Written by Reverend Irene Monroe, this article details the harmful history of LGBTQ+ conversion therapy, highlighting her personal survival of a church program where she met her partner. Despite overwhelming scientific consensus denouncing the practice as harmful pseudoscience, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Chiles v. Salazar has shielded conversion therapy under the First Amendment. This legal setback highlights the ongoing struggle to protect LGBTQ+ youth and affirm the sacred dignity of queer lives.
**THE DAILY CRUSADER**
*Special Edition — June 26, 2026*
### **THE SOUL-CURING RACKET UNMASKED!**
#### **How a Young Lady Escaped the "Jesus Heals" Asylum Only to Find True Love in the Cloister!**
#### *The High Court Backs the Clerical Charlatans—But the Truth Comes Out!*
**BY REVEREND IRENE MONROE**
*Special Correspondent to The Daily Crusader*
***
**NEW YORK CITY—** At the tender age of seven-and-twenty, this scribe found herself in a pretty pickle. Having just broken off my betrothal to a gentleman, I sought counsel from my minister. Instead of comfort, the reverend doctor insisted that my four years at Wellesley College—that grand Massachusetts seminary for young ladies—had filled my head with nothing but "sexuality confusion." He promptly ushered me into a mysterious program known as "Jesus Heals."
It was a modern-day purgatory. We were told we must remain in this confinement until we had "overcome" our unconventional affections. For four long months, alongside five-and-twenty other souls recruited from the five boroughs of this great Metropolis, I endured their spiritual third-degree. We were fed a grueling list of do’s and don’ts, lectured repeatedly with Saint Augustine’s old saw to “love the sinner, hate the sin,” and commanded to take our troubles to the altar.
But lo! Out of the ashes of this mental mill arose a splendid romance. I emerged from the program hand-in-hand with my first true love—none other than the lead female songstress from a sister congregation! The grand irony of the age? Today, both of us wear the clerical collar as ordained ministers of the Gospel!
***
### **THE QUACKERY OF THE SOUL-SHAPERS**
This all occurred decades ago, before this peculiar business of "conversion therapy"—a high-falutin term for trying to twist unorthodox hearts into the straight-and-narrow—was widely denounced as bunkum. I had hoped these snake-oil operations would be swept into the dustbin of history. But the racket continues, enjoying backing from the highest offices of our government, despite the high priests of science proving it to be nothing but harmful hokum.
Just this past March, the High Tribunal of the United States handed down a shocking decree in the case of *Chiles v. Salazar*. The Nine Wise Men ruled that a therapist’s speech is protected under the First Amendment. The plaintiff, one Kaley Chiles—an evangelical practitioner of the mental arts—had argued that Colorado’s ban on this soul-warping quackery violated her right to free speech when dealing with youngsters suffering from "gender identity confusion." In short, the High Court has given these spiritual bootleggers a legal license to operate!
The progressive pulpits of the nation were quick to roar their disapproval. Marianne Duddy-Burke, the leading lady of the pro-LGBTQ+ Catholic league *DignityUSA*, minced no words:
> *"In our fifty-seven years of ministry, we have seen hundreds who have undergone this torture,"* she cried. *"Every single soul described it as a dehumanizing, horrific business. It drove many to the demon rum, drugs, and even the self-destruction of suicide. It takes years to recover from their medicine!"*
***
### **THE ORIGINS OF THE BEWILDERMENT**
This hocus-pocus is hardly new. Modern "reparative therapy" is rooted in the "ex-gay" gospel-shouting movements of the 1980s and 1990s, when religious outfits and radio programs ballyhooed the stories of reformed souls who claimed to have "prayed the gay away."
But the alienists and brain-doctors wouldn’t buy the snake oil. In 1997, the American Psychological Association declared that unconventional love was a perfectly normal variation of the human experience. By the year 2000, they officially blacklisted the conversion racket.
Yet, the swindlers marched on. In the 2000s, their "treatments" grew downright medieval—ranging from talk sessions to downright torture, including electric shocks and potions to induce violent vomiting! In 2009, a grand task force of scientific minds concluded there was absolutely no evidence these chamber-of-horrors tactics could alter a person's natural desires.
To date, twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have outlawed this business for minors, and fifty-six out of every hundred citizens want it banned entirely. Yet, with the backing of the Trump Administration, the "Alliance Defending Freedom" legal eagles successfully argued for Kaley Chiles, keeping the back-alley soul-doctors in business.
***
### **THE SENSATIONAL CONFESSIONS!**
When it became clear that no amount of shouting could "pray the gay away," the fear-mongers lost their grip. The loudest horn-blowers of the movement began to confess their own humbug!
Consider the grand scandal of the *Exodus International* syndicate. In March 2011, its president, Alan Chambers—a married family man claiming to be cured himself—boasted of his sure-fire remedy for "prodigal children." But by 2013, Chambers issued a sensational *mea culpa*:
> *"We have been imprisoned in a worldview that is neither honoring to our fellow human beings nor biblical... I am sorry that I callously celebrated the end of relationships that broke your hearts."*
The grand *Exodus* enterprise shut its doors forever that very year.
Next came John Paulk, once the poster boy for the "ex-gay" crusade, who threw up his hands and recanted:
> *"I no longer support efforts to attempt to change individuals,"* Paulk wept. *"I feel great sorrow over the pain that has been caused."*
***
### **A SERMON FOR THE DOUBTERS**
When I take the pulpit at conservative tabernacles and universities today, I give the old-fashioned moralizers three hard truths to chew on:
* **First:** We who love differently are not children of a lesser God!
* **Second:** Unconventional souls can love the Lord just as fiercely as any straight-and-narrow citizen!
* **Third:** Our very survival is testimony that our lives are sacred, holy, and sanctified!
This conversion business does not honor the grand tapestry of the Almighty’s creation. It seeks to break us or erase us. It did not work on this scribe, and it will not work on the thousands of brave souls who stand tall today!
***
*The papers of the Reverend Irene Monroe—celebrated feminist public theologian and columnist—are preserved for posterity at the Schlesinger Library of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.*