Payne also sets up a situation where she will be able to shift blame upon the homosexual person for a failure to change their orientation. She writes, “If sincerely desired and prayed for, the petition for pastoral answers will bring the Church's healing gifts to the fore."

For Payne, the ability to get what one prays for is framed as a matter of sincerity. If you don’t receive “the Church’s healing gifts,” it’s because you failed to “sincerely desire and pray for” them. This is a common tactic for conversion/reparative therapists: make the possibility of change a matter of commitment, so that any failures can be blamed on a lack of commitment.

For example, Jack Drescher said of the reparative therapist Joseph Nicolosi: “I’ve met a lot of people who’ve been through these treatments… and the setup is always that ‘if change is going to happen, you the patient are going to make it happen,’ which leads to patient-blaming when the treatment doesn’t work.” (Drescher had seen a number of Nicolosi’s former clients.) nytimes.com/2017/03/16/…

Reparative therapist Bob Schuchts does the same thing: substack.com/@chrisdami…

Interestingly, Leanne Payne references Rev. Bennett J Sims, Episcopal Bishop of Atlanta, for support of her claim. The Broken Image was published in 1995. But whatever support the younger Sims might have provided Payne, his views changed over time. By 2006, he was comfortable saying, "There's really nothing 'unnatural' about the same sex drive if that is a part of your makeup, your being.” blueridgenow.com/story/…

Sims even came to favor same-sex unions, arguing, “Fear only continued infidelity to the call of compassion and justice in Jesus Christ by straining the patience and long-suffering of our homosexual sisters and brothers.”