Appeals court strikes down Fla. city’s ban on anti-gay conversion therapy

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A federal appeals court struck down Boca Raton’s ban on conversion therapy for gay adolescents struggling to come to terms with their sexuality, calling the ban an infringement on the First Amendment rights of the teens and the counselors who try to treat them.

Licensed family therapists Robert Otto and Judy Hamilton sued the city for the right to talk to their juvenile clients about conversion if the clients had “unwanted” attraction to members of the same gender or “confusion” about their gender identity.

The city’s ordinance prohibited conversion therapy as harmful to the health and emotional development of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other youth. A district court upheld the law, but Otto and Hamilton appealed, backed by religious-liberty advocates at Liberty Counsel.

A three-judge panel at the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta overturned the earlier decision by a 2-1 vote. “We understand and appreciate that the therapy is highly controversial,” wrote Judge Britt Grant. “But the First Amendment has no carveout for controversial speech. We hold that the challenged ordinances violate the First Amendment because they are content-based regulations of speech that cannot survive strict scrutiny.”

Finding that the type of therapy offered by Otto and Hamilton consisted entirely of speech, Grant wrote that government has no role to play in what the counselors can and cannot say.

“The only voices that should matter in the counseling session are the client’s and the counselor’s,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “This case is the beginning of the end of similar unconstitutional counseling bans around the country.”

A similar law passed by the Palm Beach County Commission also was struck down by Friday’s decision.

Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and 20 states have bans on conversion therapy that may be affected by Friday’s ruling, Staver said. A Supreme Court showdown is expected.

“Today’s decision is a marked departure from precedent and an incredibly dangerous decision for our youth,” said Kevin Jennings, chief executive officer of Lambda Legal, attorney advocates for gay rights. “So-called ‘conversion therapy’ is nothing less than child abuse.”