Conversion Therapy Counseling Bans

What Conversion Therapy Counseling Bans Really Mean

on September 21, 2020

Civil rights doctrine has been very strong public policy since the mid-twentieth century. This writer has argued that few if any civil rights categories beyond race are reasonable. In particular, personal behavior cannot consistently be treated as free and equal without mandating anarchy. Yet sexual orientation and gender identity doctrine depends on identifying people with their behavior. This can only be done on the basis of sensibility, not liberty or equality.

But so has free speech doctrine been important. We have thus been in a paradoxical situation in which what can be taught (separation from sin) cannot be practiced. The next move in LGBT liberation is to attack this as well. Outside the United States, where there is no First Amendment, it can be done with hate speech laws. This is likely to apply to speech in public, not in private. But now even private speech is being attacked, with a strategy which may work in the United States as well.

The avenue of attack is provided by the war against voluntary counseling to overcome homosexual attraction and behavior. Once called “reparative therapy” by its supporters, it is referred to as “conversion therapy,” by its adversaries. It is outlawed in an increasing number of jurisdictions. Simply outlawing psychiatric efforts to change sexual orientation represents a grave threat to freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and to patients’ ability to seek the counseling they want. It also threatens parental rights to direct the education and socialization of their children. But the gravest threat is that “conversion therapy” will be legally defined as any expression of opposition to homosexuality or transgenderism. Thus even books, including the Bible, would be covered by the definition, as well as pastoral counseling, and the private discussions of parents with children.

And this seems to be happening. A major thrust in this direction in the United States occurred in 2018, with the proposal of California Assembly Bill 2943, which would have prohibited “sexual orientation change efforts” (SOCE) that involve the exchange of money. Any publicizing of such efforts by advertisement was to be banned. As the linked article in Catholic World Report notes, this prohibition was “reminiscent” of bans in Southern states before the Civil War of literature opposing slavery. This bill clearly covered the mere admonition that homosexuality is sinful, and prohibits not just counseling by licensed therapists, but by anyone, professional or not, who offers such admonition in anything which is sold. The bill stalled in the summer of 2018, due to widespread and vocal opposition, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s NIFLA decision, protecting the right of crisis pregnancy centers not to refer patients to abortion providers. The court specifically said that there is no “professional speech” which is unprotected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, making the obvious denial of free speech in AB 2943 unlikely to survive a legal challenge.

Earlier California had enacted a law prohibiting professional counseling of minors against homosexuality. This ultimately withstood legal challenge against an objection that it violates freedom of religion. Reasonably it also violates freedom of speech and parental rights.

As disastrous as AB 2493 was, a far worse denial, indeed a seemingly complete denial of freedom of religion and freedom of speech with respect to homosexuality and transgenderism, now looms in Canada. Here the threat is a bill in the Canadian Parliament, C-8, which prohibits any “conversion therapy” directed at minors, whether through a paid service or not. Violation of the law would be punishable by up to five years in prison. The leading proponent of this type of legislation at federal, provincial, and local levels is an LGBT activist, Kristopher Wells. He has made it clear that the legislation should be applied to religious schools, which would be barred from teaching Christian or other religious doctrine against homosexuality and transgenderism. But since the bill prohibits “conversion therapy” in general, it would reasonably be applied to parents as well.

As noted by LifeSiteNews.com, Wells’ analysis and recommendations to municipal governments in Canada, identify “conversion therapy” as

“any form of treatment, including individual talk therapy, behavioral or aversion therapy, group therapy treatments, spiritual prayer, exorcism, and/or medical or drug-induced treatments, which attempt to actively change someone’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”

This clearly involves religious activities, which should be protected by the free exercise of religion. The document really proposes that the government alter religious doctrine since it states:

“Conversion therapy practices are unethical and immoral because they imply that LGBTQ2 lives are less valuable, less desirable, and less worth living than heterosexual or cisgender persons. Ultimately, these practices believe that being an LGBTQ2 person is a disorder, sin, or disease that must be fixed, cured, healed, or repaired.”

This is a direct attack on religious doctrine, condemning it as immoral, wrongly identifies people with their behavior (a practical impossibility), and denies that homosexuality is a sin. Thus the state is to oppose religious doctrine. A religiously neutral state cannot do that. But in any case, morality does not proceed from the state. Common religious belief in this country holds the will of God to be the source of morality, while social conservatives propose natural law as a common ground for all reasonable persons.

Against this, Wells seems really to propose hurt feelings as the proper basis.  His recommendations explicitly refer to home and church as places where “conversion therapy” occurs, so by no means is this simply an attack on the propriety of licensed counselors to counsel against homosexuality, but anyone at all in any setting, especially from loved ones. The cited “Family Acceptance Project” of San Francisco State University (the name in itself a chilling attack on the integrity of families and parental authority) reports higher rates of attempted suicide by LGBT identifying young people where opposition to homosexuality or transgenderism was expressed in the home. This really amounts to the claim of a right not be offended, which no one should have, and people in general cannot have.  It is impossible to be believe that parents and churches do not commonly act from love and concern for the spiritual and physical well-being of those they counsel.

None of these efforts to protect children and young people from the dangers of LGBT life, and especially brothers and sisters in Christ and their children, will be legally possible if the absolute ban on the condemnation of homosexuality and transgenderism prevails. Wells claims a “global scientific consensus” against conversion therapy, citing numerous scientific associations that condemn conversion therapy as harmful (presumably referring to licensed therapeutic efforts). But these associations appear to act under enormous pressure from LGBT activists and their allies, so that one has to doubt the sincerity of these professional statements.

Paul Dirks, a Canadian clergyman who testified against the C-8 bill, notes the confusion surrounding what bans on “conversion therapy” actually mean, (i.e., what practices are forbidden), and the need of LGBT identifying individuals to explore the higher rates of trauma that they report. While people, and especially children and young people, need to be told of the dangers of homosexuality, noted in links above, transgenderism poses perhaps a more acute danger, since it can involve irreversible sexual mutilation of the body. But therapists, parents, and anyone would be legally forbidden to point out these dangers under draconian laws like C-8. But they are encouraged to prompt children to question their biological identity, an exception that C-8, like other bills and laws of this type, explicitly allow.

Sometimes people need to be told the hard truth. Dogmatically accepting a child’s self-declaration as homosexual or “transgender” effectively puts sweet for bitter and bitter for sweet. The Association for Reformed Political Action’s submission to the Canadian Parliament correctly urges that sex is biologically based, and “conversion therapy bans” really should refer to “sex change treatments,” not “body affirming therapy.” The former may result in permanent loss of fertility, body structure different from one’s peers, or simply different from what one wants later in life. One’s natural body parts cannot be had back, nor is it reasonable to think that one can have the normal body of one’s biological sex after having received puberty blocking drugs and opposite sex hormones at a crucial stage of sexual development.

Yet as the ARPA document notes, law in Nova Scotia already prohibits parents from engaging in “conversion therapy.” Thus they cannot say anything against their child’s professed homosexuality, or question a young child’s “gender identity.” The proposed national law, C-8, according to the Canadian Justice Minister David Lametti, would allow religious leaders and parents to engage in speech which is “open-ended and exploratory,” but it must not be aimed at a “predefined goal.” Yet that is exactly what Christian conversion, with respect to homosexuality or anything else covered by the moral law of the Bible, must be aimed at. Condemning homosexuality or transgenderism as sinful would thus seemingly be equated with illegal “conversion therapy.”

A similar bill introduced in the U.K. apparently covers adults as well as children and young people; its prohibition of all efforts “to suppress the expression of sexual orientation” would clearly prohibit religious, or any other, teaching against homosexuality. Thus any teaching that sexual activity should be reserved for the marriage of one man and one woman would be illegal. With a minority Liberal government in Canada, it is possible that C-8 will pass, while the British bill is reported not to have government support. But what is underway is an upping of the ante in the war against Christian morality, moving its rejection and suppression from areas that engage the public to the private world of churches, schools, and families. But here as well as in the public square, Christians have a duty, regardless of the law of the state, to speak the truth and only the truth to all, and raise their children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

  1. Comment by Palamas on September 21, 2020 at 2:44 pm

    Apparently Canada has repealed part of the Fundamental Freedoms section of its Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically the “freedom of conscience and religion” and ” freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.” RIP, Canada. It was a good run.

  2. Comment by Timothy on September 22, 2020 at 4:41 am

    Just last week a somewhat credible academic study found that undergoing various medical treatments to alter one’s gender had no impact on the patient’s depression, sadness, etc. This needs more independent, honest study, exploring scientific, biological and spiritual treatments. But alas, in the United States and elsewhere, independent honest study doesn’t exist.
    Even our once esteemed Center for Disease Control (CDC), NIH, and NAIAD health masters can’t, or refuse, provide honest information. Just last week Dr. Fauci admitted he took extra doses of vitamin C and Vitamin D to protect his immune system–eight months after the Covid crisis gripped the nation. Worse yet, independent doctors, scientists and nutritionists were scorned and censored for saying the same thing as Fauci.

  3. Comment by Timothy on September 22, 2020 at 4:53 am

    As a post script, I’m not against western medicine–it’s saved my life several times. If I caught Covid, I’d seek professional medical advice from one or more doctors for treatment. Some fundamental nutritional treatments are critical according to independent, highly credentialed researchers, but most US doctors are forbidden from speaking about it–the medical, pharmaceutical conglomerates will punish them and the state license board will threaten them in most cases.

  4. Comment by Brother Thom on September 22, 2020 at 1:34 pm

    Lots going on in this post and the comments so far. On homosexuality, I think it’s a far stretch to suggest sexual orientation is something that can be counseled away. The reports I’ve read and the research I’ve done indicate this isn’t something that ever goes away. Some men have learned to cope with their desires and keep them locked away, but they never go away.

  5. Comment by Rick Plasterer on September 24, 2020 at 10:51 am

    Brother Thom,

    I believe you miss the main point. It is not how effective reorientation therapy is (there are those who testify that it has been for them) but the freedom of counselors to provide their best service and that of patients to seek reorientation to their own sex. Worse yet is the prohibition against a counselor questioning a child’s belief that he or she is of the opposite sex, and the explicit provision that they may be encouraged to interrupt their physical sexual development at a crucial stage. It is impossible to believe that this is reversible, and as the article noted, natural sex organs that are removed cannot be restored.

    Rick

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