sex marriage. He was also thanked by the DLP member of Victoria's Legislative Council, Rachel Carling-Jenkins during her maiden speech. Views on homosexuality Cowen is an open and vocal opponent of homosexuality, and more broadly campaigned against same sex marriage. The foundation premise of his book, Homosexuality, Marriage and Society, is that homosexuality has diverse causes (temperamental, psychological and cultural) extraneous to the essential person, the soul or conscience. Conscience is free to engage in a struggle with bodily impulse. He critiqued the move of the Victorian Government to appoint a Health Commissioner whose proposed job would, among other things, was intended to uproot “conversion therapy”. He called this ban an attack on patient autonomy, for those who wanted to enter such a program. Even though almost all psychiatrists and psychiatric organisations oppose conversion therapy as dangerous and potentially harmful to the life of the individual, Cowen has cited the report of the American Psychological Association on “Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation” (2009) that “There are no rigorously scientific sides of recent SOCE [Sexual Orientation change Efforts] that would enable us to make a definitive statement about whether recent SOCE is safe or harmful and for whom.” He also quotes a former President of the APA, Nicholas A. Cummings in 2013 testifying to significant successful outcomes of conversion therapy. Cowen does not have psychiatric qualifications. In 2010 the Victorian government established the Safe Schools Coalition, which was to be adopted nationally with the goals to reduce bullying of among others, non-heterosexual children. In 2012, Cowen opposed the “Safe Schools” program, as manipulating early childhood development against its ordinary, natural and moral norms, and that it would harm the normal sexual development of children. The publication of his views on this question brought on moves to have him removed from his appointment at Monash University and resulted in a public statement of the University dissociating itself from Cowen's views. After Cowen protested this as an abridgment of academic freedom, the University confirmed and promoted his appointment to that of a Senior Honorary Associate of the University. The university publicly distanced themselves from Cowen's statements In 2015 Cowen disseminated his opposition to same-sex marriage, also via his Monash University email account. The University, this time under a new Vice-Chancellor, who had placed the entire University behind same-sex marriage in the public debate, revoked Cowen's appointment claiming inappropriate of university email. On