Pastor Develops Strange, Ambiguous ‘Horse Therapy’ To Cure Homosexuality
“Gay cure therapy” is a highly controversial topic that often pops up most in religious circles. One Virginia church has their own unique way of “curing” homosexual urges, though it seems to have a bit more in common with Equus than Jesus.
The Cowboy Church of Virginia, led by chief pastor Raymond Bell, practices something called “Equine Assisted Psychotherapy,” which they say can cure many ills and addictions, including homosexuality.
The details of the practice aren’t incredibly clear, even on the church’s page explaining the therapy. It kind of seems like this “horse psychotherapy” assumes that interacting with horses will cause gay men to abandon their stereotypically feminine interests in favor of cool masculine things that typify the iconic American hero: The cowboy.
No word on whether or not the folks at the Cowboy Church of Virginia have ever even heard of the film Brokeback Mountain.
GayStarNews reached out to Raymond Bell to get more clarity on the practice. He told them:
“EAP can help any person who is living the homosexual lifestyle or involved in it in anyway. The first common misconception is that homosexuality is genetic, or hereditary, or as some say ‘born this way.’ Homosexuality is actually a type of addiction. It is not ‘curable’ as a disease because it is a ‘choice driven’ by the person.”
Thanks to the ambiguity of “Equine Assisted Psychotherapy,” some outlets reporting on the subject are taking expected liberties with this story. Wonkette deadpans that EAP “requires the work of licensed professional heterosexual romance therapy horses, and the men of God who offer them up for gay men to jerk them off or whatever, I don’t understand how Jesus therapy works.”
Neither do we.
What do you think of controversial gay cure therapies?
