Congress implored to denounce sexual-orientation therapy

In the latest attack on therapies aimed at helping gay patients who want to become heterosexual, a congresswoman from California said Wednesday that she was introducing a resolution calling on Congress to denounce the practice.

Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat, is proposing the resolution as two lawsuits move through federal court challenging a new California law to ban minors from receiving “sexual-orientation change efforts” under any circumstance.

In a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday, Ms. Speier said she was introducing her Stop Harming Our Kids resolution to “bring us some reality checks” about sexuality.

“Let’s get this straight,” she said. “Being gay, lesbian [or] transgender is not a disease to be cured or a mental health issue to be treated.”

Therapies aimed at helping someone go from gay to straight are “discredited” and “ineffective,” and minors should not be subjected to them, she said.

She added that she will investigate whether taxpayer funds in Medicaid or Tricare, the Pentagon’s health care system, have been used to reimburse therapists offering such counseling.

Practitioners of so-called “sexual reparative therapies” defend the practice, as do some conservative religious organizations, saying efforts to curb their work violate their right to freedom of religion and speech. Many of the most invasive practices once employed have been stopped, they say, and they argue that a blanket ban will hurt young people who want to fight homosexual feelings on religious or moral grounds and will only lead to more unregulated efforts.

Ms. Speier was joined by two people who said they underwent “gay conversion quackery” and advocates for groups that oppose such therapies, including the Southern Poverty Law Center.

 

The Washington Times has the full article

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