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.)

Alan Chambers on preventing gay suicide: They're not told it's a choice.

Alan Chambers on Chris Fabry Live

May 16, 2008

Plenty to pick from with this interview, but this tail end below begins @ the 25:40 mark:

Chris Fabry: We had another email that talked about, especially teenagers, and how many teenagers are caught in this emotional trauma, and how many take their own lives because of the homosexual issue. You were a teenager caught in that too weren’t you?

Alan Chambers: I was a teenager, you know the bulk of my struggle was during my teenage years, from about 11 to 21 or so, and I understand feeling like the only way out is you kill yourself. In fact one of the things that made me want to die -- was when I heard, there is no way out of this, this is your only option, there is no other choice, in fact there is no choice - you are who you are and that won’t ever change. And I thought, that can’t be the truth, and if it is, I can’t live this way. But the amazing thing was, and the thing that changed my life, wasn’t that I was told change was possible, the thing that changed my life was God said I love you no matter what, and I’m going to help you out of this, and that makes all the difference in the world. And I think that’s our job as Christians, the ‘Jesus with skin on,’ is to help people feel like they have an option. That God loves them no matter what, and that He absolutely has a plan and a way for us to deal with these very complex issues.

Chris Fabry: Alan Chambers is president of Exodus International, it is the largest evangelical organization dealing with this topic in the world today. He has written a book called “God’s Grace and the Homosexual Next Door.” And Alan I thank you for coming on with us today, it’s been very helpful.

Alan Chambers: My pleasure Chris, thank you.

Obviously if preventing suicide means that telling gay teens that their own human-sexuality is 100% choice, then clearly teaching them that they are the equivalent of pedophiles will help to prevent even more suicides:

Exodus International: Is there a connection between homosexuality and predatory behavior, like pedophilia?

If they don't respond to that, make sure to tell them that they are responsible for the Holocaust:

Homosexuality and the Nazi Party

Any remaining gay-teen suicides should easily prevented by the wisdom in his book: "God's Grace and the Homosexual Next Door."

Which, tucked waaaay at the back on page 218 we find:

Alan Chambers: "This is why I believe that it is so important to clarify that just living a celibate gay life is just as sinful as living a sexually promiscuous one. The sin is in identifying with anything that is contrary to Christ, which homosexuality clearly is."

Thus, according to the Christian morality of Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, the reason gay teens commit suicide, is because no one is offering them "the option" of a lifetime of perpetual lonliness and shame.