At the end of September, California passed a law making it illegal for licensed therapists to counsel minors away from same-sex attraction. California Senator Ted W. Lieu, the lead author of the bill, designed it to prohibit therapies that seek to change the sexual orientation of the patient. He said in support of the bill:
Under the guise of a California license, some therapists are taking advantage of vulnerable people by pushing dangerous sexual orientation-change efforts. These bogus efforts have led in some cases to patients later committing suicide, as well as severe mental and physical anguish. This is junk science and it must stop.
Lieu elsewhere called these practices “phony therapies” that are opposed by “the entire medical community.” While promoted as outlawing “junk science,” “phony therapies,” and “psychological abuse,” this law actually imposes significant limitations on the freedom of licensed therapists. It prohibits treatments, for persons under the age of 18, that are designed “to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”
Therapists are barred from more than just what we might normally think of as “conversation therapy.” They are also forbidden from helping their patients reduce feelings of same-sex attraction at all, regardless of whether they are trying to fundamentally change the patient’s orientation.
The law does not apply to pastors and clergy, but it does apply to all forms of licensed mental health workers, including social workers and counselors. There is no exemption for therapists who have religious convictions. There’s no room for dissent at all.
The law’s authors view it as a sort of medical malpractice law. Chad Griffin, president of the pro-gay Human Rights Campaign, a group which lobbied heavily in favor of the bill, said this after it was signed: “LGBT youth will now be protected from a practice that has not only been debunked as junk science, but has been proven to have drastically negative effects on their well-being.”
Because they think there is nothing psychologically unhealthy about homosexual desires and behavior, trying to help somebody eliminate those things is not psychologically beneficial. Hence, it is not something that a therapist ought to be doing as part of their regulated medical work. Advocates of the law think it will prevent mental health workers from performing unnecessary and harmful treatments.
Today in California, a sixteen-year-old girl can get an abortion without even notifying her parents, let alone needing the father’s permission. But if that same girl has sexual feelings for another girl and wants to get rid of those feelings, she will not be able to receive the help of a therapist. That a legislative body in one of our states would think this way shows our spiritual blindness concerning things sexual and familial.
Our blindness leads us to misread our evidence. As Stanton L. Jones pointed out in the February 2012 edition of First Things, the psychological data on homosexuality is far from clear. We have not yet done studies that would genuinely show that homosexuality is not psychologically harmful.
Sociological data also give reason for concern. University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus recently concluded that children who grow up with homosexual parents do not fare as well as children who grow up with their married biological ones. So even if homosexual desires were not harmful to the individual, the marital destabilization and harm to children should give us pause. Were we viewing things aright we would recognize this. But “the heart has its reasons of which reason knows not.”
Because these kinds of laws are advanced under the banner of preventing child abuse, there is reason to worry they will not stop here. If it is abusive for a counselor to help a child reduce or eliminate their same-sex attraction, isn’t it also suspect for a parent to do the same? Free speech and religious freedom must have theirs limits, after all, and child abuse is certainly one of those limits. No one should be allowed to harm a child.
Here is Chesterton’s modern world where, along with the vices, “the virtues [in this case, the desire to protect children] are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and . . . do more terrible damage.” In our zeal to protect children we are undermining the very thing that offers them the most protection: the love of their father and mother.
Of the many reasons for sorrow over this law, love for our suffering neighbor looms large. We should know the pain that this law will bring to those who live in a struggle against their feelings of homosexual attraction and would like the help of a counselor in trying to remove those feelings. Friends, family, and the church always constitute the first sources of aid for these persons, but licensed therapists have their own special expertise to contribute.
Of course not everyone who has feelings of same-sex attraction and seeks to live faithfully to God wishes to use this kind of therapy. Some may not like this particular kind of treatment or may not wish to work with licensed medical professionals at all. Yet therapists can be and are a great help to many who are struggling with such feelings of attraction. For the youth in California, starting in January, they no longer can.
David Talcott is an associate professor of philosophy at the King’s College (NY).
RESOURCES
“Senate panel cracks down on deceptive sexual-orientation conversion ‘therapies’”
“Protecting LGBT Youth from Psychological Abuse”
“State bans gay-repair therapy for minors”
Stanton L. Jones, “Same-Sex Science”
Mark Regnerus, “Queers as Folk: Does it really make no difference if your parents are straight or gay?”
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Comments:
Homosexuality is only unhealthy in a family or culture where such inclinations are viewed as disordered or wrong. Treating kids that way is cruel; it leads to self-hatred in these teens, even suicide. Adults who promote this should be ashamed.
Any gay people I know who live in a culture that accepts them and lets them love whom they wish are very healthy and happy. Nothing disordered or disorderly about them. Bravo to CA for calling bigotry and child abuse what it really is, a crime.
I reckon that the same could be said of many if not all psychological therapies. As I understand it success is never predetermined and depends on many different factors. The success of failure of a treatment should not be the deciding factor because they depend on many things and can potentially be harmful always.
That decision if it is harmful should be in the hands of the patient or, if a child, his caregivers. I am quite sure you could ban almost every treatment for children based on the fact that it may in some cases prove harmful.
Andrew is a Catholic with a powerful international ministry to the sexually broken, based in the U.S. Lay persons can receive training! The Church can rise to the occasion to help people who are suffering, rather than rely on the world. The time is now!
The significance is in the ripple effect, whereby in the name of tolerance for protecting a class, all the rest of civilizatoin suffers.
