US: Newsweek’s new co-owner believes in ‘gay cure’ therapies
The new co-owner of iconic magazine Newsweek believes in ‘gay cure’ therapies, it has emerged.
Johnathan Davis, who helped re-launch the Newsweek magazine this month, last year described an article in favour of gay cure therapies as “shockingly accurate” on Facebook.
According to the Guardian, he commented that the argument in favour of gay cure therapies “cuts like a hot knife through a buttery block of lies”.
The article, by ex-gay activist Christopher Doyle, claimed “there is a good chance a person will experience SSA [same-sex attraction] if they experienced “early sexual initiation and/or sexual abuse” as a child, and that “activists in the psychological and counselling communities” conspire to silence researchers with proof that being gay can be cured.
When asked by the Guardian whether he believed in gay cures, Davis said: “Whether I do or not, I’m not sure how that has any bearing on my capacity here as the founder of the company. I’m not sure how it’s relevant. People believe all sorts of weird things. But from a professional capacity, it’s unrelated.”
He later removed the post from his Facebook page.
Newsweek ceased producing print copies in 2012 and merged with the Daily Beast website, before last year being split from the website and acquired by IBT Media, which is co-owned by Davis and Etienne Uzac.
The print magazine was relaunched this month, and Davis says he wants “the journalism to speak for itself”.
