Milo Yiannopoulos to open conversion therapy facility in Florida
Right-wing cultural critic Milo Yiannopoulos came out last week as “ex-gay” — and is now preparing to open a controversial conversion therapy facility in Florida, The Post has learned.
In an interview with The Post, the former Breitbart News editor revealed his plans to launch the “reparative therapy” clinic “to help other people go through the same journey that I’m on myself,” despite the lack of data showing effectiveness of the exercise.
Asked in what sense he is “ex-gay,” Yiannopoulos told The Post that he is in an ongoing process of trying to reorient his homosexuality, but for now is in a stage of abstinence and enjoys using the term to troll his critics.
“‘Ex-gay’ is a silly expression but it has the virtues of slotting into a print headline neatly and absolutely enraging the opposition. Celibacy is a modest and achievable middle term goal; naturally, in the end, my aspiration would be to take it all the way,” he said.
Describing what he called a “Christian renaissance” occurring in the US, Yiannopoulos said
fundraising for the effort was taking off considerably, citing a backlash against establishment LGBTQ political activism.
“
This has been the easiest thing to raise money for that I’ve ever done. There is an enormous demand for this among people who believe they’ve been led astray by — it sounds silly to call it this — but you know, the gay establishment,” Yiannopoulos said.
“I think part of that is the resurgence of religious, socially conservative, kind of reactionary politics among noisy young conservatives,” he explained, adding that he has “people who are kind of like DMing me now” to ask “‘where do I send the f–king check?’ You know, like, get me in your program.”
Asked about concerns over the potential harm to gay youth, Yiannopoulos dismissed those fears as merely the product of the practice having a bad rap.
“Basically, people who don’t believe in it call it ‘conversion therapy,’ and people who do believe in it call it ‘reparative therapy,'” he began.
Arguing that “the gay lobby” was “so poisonous and wicked and evil,” Yiannopoulos said that he is not convinced by data touted by the interest group or its allies, which undermines conversion therapy.
“For those people to suggest that reparative therapy is somehow damaging to people’s self esteem, is so laughably preposterous, I don’t take it seriously,” ...