
CONTACT: Greg Quinlan (800) 653-7204

SACRAMENTO – A federal judge has ruled that California’s ban on sexual orientation change therapy for minors is a violation of free speech. On Tuesday, December 4, Judge William Shubb found that the ban was not likely to satisfy the standard of strict scrutiny for determining whether public policy interests outweigh the rights of the affected group—psychiatrists and counseling professionals, in this case.

Judge Shubb granted an injunction against the law in response to an action filed by a medical doctor and board-certified psychiatrist, a licensed therapist, and a counseling student who has benefited from reparative therapy himself. The ban violated their First Amendment rights, he found.

The New Jersey legislature may be forced to contemplate a similar ban if Assembly leadership advances a bill introduced earlier this fall by Assemblyman Tim Eustace of Maywood. Mr. Eustace’s bill is modeled after the California bill and would prohibit licensed therapists from providing sexual orientation change therapy to minors.

In a separate but nearly identical case, another judge has denied a request for a preliminary injunction, improbably finding that California’s ban has no First Amendment implications. (She ignored binding Ninth Circuit precedent in doing so, and her decision was appealed the same afternoon.) “A legal battle against the attack on First Amendment rights is ongoing,” stated Gregory Quinlan, Director of Government Affairs for New Jersey Family First.

Quinlan continued, “The litigious fate of California’s reparative therapy ban is instructive for New Jersey’s legislators. Even there, where courts are very friendly to the homosexual lobby, the ban failed its first round of judicial examination because it is a plain attempt to silence dissenters from the orthodoxy of the ‘gay identity.’ Using the law to run ahead of science and coerce public opinion is neither honest nor courageous. This proposal works like a bull in a china shop: it manages to trample free speech, parental rights, professional dignity, and young people’s freedom of self-determination, all at the same time. Is the homosexual lobby afraid people will find out there is no genetic or biologic ‘gay identity’? So much for tolerance and fair treatment. This is junk legislation and should be summarily rejected by the leadership of the New Jersey legislature.”

Regarding the therapy itself, NJFF President Len Deo commented, “When we have, God forbid, a situation like the Jerry Sandusky case, where much damage is done to young people sexually abused, this type of therapy can offer hope and direction as the abuse victims and their families attempt to rebuild their lives after suffering  great trauma. Would the supporters of this bill prefer that those young people have fewer choices of how to remedy their deep scars? Parents and teens have the right to choose together what is best for their health, without the interference of some poorly -reasoned concoction put forth by the homosexual activists and their allies.”

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New Jersey Family Policy Council (1-800-FAMILY-1) is a non-profit, multi-issue organization, working to strengthen the family through informed citizenship and improved public policy. For more information regarding our Marriage, Citizen or Youth Builder Programs, please contact us at the above number.

New Jersey Family First
The Legislative Action Arm of

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 9, 2012
CONTACT: Greg Quinlan (800) 653-7204

TRENTON - On Wednesday, August 8, 2012, Governor Chris Christie vetoed Senate Bill 1599 “The Gestational Carrier Bill.” This legislation would have authorized commercial agreements to rent a woman’s womb to carry someone else’s child.  Gregory Quinlan of New Jersey Family First (NJFF) the legislative action arm of New Jersey Family Policy Council dubbed S1599 the “rent a womb” bill. The concept of this legislation was repugnant on its face. The bill would have preyed on the poorest of women, who may have been tempted to escape difficult or desperate financial situations by carrying someone else’s child for large sums of money some estimates as much as $60,000 to  $100,000. This would commercialize pregnancy in unimagined ways as well as violating the filial rights of the child and maternal rights of the “carrying” mother. “We are talking about human beings, not commercial products,” stated Quinlan.

The New Jersey Bioethics Commission was created to study the issue of surrogacy after the New Jersey Supreme Court in 1988 ruled unanimously against surrogacy in the famous Baby M case. The bipartisan commission, comprised of persons from diverse groups included physicians, scientists, mental health professionals, and attorneys, performed research, held public hearings, and gathered information for over 18 months. Three years later the Commission published their findings in a 171-page report. The report condemned all forms of surrogacy, including gestational surrogacy. It recommended legislation to strongly discourage the practice of surrogacy, including limited criminal sanctions and rules for awarding custody of the human beings born as a result.

S1599 met vigorous opposition from unlikely allies. NJFF worked with the feminist group NOW (the National Organization for Women) as well The League of American Families and New Jersey Right to Life. Attorney Harold Cassidy was invaluable in the process as well. Many members of the legislature did pay attention to our combined voices. The bill passed both chambers with one vote to spare in each, making it virtually impossible to override the Governor’s veto.  The Governor stated in his absolute veto, “I am not satisfied that these questions have been sufficiently studied by the Legislature at this time. Validating contracts for the birth of children is a step that cannot be taken without the most serious inquiry, reflection, and consensus.”  We agree! “New Jersey Family Policy Council is not convinced that contractual law will ever answer the serious moral, ethical, and civil liberty concerns such proposed law brings,” stated Len Deo, founder and president.

