AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Jean Edwards
The head rabbi of Melbourne’s Yeshivah Centre has told the royal commission into child sexual abuse he believes a gay person can be “cured” by therapy, like a paedophile.
Rabbi Zvi Telsner told the commission he believed there was a possibility paedophiles could be cured by counselling and spiritual guidance.
When asked if therapy could do the same for someone who is gay, he replied: “I would say the same thing can happen to someone who is gay, I would suspect. There is a possibility, I’m not discounting that”.
Rabbi Telsner said therapy could help paedophiles change their behaviour.
“There’s a certain belief that if someone for example after 20 or 25 years has not committed any offences, and all of this time has gone to therapy, there would be a good possibility that person may have been able to change his way of life,” he said.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.