Wednesday, January 9, 2013

The other side of why conversion therapy should be banned for minors -- when the kids want it and the parents don’t.

The ex-gay meme alive and infectious in Australia.

But we begin with the latest on the subject matter in California.
LA Times: Brown appeals injunction against gay-conversion law
January 2, 2013 | 3:06pm

Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday appealed a court injunction that has blocked enforcement of a new law [SB 1172] that prohibits providing gay minors with therapy aimed at converting them to being heterosexual.

The notice of appeal was filed on behalf of Brown and the Medical Board of California by state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which decided Dec. 21 to block the law that took effect Jan. 1 pending a decision on its constitutionality.

A small group of therapists and religious groups argued that the law infringes on their rights to free speech, but Harris has called conversion therapy “unsound and harmful.” [emphasis added]
The first Amendment argument could also be made in regard to driving, alcohol, cigarettes and a host of other minor-related regulatory laws.

The “free speech” that these therapists and religious groups argue for almost cost these parents the life of their son.

From Australia’s The Project news org.

Partial transcript:

Ben Gresham: Growing up I’d always been told that homosexuality is wrong. That if you are gay or lesbian that you can’t be part of the Church, you don’t get into heaven and that it’s a sin. … I would pray every night that God would take my attraction to other men away from me.

Narrator: But praying didn’t work. At just 16, he turned to a church leader for guidance. … The church helped Ben enroll in an online conversion program, aimed at turning him straight.

Phyllis Gresham [sitting with husband, Michael]: We had no idea, honestly, that Ben was going through the ex-gay program. He went to church meetings, we thought they were just church meetings. We do feel angry that the church did not notify us. Certainly if we had known what was happening we would have stopped him from doing them.

Narrator: Ben tried three conversion programs in three years, all failed. At 19, he tried to take his own life.

Ben: Because, for me, I couldn’t imagine a life without God. I couldn’t imagine a life without my faith, without my church, without my family, and that’s what I thought would happen.

Phyllis Gresham: It’s taken me a long time to forgive myself that I didn’t know what was happening.

Michael Gresham: Yeah.
---
Ben, like many gay kids, got the message that the state of being homosexual is sinful, and thus, are in an unwitting perpetual state of unrepentantce.

The anti-gay-ex-gay solution is a denial of homosexuality as a state of being for the promise of a virtually non-existent hope of becoming heterosexual.

Either look forward to hell, or look forward to a life of hell.
~~~
therapists and religious groups argued that the law [banning underage conversion “therapy”] infringes on their rights to free speech
And in doing so, they also argue that they should have the right to indoctrinate minors into the anti-gay-ex-gay lifestyle without the knowledge or consent of their parents.

A precise and additional reason why ex-gay therapy should be X rated.

(Thanks to Flourish&Bloggs for inspiring this post.)

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