We are grateful Governor Chris Christie saw through the nefarious rhetoric of the bill’s sponsors and supporters and vetoed this anti-family, anti-woman, anti-child piece of legislation.

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New Jersey Family Policy Council (1-800-FAMILY-1) is a non-profit, multi-issue organization, working to strengthen the family through informed citizenship and improved public policy. For more information regarding our Marriage, Citizen or Youth Builder Programs, please contact us at the above number.

As I reflect on the happenings of this week with regard to the institution of marriage, the assault on Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy, the outpouring of the pro-marriage community on Chick-fil-A appreciation day and the counter protest by GLAAD, I have a couple of thoughts.

When we talk about freedom of speech, or for that matter freedom of religious expression, those who talk the loudest about acceptance and so called “tolerance” often seem to be the most intolerant people. Intimidation and unbecoming tactics also come to mind, as ways to silence those who would dare speak a word that is not in agreement with their progressive agenda.

But, this past Wednesday, a different phenomenon took place as many Americans said enough is enough and literally stood in line for hours to support the Cathy family and their fast food chain, Chick-fil-A. As a leader of an organization dedicated to championing and defending life, marriage & family, and religious liberty, I had to take a few hours out of my day to pay a visit to the nearest Chick-fil-A restaurant.

What I experienced encouraged me. I met people who are tired of the assault on religious liberty and freedom of speech. I met some who said they never waited in long lines, but today was different and they needed to do something. No matter how you slice it, dice it, or cut it, our nation is a country built upon the Judeo-Christian ethic of religious freedom and respect for the family.

So I have a suggestion for companies and government officials:

If your company is publicly held, then stay out of the social issues and the ongoing debate about marriage in the culture. Your investors, your employees, and certainly your customers stand on both sides of the fence, and your business is primarily about serving those people.

If your company  is privately held, then speak your mind on any issue you see fit, on either side of the fence. After all, you have built your company and do not depend on public financing to undergird your operations.

For government officials whose positions have no bearing directly on the fate of marriage and other social issues, just do the job you were elected to do. To repeat Michael Bloomberg, controlling public cultural opinion is none of the government’s business.

It was Rabbi Daniel Lapin who said in his book America’s Real War, “One of the most profound truths about America as we approach the end of the twentieth century is that we are no longer one nation under God. We are really two separate nations with two distinct and incompatible moral visions. We are two nations occupying the same piece of real estate and engaged in a giant cultural tug-of-war for that real estate.” Therefore, we have all the more need for professionalism and civility as we fight together to work out these great questions that will decide our future. Otherwise we become lesser Americans.

May compassion, decency, and the founding principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness triumph—and may liberty defeat license!

- Len Deo

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 31, 2012
CONTACT: Len Deo (800) 653-7204

ATLANTA – Earlier this month, Chick-Fil-A CEO Dan Cathy told a private group that the Cathy family supports the definition of marriage offered in the Bible—the union of one man and one woman before God.

Predictably, activist sites called for a boycott, and various elites in the media and cultural establishments were quick to condemn. One commentator even went so far as to call the death of Chick-Fil-A’s public relations representative last weekend “ironic” in view of the company’s stance—a sentiment that would have ended the career of someone on the other side of the political spectrum. But the public response has been overwhelmingly positive. On Wednesday, July 25, Chick-Fil-A stores across the country were flooded with supportive customers in response to a campaign by the National Organization for Marriage. And former Governor Mike Huckabee has called for a National Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day this Wednesday, August 1, to continue the flood of support.

Sticking up for marriage is good business. Although companies who endorse redefining marriage are quick to gather media plaudits, J. C. Penney and Starbucks, who recently made such stands, have seen their stock prices drop (JCP) and customers go elsewhere (Starbucks). Chick-Fil-A, on the other hand, is watching customers form lines out the door.

The most disconcerting reaction to Chick-Fil-A’s stance has come from mayors, zoning boards, and an alderman of three of the United States’ largest cities. Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco all want the chicken chain hustled out of town because they don’t believe Chick-Fil-A is “sensitive” to homosexual interests. Never mind that Chick-Fil-A is committed to serving (and employing) every person without discrimination. Never mind that banning businesses because of private convictions is a blatant abuse of power. Never mind that America practices religious liberty.

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who supports redefining marriage, is to be commended for speaking out against the abusive behavior of his colleagues. On Wednesday, August 1, this week, we invite you to join us in thanking Chick-Fil-A by turning out to buy a chicken sandwich. To find the Chick-Fil-A store nearest you, visit www.chick-fil-a.com. “Eat Mor Chikin!”

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New Jersey Family Policy Council (1-800-FAMILY-1) is a non-profit, multi-issue organization, working to strengthen the family through informed citizenship and improved public policy. For more information regarding our Marriage, Citizen or Youth Builder Programs, please contact us at the above number.

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