‘Conversion therapy’ ban moves ahead
SACRAMENTO — Choking up as he began to speak to a panel of fellow lawmakers, Assemblyman Evan Low paused to collect himself. The room had just quieted after a conservative advocate who opposed his bill heckled the committee — and Low — for not hearing his side out, causing a brief shouting match.
“It was very difficult to present this bill,” said Low, a Democrat from Campbell who is gay. “Because when thinking about childhood and that it would not be OK to be yourself — you heard testimony about suicidal thoughts. I have also had that.”
This strikingly personal revelation reflects the emotional debate surrounding Low’s proposal to make California the first state in the country to outlaw the advertising and sale of sexual orientation change services — better known as “conversion therapy.” On one side are scientists and LGBT advocates who say California must protect its residents from a harmful, prejudice-driven practice. On the other are First Amendment advocates and a
group of religious conservatives who argue that a ban curtails personal liberty.
At stake are questions about free speech, freedom of religion and the state’s duty to protect consumers from fraud.
The practice of trying to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity is opposed by leading medical groups such as the American Psychological Association and the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which say it is ineffective and often harmful. It is embraced by some religious and conservative groups, such as the California Family Council and the Pacific Justice Institute, which say the therapy offers an option to people who believe homosexuality and being transgender are immoral.
Conversion treatment can include traditional talk therapy as well as more extreme — and, medical groups say, damaging — methods. Some who have experienced them report being forced to ingest nausea-inducing drugs and subjected to electroshock therapy while viewing homoerotic images, practices designed to condition a negative reaction to their homosexual feelings.
Such reports led state Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat and co-author of the bill, to describe the therapy as “torture.”
Although current techniques tend to be less extreme than those of the past, LGBT advocates say they still perpetuate a view of homosexuality and being transgender as undesirable.
This isn’t the first time the Legislature has tried to limit the practice. In 2012, California became the first state in the nation to bar mental health professionals from treating minors with conversion therapy. The law has since served as a model for similar bans in 12 other states.
Low’s bill would extend the law’s protections to include anyone engaged in a financial transaction, regardless of age. The effect would be to make it harder for people to learn about or access conversion therapy.
The goal, he said, is “to ensure that we do not allow for Californians to be duped and to be harmed by spending money to try to get a service that has no end result.”
His AB2943 was approved by the Assembly and is working its way through the Senate. Given the liberal makeup of the Legislature, the measure is likely to land on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk by the end of summer.
Brown signed the earlier bill banning conversion therapy for children. The law was promptly challenged as unconstitutional but upheld by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2013.
Although different legal mechanisms are involved in that law and Low’s bill, they have touched off a similar debate in the state Capitol.
Opponents argue that by classifying conversion therapy as a fraudulent practice, Low’s bill infringes on the rights to free speech and — because many people who pursue conversion therapy do so for religious reasons — the free exercise of religion.
“It’s one of the more blatantly unconstitutional laws that has come out of California in the last five to 10 years,” said Dean Broyles, president of a conservative legal defense fund called the National Center for Law and Policy. He has called the debate surrounding Low’s bill a “Bonhoeffer moment” for religious conservatives, referring to German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who denounced the Nazis and was executed in a concentration camp in 1945.
Low and his supporters cite the scientific consensus discouraging the practice of conversion therapy and argue that potential First Amendment infringements are incidental compared to the state’s duty to protect its citizens.
Anthony Samson, a Sacramento attorney and policy adviser on Low’s bill, argues that the proposal is neutral to religion practice. Because it would affect only consumer transactions, religious groups — and any other organization — would still be able to offer conversion therapy services for free, Samson said.
A key provision of Low’s proposal is that it applies only to commercial transactions involving services. It exempts goods that contain messages about changing sexual orientation or gender identity, including some religious texts such as the Bible.
That has not quelled opponents, who are mounting a vigorous campaign condemning the bill. Hundreds of them — including more than 30 people who say they have changed from gay to straight with conversion therapy — protested on the Capitol steps last month.
“I have a message to the California Assembly: My wife, my 4-year-old daughter, my 1-year-old son and the baby in my wife’s womb are not frauds,” Jim Domen, founder and president of Church United in Newport Beach (Orange County), told the protesters. “Assembly Bill 2943 removes my right to choose my sexuality.”
Freedom-focused rhetoric is common in this debate, despite scientific consensus that homosexuality can’t be willfully changed.
“They don’t like the lifestyle. That’s what they’re attacking,” Low said, pointing to a promotional video in which Domen says homosexuality is “destructive” and “harmful.”
Low sees the fight over this bill as one step in a larger battle for equality. He says he overcame his adolescent thoughts of suicide and conversion after finding acceptance from his family and from other gay people.
“There is nothing wrong with me,” he said. “There is nothing wrong with members of the LGBT community.”