Today was another bad day for the charlatans and Christofascists who market the snake oil known as "reparative therapy." Why? Because today the California General Assembly’s Committee on Business, Professions And Consumer Protection voted 5-2 to endorse S.B. 1172, a bill to protect LGBT persons from harmful, fraudulent therapy. Would that every state would follow California's lead and end these bogus "ministries" that prey on the ignorant and desperate and enrich themselves and their "professional ex-gays" who frankly make tawdry whores look virtuous in comparison. Some of the testimony before the Committee was from those who had been forced into reparative therapy against their will by their parents. Here are highlights from the New Civil Rights Movement:
California General Assembly’s Committee on Business, Professions And Consumer Protection voted 5-2 to endorse S.B. 1172, a bill to protect LGBT persons from the harmful “treatment.” The measure now heads to the full Assembly.
Senate Bill 1172 would prohibit a psychotherapist from engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with a minor patient, regardless of a parent’s willingness or desire to authorize such “treatments.” The bill passed the Senate in May and now is being considered in the Assembly.
Ryan Kendall [pictured above], a fact witness in Perry v. Schwarzenegger . . . . testified before the California State Assembly today in support of Senate Bill 1172, a measure that would ban “sexual orientation conversion “treatment”.
Kendall was forced into “reparative” therapy at 14 years of age by his parents when they discovered he was gay after reading his diary. He spent about a year and half in this conversion therapy with Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, then-executive director of NARTH (National Association for Reparative Therapy of Homosexuality) and a so-called therapist, via weekly phone sessions, before he eventually ran away from home and arranged to have himself legally declared “independent” of his parents. Nicolosi asserts that persons can be successfully “cured of being gay” and can resume happy heterosexual lives.
Kendall’s testimony follows:
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.
I am here today because as a young teenager I dreamed that one day adults would pass legislation to protect people like me. I am here because youth subjected to these discredited therapies deserve a voice in the room. They are the ones living the trauma and horror that conversion therapy inflicts on people for no reason, with no evidence, merely because of who they are. If any of these youth are listening, they should know that there is nothing wrong with them; they are perfect, beautiful, and deserving of love.
Today, this committee is faced with a simple choice – to side with the forces of anti-gay intolerance and junk science, or to stand up for LGBT youth who deserve our protection. These kids are worth it.
Reparative therapy needs to be banned world wide and, in my view, those who promote it need to be sued for damages by their victims.
