Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wants to be the arbiter of acceptable thought. At least, that’s the warning cry after Amazon’s recent decision to ban the sale of several controversial books about conversion therapy.
This includes books by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, a practitioner of conversion therapy and famous figure in the “ex-gay” movement. His titles, including works such as Healing Homosexuality and Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality, are still available through their publisher. Amazon’s decision also affects several books by people who say they have recovered from homosexuality and no longer consider themselves gay.
The Christian website LifeSiteNews called Amazon’s decision to stop selling these books on their platform a “disturbing move” and referred to so-called stories of “gay transformation” as “wonderful.” Meanwhile, some conservative news outlets such as the Daily Wire sounded the alarm with their coverage as well.
The reasoning behind this reaction is, at its core, understandable. After all, we should all be wary of Big Tech overlords deciding who gets a platform on the internet, or silencing voices for committing wrongthink. But this case is complicated, and offers an exception. Amazon and Bezos have every right, and are morally correct, to halt the spread of harmful pseudoscience on their private platform.
It’s important to understand that what Nicolosi and his cohorts are advancing in their work is not simply the traditional Christian teaching that homosexual activity is immoral. Obviously, while I may disagree, that idea should not be banned from literary debate or Amazon’s platforms. Instead, Nicolosi’s books push the objectively false notion that you can become heterosexual, “cure” the gay away.
So-called gay conversion therapy is medical fraud. It doesn’t work, as homosexuality is inherent and cannot be changed. Both scientific research and the personal experiences of millions of gay people like myself confirm this.
When researchers at Cornell University examined 47 different peer-reviewed studies into the efficacy of gay conversion therapy, 46 found no evidence that it works. Only 1 of the 47 found any indication that it might be successful, and that was only for a fraction of participants, with even those results called into question by subpar methodology. Meanwhile, many of the other studies found not just ineffectiveness, but real physiological and emotional harm caused by the practice as well.
Additionally, the American Psychiatric Association says, “No credible evidence exists that any mental health intervention can reliably and safely change sexual orientation; nor, from a mental health perspective does sexual orientation need to be changed.”
All conversion therapy really does is teach people to hate themselves for something they cannot change. In some instances, this pushes gay people toward suicide. According to The Trevor Project, gay, lesbian, and transgender youth put through conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to attempt suicide as those who were not subjected to the practice.
Amazon has every right to refuse to associate itself with this harmful pseudoscience, and refuse to facilitate the promotion of discredited ideas. Essentially, this is hardly different, from a scientific perspective, from Amazon’s separate decision to stop offering conspiratorial “anti-vax” movies.
Even social conservatives who are morally opposed to homosexual activity or ignore the evidence and continue to support conversion therapy must acknowledge that Amazon has this fundamental right to freedom of conscience. After all, this is not that different than the right (which I have defended) of a Christian baker to decline to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding.
If Jack Phillips has conscience rights, so too does Jeff Bezos.
Here’s an important distinction: No matter how debunked or harmful I believe conversion therapy to be, I would never support a government ban on Nicolosi’s books or similar works. Amazon’s decision is not a government act. Sellers and readers alike are free to traffic in these books, which are available elsewhere, they are simply not permitted to use Amazon’s platform to do so.
Surely Christians and conservatives can acknowledge that any bookseller is entitled to some degree of discretion in what they choose to sell. After all, no one could credibly suggest that a Christian book store owner ought to be required to sell a book by a left-wing LGBT activist promoting child drag as an acceptable form of art, or something of the like.
If social conservatives want such rights for themselves, they must extend them to those who disagree even on fundamental issues. And discredited pseudoscience is simply not the cultural hill to die on.
