A Victory Against Conversion Therapy
For regular readers of my blog, you will know that I loathe and despise the ill informed, and cruel practice of conversion therapy. For those who do not know conversion therapy is the misguided belief that a) homosexuality is some form of disease or disorder and b) something that a combination of prayer and therapy can “cure”. I was very proud of how my senior professional organisation, the UK Council for Psychotherapy, fought to get this bogus therapy exposed for what it was.
It is, sadly, still legal to practice and promote this hate therapy here in the UK, but all the major psychological and psychotherapeutic organisations here denounce it’s practise. The State Assembly in California, has taken this fight to what I believe to be it’s logical conclusion and has created legislation to ban it’s practise.
As we know, the US, has a great history regarding freedom of speech and this argument has been used to thwart efforts to ban this reckless form of therapy. However, the assembly has instead used the Consumer Legal Remedies Act. Which will categorise the practice of conversion therapy as deceptive and and unfair. The law will not effect churches which can still talk about the possibility that they can change a homosexual. The key here is that they can discuss this only if no financial transaction is involved.
This is not perfect legislation, but it is a start in stopping people using religious belief as a mechanism to preach intolerance and hate.
