New Jersey Holds Hearings on Law to Ban "Ex-gay" Therapy

California's law banning "ex-gay" therapy or so-called reparative therapy for those under age 18 remains tied up in the federal courts.  Nonetheless, the New Jersey legislature is proceeding with consideration of its own version of legislation that would protect LGBT minors from fraudulent "ex-gay" therapy which is typically bankrolled by anti-gay hate groups and staffed by "ex-gays for pay," most of whom blame their own past bad decisions on alcohol and drug use and sometimes prostitution on their sexual orientation rather than the religious brainwashing that filled them with self-loathing.  As part of the process, the  New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee has been holding hears.  One witness in support of the bill was Parsippany teen Jacob Rudolph whose coming out speech to his high school went viral on You Tube.  The Daily Record looks at the hearings.  Here are article highlights and excerpts of Rudolph's poignant comments:

Rudolph spoke Monday before the New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee in Trenton in support of the bill, S2278, which would ban licensed therapists from trying to make gay New Jersey minors heterosexual.

Most LGBT individuals that spoke did not have the loving support from their parents that Rudolph does. Some were personally subjected to various forms of conversion therapy that the bill is trying to prevent, including electroshock treatment, in an attempt to “cure” them.


“It is beyond baffling to me that anyone might actually believe that sexual orientation is a lifestyle choice that can be altered if desired,” said Rudolph to the Senate committee. “Even more disturbing, however, is that there are organizations whose sole mission is to ‘cure’ LGBT individuals of their orientation to truculent practices that have been deemed harmful and ineffective by the American Psychological Association.”

“What disturbs me the most is that our government would allow orientation-conversion organizations to subject children to such so-called therapy. It is hard enough for LGBT teens to accept that their sexual orientation differentiates them from their classmates. Consequentially, I cannot fathom how emotionally scarring it must be for these kids to be told they are somehow broken and are then manipulated to reject their innate sexual preference and ‘become’ heterosexual again. What strikes me as the most cruel facet of this practice is that these young people cannot defend themselves from being subjected to this harmful practice.”

After hearing testimony from more than two dozen people both supporting and opposing the bill, the Senate voted 7 to 1, with two abstaining, to move the bill to the Senate floor for a vote, making it a step closer to getting it to Christie’s desk. The bill will be brought to the Assembly in April, where Rudolph will either speak again or submit a statement.

New Jersey lawmakers heard other stories about the programs, including from Brielle Goldani of Toms River.  She said that in 1997, at 14, she was sent to a camp in Ohio to become straight.
Goldani told lawmakers she was given electric shocks and drugs to induce vomiting as part of the treatment.  “This is nothing more than legalized child abuse,” said Goldani, of Toms River.

Lawmakers heard of suicides of young people who had been in such programs and that many associations of professional therapists say they are not valid ways to help lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth.

“These practices are based on the false idea that being LGBTQ is a mental illness that needs to be cured,” said Alison Gill, a lobbyist for The Trevor Project, which provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention to young gays, “an idea which has been rejected by every major mental health group for decades.”

These bogus forms of therapy need to be banned nationwide - for both minors and adults.  Rather than being "treated" to change their sexual orientation, LGBT individuals need to receive counseling on how to let go of and move past the religious based poison that so many of us were subjected to growing up no matter how well meaning our parents.