Source: Guardian
A Spanish clergyman is to be investigated after complaints that he is holding seminars which aim to "rehabilitate homosexuals". Protestant minister Marcos Zapata, head of an organisation running youth centres for troubled children in Galicia, prompted the row after reports surfaced of a recent seminar he led entitled "How to Raise Heterosexual Children".

According to a journalist who attended the seminar, Zapata likened homosexuality to alcoholism and called it an illness, but said healing was possible through family therapy. In his family, he said, he reinforces masculine roles by watching professional wrestling with his two sons. Zapata also advised the audience to "hug your sons as much as you can, because if you don't, perhaps another man will".

Yesterday the Galician regional government said it would investigate Zapata to make sure the youth centres his organisation runs do not employ "any type of proselytising or homophobic attitudes" when dealing with minors.

Spain's gay and lesbian groups are planning legal action.

"After so many legal victories in this country, and for the first time people are talking openly about homosexuality in schools, we have to deal with fundamentalist groups which take us back to the Franco dictatorship," said Toni Poveda, the president of the National Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals. "And of course we are going to try to stop this from happening. Sexual orientation is innate and there's no way to change it."

Full article: Priest sued over seminar 'curing' homosexuality | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited