"Ex-Gay" Snake Oil Merchants Sue State of California

Making good on their threats to challenge California's new ban that bars charlatans' ability to peddle fraudulent "ex-gay" therapy to those under the age of 18 - a type of therapy which is condemned by virtually every legitimate medical and mental health association in the country - Liberty Counsel and Pacific Justice Institute have each filed lawsuits seeking to overturn the recently enacted SB1172.  A ready of the lawsuit filed by Pacific Justice Institute demonstrates that the real basis for the challenge is the Christofascist belief that their ignorance embracing hate and fear based religious beliefs should trump all else.  Related to this mindset is the belief that parents have some inalienable right to subject their LGBT children to what amounts to nothing less than a heinous form of child abuse.  It's a mindset akin to that of lunatic parents who withhold medical treatment to their children and ultimately murder them when their lives could have been easily saved by medical care.  All of these parents deserve to be criminally prosecuted for the wrongs done to their children.  NO ONE has the right to harm someone else based solely on archaic religious beliefs that science and medicine increasingly prove to be wrong.  Think Progress has two pieces that look at the Christofascists' attack against protecting children.  Here are highlights from the first Think Progress piece that looks at the Pacific Justice Institute lawsuit:

Following through on its promise to challenge California’s new ban on ex-gay therapy for minors, the Pacific Justice Institute has filed suit on behalf of a self-proclaimed “ex-gay” therapist-in-training, Aaron Bitzer, and two other therapists, Donald Welch and Anthony Duk, who provide reparative therapy. The suit is rife with spurious claims and meritless demands that essentially equate to whining about the law’s limitations, none of which comes close to meeting a Constitutional challenge. Here is a sampling from the complaint, aptly filed under “Plaintiffs’ Beliefs”:

Forced to discriminate?

If a minor’s objectives are to bring his or her sexual conduct and desires into conformity with the religious traditions, cultural norms, and moral standards of the minor, Dr. Duk can provide treatment so long as the minor is heterosexual. However, under the statute in question, a minor who has unwanted same sex behaviors or attractions cannot be treated with either counseling or prescription medications. [...] Dr. Duk is therefore required to discriminate against minor patients for no other reason than their sexual orientation.

The complaint refers to such conduct as “sexual behaviors, desires, and addictions such as pornography.” Under the law, there’s no reason that gay youth could not pursue therapy for the very same things so long as it’s not in the context of denying, repressing, or attempting to change their sexual orientation. These therapists are basically admitting that they would intentionally discriminate against any gay kid who still wanted affirmation for his or her orientation.

Violation of professional ethics?

The statute materially interferes with the plaintiff mental health professionals’ exercise of their independent professional judgment in providing treatment to minors who have unwanted same sex behaviors or attractions… This is in violation of these plaintiff mental health professionals’ obligations under the rules of professional ethics to provide treatment to persons regardless of their sexual orientation.

Providing ex-gay therapy is already a violation of their professional ethics, as all major professional psychotherapy organizations have condemned the practice as ineffective and harmful. That they seek to provide it nevertheless demonstrates that their “independent professional judgment” is severely compromised.

Violation of free speech?

The prohibitions of SB 1172 unlawfully create a new category of banned speech, namely “sexual orientation change efforts” directed at minors. This includes gay, lesbian, bisexual, and questioning youth. The state does not have any governmental interest sufficient to justify SB 1172’s sweeping prohibition of speech.

The law does not prevent anybody from practicing anti-gay speech; it simply prevents licensed professionals from false advertising — selling a medical treatment that has no scientific merit. Ex-gay therapy is comparable to blood-letting in terms of its medical efficacy.

There's more to the piece, but you get the drift.  The second Think Progress piece focuses more on the belief that parents should be allowed to do whatever they want to their children as long as their abuse and mistreatment is motivated by religious belief.   Here are key highlights:

While the Liberty Counsel suit makes many of the same empty claims about patients’ right to “choose” therapies that don’t work and therapists’ rights to freedom of speech and religion, it also paints a more vivid picture of why the law is necessary to protect children. Among the plaintiffs are two families getting ex-gay treatment for their sons, and the lawsuit claims that continuing this therapy is important, because only by denying their homosexuality can these boys repair their relationships with their parents.

In other words, if this kid doesn’t keep participating in this quackery to repress his orientation, his parents will go back to rejecting him. That’s exactly what happened to Ryan Kendall, a former patient of Nicolosi’s who testified against Proposition 8 and in favor of this new law:

KENDALL: As a young teen, the anti-gay practice of so-called conversion therapy destroyed my life and tore apart my family. In order to stop the therapy that misled my parents into believing that I could somehow be made straight, I was forced to run away from home, surrender myself to the local department of human services, and legally separate myself from my family. At the age of 16, I had lost everything. My family and my faith had rejected me, and the damaging messages of conversion therapy, coupled with this rejection, drove me to the brink of suicide.

These lawsuits, along with the support from the most influential anti-gay groups, demonstrate the harmful propaganda still widely promoted against the lives of people who are gay, lesbian, and bisexual.

Make no mistake about what's behind these lawsuits: (1) money, which these charlatans suck like parasites from delusional, self centered parents, (2) maintaining the myth that gays can "change" to further ant-hate groups' political agenda, and (3) psychotic Bible thumpers who would rather attack gays than deal with their own strain illness.