Amazon Stopped Selling Books Promoting Conversion Therapy, And Some People Are Mad

Just days after closing the book on its latest Prime Day, Amazonis hoping to write a new chapter of success on Thursday. Investors will learn, following the closing bell, second-quarter earnings for the mega e-commerce retailer and online bookseller. But there's one kind of book you won't find at amazon.com: anything by the late Dr. Joseph Nicolosi promoting what's called "ex-gay" or "conversion" therapy, and some religious conservatives are none too pleased.

Earlier this month, Amazon pulled titles by Nicolosi, described by ChurchMilitant.com as "a devout Catholic and licensed clinical psychologist and academic, who rejected the fatalism of the premise that people are 'born gay' and have no choice."

Vice News reports a cadre of Republicans serving in the House of Representatives is applying pressure to Amazon to resume sales of the controversial books, which offer advice and insight into a highly questionable therapeutic practice that is banned in 18 states,Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. Practitioners believe they can cure LGBTQ youth of being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. It remains legal in 32 states.

As far back as 2009, the American Psychological Associationformed a task force on this subject which found " there is insufficient evidence that SOCE [sexual orientation change efforts] are efficacious for changing sexual orientation."

Credit, or blame depending on one's perspective, for pressuring Amazon to remove the books has been heaped upon two men, both LGBTQ activists  — Rojo Alan in the U.K., who said he experienced conversion therapy as a child, and activist Sky Gray, who identifies as pansexual and transgender. Gray told me he hoped their efforts educated supporters of conversion therapy about its dangers.

"The biggest thing they don't understand is how harmful it is to the victim's mindset," Gray said. "They're being told that their entire identity is wrong, that they shouldn't be comfortable with who they are. Sometimes, even physical pain is involved. Many conversion therapy victims are driven to suicide because they're convinced their very existence is wrong. Conversion therapy is abuse, just disguised as something else."

When I told Alan about the efforts by Republican members of the U.S. Congress to pressure Amazon to reverse its decision, he wasn't shocked. 

"As soon as the books were removed from Amazon and word was getting out, I knew there would be some form of backlash," Alan told me. "If anything I see their actions and response as fear. They can see we're not weak, we're not silent and we won't go down without a fight. If they weren't scared of us, they wouldn't be doing any of this."

Gray's petition on Change.org  — something he confessed he'd never done before — drew more than 82K signatures and is still going strong, with his new mission of getting Amazon to change its official policy and not sell any conversion therapy books.

"We need clear rules to keep this from happening again," Gray told me. "We spoke up, and they acted, which I do appreciate, but it isn't enough. It's a big victory, yes! And I'm proud of what we've done! But without rules against it, people can take advantage of loopholes. More can go up, and we can easily be fighting the same battle all over again."

And it appears he will be doing just that. Even though Nicolosi's books are gone, Amazon still lists at least two books promoting conversion therapy: Achieving Heterosexualityand The War on Psychotherapy: When Sexual Politics, Gender Ideology, and Mental Health Collide.

"I was afraid of this," said Gray, when I informed him of these books being sold on amazon.com. "I had heard some House members were trying to get them to sell them again, but I hoped we wouldn't have to deal with it for a little more time. Looks like we're getting pushed right back to where we started."

Alan said he believes those who hope to convince Amazon to sell conversion therapy books have a greater, more sinister goal in mind: "They're actively trying to erase our very existence as LGBT+ people."

Glenn T. Stanton, the director of family formation studies at the anti-LGBTQ group Focus on the Family, writing in The Federalist, sees this very differently. "The gay community, a supposedly oppressed and marginalized group, wields an extravagant amount of power today, and does so without regard for the rights of anyone who chooses to not support them."

"Now the pitchfork and torch-wielding witch-hunt has come for our freedom to obtain and read books others believe are offensive," Stanton wrote. "How long until the most widely read book in the world is banned because it takes a dim view of homosexuality?"

While Amazon still sells enough Bibles to fill an ark, and biblical scholars deny that the scriptures condemn gays, his other point was to condemn Amazon as "the anti-government, white supremacist’s reliable, go-to bookseller."

"According to Amazon and its petitioners in the gay movement, apparently, there is no one more sinister and dangerous than Nicolosi and his peers," Stanton wrote. "According to their platform publishing decisions, he is literally worse than Adolf Hitler." He listed several books by Hitler, his Nazi henchmen and other tomes of evil, available on Amazon.

A spokesperson for Amazon, speaking to me on background, confirmed several conversion therapy titles are no longer available on its website, but defended its continued sale of other conversion therapy books, as well as books like “Mein Kampf.” The Amazon spokesperson directed me to this explanation online: "As a bookseller, we provide our customers with access to a variety of viewpoints, including books that some customers may find objectionable. That said, we reserve the right not to sell certain content, such as pornography or other inappropriate content."

How can Amazon ban Nicolosi's books, but not call those by Hitler "inappropriate?" Its guidelines allow them to be sold as "historical," according to this explanation: "Amazon reserves the right to make a determination on the historical value of the item."

For Alan and Gray, Amazon is not the issue. It's the rights of LGBTQ people all around the world.

"Most importantly, we've opened up a conversation to a bigger issue, that is conversion therapy is still legal in many places," Alan said. "The real goal is to make it illegal, [and] getting rid of these books is a step in the right direction for that though. At the end of the day, our existence is more important than a book."

And this battle takes its toll. "I'm tired of constantly having to fight for basic rights," Gray told me. But as a first-time Change.org petitioner, he feels emboldened. "I had underestimated its power, really; this is a very good sign for how effective it is as a platform."

That may be why a group at odds with Gray and Alan's cause have turned to Change.org as well: "Voice of the Voiceless"  call themselves "former homosexuals" and their families, and have found just shy of 17K supporters for their petition to "Reverse Amazon's decision to censor alternative views on Homosexuality."

Source: Forbes.com

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