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Israeli Education MinisterBacks Gay 'Conversion Therapy'

Reuters

   JERUSALEM --Israel's education ministervoiced support Saturday for
   so-called gay "conversiontherapy," drawing a disavowal from Prime
   Minister BenjaminNetanyahu, whose government's religious-rightist tilt
   hasworried liberals at home and backers abroad.

   Conversion therapy, an attempt to alter sexual orientationor gender
   identity through psychological, spiritual and, inextreme cases,
   physical means, has been widely discredited inthe West and condemned by
   professional health associations suchas the American Medical
   Association as potentially harmful.

   Rafael Peretz, an Orthodox rabbi and head of theultranationalist United
   Right party who assumed the educationportfolio in the Netanyahu-led
   coalition last month, said in atelevision interview he believed
   conversion therapy can work.

   "I have a very deep familiarity with the issue of education,and I have
   also done this," he told Israel's Channel 12 TV.

   'Let's think'

   Giving an example of a gay person he said he had tended to,Peretz said:
   "First of all, I embraced him. I said very warmthings to him. I told
   him, 'Let's think. Let's study. And let'scontemplate.' The objective
   isfirst of allfor him to knowhimself well ... and then he will decide."

   The remarks sparked furor in Israel's center-leftopposition, which
   ahead of a September election has sought tocast Netanyahu as enabling
   Orthodox indoctrination in a countrywhose majority Jews mostly identify
   as secular or of lessstringent religious observance.

   Israel's LGBT Task Force, an advocacy group, demanded Peretzbe fired,
   saying in astatement his views were "benighted."

   Shortly after the interview aired at the end of the JewishSabbath,
   Netanyahu said he spoke to Peretz for "clarification."

   "The education minister's remarks regarding the pridecommunity are
   unacceptable to me and do not reflect the positionof the government
   that I head," the premier said in a statement.

   Earlier furor

   It was the second flap Peretz had caused in less than aweek. Israeli
   media reported that he had told fellowCabinet members on Tuesday that
   the intermarriage of Jews andgentiles in the diaspora amounted to a
   "second Holocaust."

   The comparison stirred up anger among U.S. Jews, who aremostly
   non-Orthodox, and drew a rebuke from the Anti-DefamationLeague, which
   said such statements cheapened the Holocaust.

   Speaking to Channel 12, Peretz described himself as strivingto balance
   respect for others, no matter their sexualorientation, with his duties
   as a religious leader.

   "I honor everyone as people. I admit that I, personally -- Iam a rabbi
   of Israel. Our Torah tells us other things. But thatdoes not mean that
   I look about now and give them grades," hesaid.

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