It is probably a pretty safe bet the California trial lawyers lobby was right along side the LGBT arm twisters to pass this law in Sacramento. If you see this law through the window of legal opportunity, and the financial assets of treatment vendors to be accessed through the courts, the true motivation of its supporters comes to the fore.
You say: "It is probably a pretty safe bet the California trial lawyers lobby was right along side the LGBT arm twisters to pass this law in Sacramento."
It is not a safe bet at all. This is the essence of the legislation: "Any sexual orientation change efforts attempted on a patient under 18 years of age by a mental health provider shall be considered unprofessional conduct and shall subject a mental health provider to discipline by the licensing entity for that mental health provider."
No one is going to be arrested. No one is going to be put on trial. The law is so vague that I doubt that anything will happen that would otherwise not have happened, since the various mental health organizations and societies already look with grave suspicion on conversion therapy, not just for minors but also for adults.
I don't know how to convince people who believe that the gay-rights movement is not really about gay rights but rather is some kind of vast conspiracy against civilization as we know it. But that is awfully grandiose.
In fact under current law, a legislature in which the possibility of committing a crime is discussed may not be criminalized in advance for that reason alone. Under current RICO statutes, legislative enactments closest in spirit to this hitlerite California, ahem, law, some overt act, however feeble, is required for the conversation to attract the attention of the State. So now, two mafiosi may discuss the desirability of eliminating a rival without exposing themselves to liability for that reason alone, but a therapist acting on his own understanding of what are the clinical facts of the matter in a particular client's particular symptoms needs the approval of his alderman as to what he may or may not say, else he may face prosecution.
The notion that an idea, even one expressed as therapeutic advice, is an overt act is farfetched and is counter to some fairly basic freedoms. Increasingly that is the liberal preference for dealing with an idea that those on the left of the political spectrum finds objectionable: make it against the law.
You say: "How on earth can a political entity such as a State legislature insert its OPINIONS without qualm into private, voluntary conversations between two adults on ANY subject is unfathomable."
First, please note that this law pertains to therapists and minors. And also note that a therapist-patient relationship is far from being "consenting adults in private." Also note that the law does not criminalize any conduct. It classifies certain behaviors as unprofessional, and it makes it the responsibility of the authorities who license the particular therapist involved to take action, as they would with any other unprofessional behavior. Since we are dealing with therapists licensed by the state here, obviously it is the state that must decide the criteria for licensing the various therapists, and obviously the state has the authority to determine the rules of conduct that, if broken, might jeopardize the license of the therapist.
Psychiatric treatment and psychotherapy are not matters of a therapist giving "advice" to a patient. Therapists are licensed professionals providing treatment according to their training and certification.
You say: "The notion that an idea, even one expressed as therapeutic advice, is an overt act is farfetched and is counter to some fairly basic freedoms. Increasingly that is the liberal preference for dealing with an idea that those on the left of the political spectrum finds objectionable: make it against the law."
None of this is applicable. The California bill outlawed nothing. I think it is probably a misguided effort on the part of California legislators if for nothing else than it is extremely vague. But your while critique mischaracterizes the issues at hand.
But we're supposed to believe it's really all about research-based policy and best practiced.
In addition to the fact that the bill specifies psychotherapy, not surgery, it applies only to minors. Minors don't have gender reassignment surgery.
And, although surgery is not known to be occuring at this time, for girls wanting sex-reassignment surgery often have their breasts removed well before the age of 18.
Yes, thanks. You are correct. But assuming Thomas Aquinas has not changed his religion in the past several centuries, he would presumably go along with what you said, which is the position of the Church: gender reassignment surgery doesn't change a person's gender. The Vatican says it *is* permissible in extreme cases where nothing else will alleviate the person's suffering. But for the Church, surgery cannot change gender.
I do wonder about one possible case. Sometimes babies are born with ambiguous genitalia, and the doctors and parents make a decision to surgically correct the ambiguity. As I understand it, they do not necessarily choose according to whether the child is XX or XY, but sometimes which surgery will yield the better results. Suppose they make a genetic male into a female, and later the female considers herself to be a man. What is her real gender?
Do we know that this is, in fact, true? The consensus among mental health professionals is that therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation is futile and may be harmful. What is the *scientific evidence* that this kind of therapy is consistently and reliably helpful? We seem to have testimony largely from "ex-gays" who claim positive experiences. What we don't have is an overview of *all* people who entered therapy seeking to change their sexual orientation, the "success rate," and the effect on those who experienced no change. Suppose 20% of people who go through some kind of therapy designed to change their orientation are pleased with the results, and 80% feel it left them worse off. Would it not be reasonable to prohibit parents from forcing their minor children into such therapy?
We don't even have a good definition of what success would be. Merely asking people, especially self-selected people, whether they thought their therapy was helpful is not scientific evidence. I think to be scientifically credible, there would have to be some kind of objective measure of sexual excitation to various stimuli. "Therapy" that helps someone with a homosexual orientation function heterosexually but still leaves him or her with the same physiological sexual urges and responses to same-sex stimuli does not, in my opinion, make someone an "ex-gay."
I think the law is very weak, since we don't have any definition of reparative therapy. What exactly is it that some licensed therapists want to employ? The problem with the law, it seems to me, is that setting aside such grotesque techniques as aversion therapy, with electric shocks or drug-induced nausea paired with erotic images, whether or not something is "reparative therapy" would seem to depend a great deal on the intentions of the therapist. I don't expect the law to have a significant impact, so there does not seem to be much reason either to cheer it or lament it.