Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has effectively ruled that states can ban therapy practices that falsely claim to turn LGBT youth into heterosexuals, it is time for the harmful and homophobic counseling method to be banned nationwide.
On May Day the federal court announced that it would not hear Welch v. Brown, a case that had challenged California's move to outlaw conversion therapy on the grounds that it violates constitutional religious freedom protections. The law went into effect in 2014 after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld it.
In 2012 state lawmakers had enacted Senate Bill 1172, which bars state-licensed mental health professionals from attempting to change the sexual orientation or gender expression of minors. A year later, New Jersey lawmakers passed a similar prohibition, which has also survived court challenges.
According to the Movement Advancement Project, six states and the District of Columbia have now banned conversion therapy for minors through legislation. Last year New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced regulations that restrict the funding of conversion therapy.
Medical and mental health associations have argued for years that claims that a person can be "turned straight" through counseling are unfounded, and in fact, pose serious dangers to LGBT individuals. As Equality California Executive Director Rick Zbur stated this week in response to the end of the legal battle over the law his agency sponsored, "Homosexuality is not a condition that needs curing."
Zbur warned, "However, we do know that the practice of trying to change sexual orientation not only doesn't work, but puts vulnerable LGBT young people at risk of depression, substance abuse, homelessness and suicide."
Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Los Angeles), the former state Senator who authored the California bill, is working to pass his Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act of 2017 in Congress, which would ban conversion therapy across the country. But with both the House and Senate controlled by Republicans, Lieu's legislation is likely dead on arrival.
Thus, it is imperative that state lawmakers take action.
MAP estimates that 76 percent of the country's LGBT population lives in the 44 states that continue to allow the practice of conversion therapy for minors. It is past time that lawmakers in those statehouses ban the scientifically baseless practice.
The U.S. District Court for Northern California could greatly help the effort by releasing the taped proceedings of the 2010 Proposition 8 trial. As we reported online this week, KQED, San Francisco's leading public television and radio station, has asked a federal judge to unseal the trial videotapes in the case that challenged the constitutionality of California's voter-approved same-sex marriage ban.
In his ruling striking down Prop 8, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, now retired, wrote that he was particularly moved by the witness testimony of Ryan Kendall, a gay man who spoke about the psychological damage he experienced as a survivor of conversion therapy. Shannon Minter, the legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which represented the plaintiffs in the Prop 8 trial, called Kendall's court appearance one of the most important moments of the trial.
We agree. Allowing the public to see, firsthand, Kendall's videotaped testimony would be a powerful tool in bringing about the permanent end of conversion therapy.