Looks like there’s some good news to opponents of the insane, idiotic, and psychologically damaging practice of gay “conversion” therapy coming out of Washington, D.C.
D.C. Council member Mary Cheh is working hard to ban mental health professionals from performing therapy on gay youth meant to “convert” them or “cure” them of their natural sexual orientation, reports Washington Blade.
The bill, which is called the “Conversion Therapy for Minors Prohibition Amendment Act of 2013,” is specifically designed to protect youth under the age of 18 from the practice of gay conversion therapy, which has been proven to cause depression and other mental health issues in those who are forced to endure it.
If passed, the bill will join similar efforts that have been successful in banning reparative therapy in states like California and New Jersey.
How about we take this to the next level?
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As much of a no-brainer as this seems, the recent lawsuit in New Jersey has brought into question the constitutionality of a ban on this kind of therapy, and there is a slight possibility that the outcome of that case could affect the passage of this bill in D.C. and possibly introduce similar claims in locations that make moves to pass similar bans.
Still, the bill is moving forward with a majority of Cheh’s fellow council members signing on as co-sponsors.
erasure25
Reparative therapy is a misnomer. Lets call it for what it truly is: destructive pseudo-therapy.
lickety splitz
There are no practitioners or organizations that advocate for reparative therapy that doesn’t stem from a religious anti-gay animus. None.
Derek Williams
@lickety splitz: True, and you can count Exodus, NARTH and Family Research Council among them.
I would love to challenge them to a televised open debate.
lickety splitz
@Derek Williams: I hope you can. These reckless and destructive ideas deserve public scrutiny. Yet the people who espouse them try to avoid exposure. For example, the Californians who led the passage of Prop 8 (Jim Garlow, Jennifer Roback Morse, and Miles McPherson were all served subpoenas to present their case before the federal court after each one spent months of fear-mongering in the public square. Yet all three declined to testify and had their attorney quash the subpoenas. That’s why there were only two people who testified in support of Prop 8 and one of them, David Blankenhorn, had since flipped and now supports marriage equality.