560: Michael Adam Ferguson, J Seth Anderson, and their fight against gay conversion therapy Part 2

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.5 • 5.7K Ratings

🗓️ 31 August 2015

⏱️ 96 minutes

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Summary

J Seth Anderson and Michael Adam Ferguson were catapulted into the public spotlight when they became the first same-sex couple to be legally married by the state of Utah. Seth and Michael both grew up in LDS homes, completed full-time missions for the Church, and throughout their twenties, undertook tortuous journeys to renegotiate their relationships with both the institution and with the faith of their childhoods.

Seth and Michael recently completed their graduate work at the University of Utah--Seth finishing his master's degree in social history focusing on the history of sexuality in the Western United States, and Michael defending his PhD dissertation in bioengineering in which he developed new analytical methods for monitoring brain activity using fMRI.

Since November 2012, Seth and Michael have been embroiled in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against a gay conversion therapy organization in New Jersey named JONAH: Jews Offering New Alternatives to Healing (formerly Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality), filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center. On June 25, 2015, a New Jersey jury unanimously found JONAH liable for multiple counts of consumer fraud and unconscionable business practices.

Seth and Michael are actively involved in education and advocacy on behalf of LGBT and queer individuals, including the project Team Truth--a grassroots campaign they are creating with advocates and allies to end the lies and harm of gay conversion therapy.

Transcript

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0:30.0	And maybe this is probably this maybe the most sensitive thing we talk about. I don't know.
0:49.0	But I think it's important to talk a little bit about, you know, I read through some of the transcript of the case.
0:55.0	It talked about some of the activities that would go on in the holding nights and the electrician group. Talk about some of that just as a way first to get a sense for what these groups.
1:10.0	Can we just watch it?
1:12.0	I'm trying to do. Is it time?
1:13.0	Yes, we're good leading.
1:14.0	Okay, all right. So we'll start with the video and then we'll then you can answer the question.
1:19.0	Okay, so this right here is a video expert excerpt from deposition of the trial.
1:29.0	And this is one of the counselors from the journey beyond program in his own words.
1:33.0	And this is why I think this is important. It's coming from someone who leads these programs as opposed to coming through the filter of this angry
1:42.0	activist.
1:43.0	Like, you know, but he's telling what goes on during the advanced retreat that's called journey beyond. So journey to manhood is kind of the first round recruiting an induction retreat.
1:56.0	And as a participant of journey to manhood, you don't know what happens on journey beyond. You just know that everybody has these like really intense secretive experiences on the weekend.
2:10.0	And so I mean it peaks your curiosity. And here for the first time, someone from the program is describing what happens on this on this retreat in the woods.
2:24.0	There's a process that's like a rebirth thing where you are kind of born and you experience being kind of held and sort of like a nursery and feeling kind of that warmth, nurturing environment.
2:37.0	Is the subject naked when he is reborn?
2:40.0	Yes. Is there a baby powder or a fortify?
	...

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