Ban on gay ‘conversion’ therapy (in California) on hold during Supreme Court appeal

[CreekDog]

Source: SFGate.com

California’s ban on “conversion” therapy that aims to turn gay youths straight will remain on hold while religious conservatives ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn it.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the law in August and reaffirmed its ruling last week. But on Monday, the appeals court granted opponents’ request for a stay while they seek Supreme Court review. In the meantime, the law, passed in 2012, remains unenforced.

The law bars licensed therapists from trying to change the sexual orientation of patients under 18. Those therapy methods have included counseling and training to encourage opposite-sex behavior, hypnosis, and aversive measures such as hormone treatment and nausea-inducing drugs.



Read more: http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2014/02/03/ban-on-gay-conversion-therapy-on-hold-during-supreme-court-appeal/

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this isn't about free speech. it's about being able to provide this as a medical or psychological "treatment". it's neither. it's harmful.

if someone wants to talk to their kid or another kid in hopes they won't be gay anymore, that would be allowed. they just can't do it as "treatment" or as a health service.

[alp227]

1. The 9th circuit is supposed to be one of the most left-leaning appeals courts.

but i guess their idea of "free speech" is at all costs even if it crosses into blatant abuse like reparative therapy is.

[jmowreader]

2. They also want to get reimbursed by insurance for doing it

The only way this form of woo possibly stops you from being gay is if it drives you to suicide.

[petronius]

3. That's disappointing. I'm very sensitive to the free speech issue, but it seems to me

that it's the wrong question: rather, the issue is whether the state can set limits on conduct within the practice of a licensed and regulated profession. I don't see why the state can't require medical professionals (a phrase only loosely applicable to these conversion 'therapists') to limit their professional actions to real, medically-relevant forms...

[CreekDog]

5. i agree completely

what a terrible decision.

[Humanist_Activist]

4. This is trying to subsidize fraud, quackery, and child abuse, what the fuck is wrong with the court?

These should never be protected forms of speech, they aren't protected forms of speech.

[LynneSin]

6. What it is - child abuse

No one should subject their child to that kind of treatment simply because they don't want their child to be gay. It's cruel and will lead to a lifetime of pain for the child who has to go thru such hellish treatments.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. Fraud isn't free speech. 'Conversion therapy' is not a medical therapy at all.

It's fraud. It doesn't work, and it KILLS PEOPLE. The APA has called it bunk. It's done. Cannot be claimed to be anything but fraud.

[SoapBox]

8. Another....

WTF moment.

[blkmusclmachine]

9. Have the hard right religious social conservatives ever not gotten what they wanted from the courts?

Big f/cking whiners that they are...