In 1999, Arthur Goldberg founded JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Healing), a Jewish gay conversion therapy organization based in New Jersey. In 2012, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit against JONAH for fraudulent practices, arguing that describing homosexuality as a curable illness constitutes a “misrepresentation” in violation of the state’s consumer protection statute. The jury was convinced of SPLC’s argument that reparative therapy doesn’t work (validated by countless medical and psychiatric associations), and voted unanimously to convict JONAH under the Consumer Fraud Act of New Jersey in 2015, striking a major blow to the ex-gay therapy movement.
Nonetheless, Goldberg remains active in his anti-LGBTQI campaigning. He is the founder of Funding Morality, an online crowd-sourcing platform for “persons of faith who would not compromise their moral and biblical convictions and in turn have been persecuted by those who are intolerant of a Judeo-Christian worldview.” One of the website’s featured projects is The Center for Compassion, Rehabilitation and Development, a program based in Kenya that promotes ex-gay therapy for boys and young men. The center operates under the leadership of Bishop Joseph Mutungi of the Anglican Church of Kenya.
