Gay Therapy Ban Blocked After Appeal

Dec. 23, 2012

A ban on therapy that aims to turn gay children straight is put on hold after two families say their children have benefited.

The law banning reparative therapy was due to come into force in January

A Californian court has blocked a law banning a type of therapy intended to turn gay children straight.

The law, which was due to come into force on January 1, 2013, states that therapists and counsellors who use "sexual orientation change efforts" on under-18s would be engaging in unprofessional conduct and could be disciplined by state licensing boards.

Practitioners of so-called "reparative therapy" and two families who say their teenage sons have benefited from it had asked an appeals court to overturn the legislation, after their request was refused by a lower court judge.

The appeals court's decision means the law cannot be enforced until a separate panel rules on whether it violates the rights of therapists and parents.

Mathew Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, whose Christian legal aid group represented practitioners and families in the lawsuit, said: "This law is an astounding overreach by the government into the realm of counselling and would have caused irreparable harm."

Supporters of the ban, which was signed by Governor Jerry Brown, say reparative therapy puts young people at risk.

Mr Brown said the practice has "no basis in science or medicine", while Lynda Gledhill, press secretary to Californian Attorney General Kamala Harris, insisted the state was "correct to outlaw this unsound and harmful practice".

Earlier this month, two federal trial judges in California arrived at opposite conclusions on whether the law violates the US Constitution.

Judge Kimberly Mueller refused to block the law, saying the complainants represented by Mr Staver were unlikely to prove the ban infringes their civil rights.

Hours earlier, Judge William Shubb took a different view in a lawsuit filed by a psychiatrist, a counsellor and a former patient who is studying to practice gay conversion therapy.

He said he found the human rights issues presented by the ban compelling and ordered the state to temporarily exempt the three people involved in the case.


source: Sky news