A Minnesota-based ex-gay ministry will be hosting reparative therapy advocate Joseph Nicolosi for a talk titled, “Preventing Homosexuality in Children” just weeks after a bill to ban “ex-gay” therapy efforts for minors failed at the Minnesota Legislature.

Outpost Ministries, one of Minnesota last remaining “ex-gay” groups, has invited Joseph Nicolosi for its “Outpost Educates” event at Northbrook Alliance Church in Brooklyn Center.

According to the invite, “Dr. Nicolosi is a founding member — and former President — of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, a 1,000 member professional association founded in 1992 (www.NARTH.com). NARTH’s goals are (1) To Support mental health professionals who work with same-sex attracted clients seeking change, and (2) To promote respect within the mental health profession for world-view diversity — whether a person seeks to identify as gay, or to work toward developing his heterosexual potential.”

The event is on Friday, May 2 at 7pm. The talk comes as Minnesota lawmakers have proposed a bill that would ban such therapies for minors. They cite the harms caused by such therapies and, in the bill, licensed professionals who attempt “reparative therapy” on minors would lose their licenses to practice.

Nicolosi is perhaps the best known of the “reparative therapists” who try to use therapy to change someone’s sexual orientation, almost exclusively from gay to straight. Though Nicolosi maintains that it’s not a “pray-away-the-gay” technique, his clinic is named the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic, named after the very influential Catholic philospher.

His statements to the media bear this out as a lengthy profile by Truth Wins Out detailed several years ago:

“We, as citizens, need to articulate God’s intent for human sexuality,” Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, President of NARTH, said in CNN’ 360 Degrees with Anderson Cooper, April 14, 2007. At the Feb. 10, 2007 Love Won Out conference in Phoenix, the “secular” therapist told the audience, “When we live our God-given integrity and our human dignity, there is no space for sex with a guy.”

Dr. Nicolosi has said in his first book, “Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality that, “I do not believe that any man can ever be truly at peace in living out a homosexual orientation.”

“The parents bring me kids who are unhappy. It’s my job to increase the possibility of a heterosexual future for these effeminate boys,” NARTH’ Dr. Joseph Nicolosi told the Advocate Magazine in a Nov. 11, 1997 interview.

NARTH also has bizarre theories, such as encouraging male clients who drink Gatorade and call their friends “dude,” because this will supposedly make them more masculine. Dr. Nicolosi also espouses the bizarre idea that, “Non-homosexual men who experience defeat and failure may also experience homosexual fantasies or dreams.”

Indeed, the group hosting Nicolosi, Outpost Ministries, bases its work on “healing and restoration through relationship with Jesus Christ.”

Noted English actor and comedian, Stephen Fry, recently visited Nicolosi’s clinic in California: