On Wednesday, a federal appeals court in San Francisco listened to arguments about whether the California law banning "gay conversion therapy" for minors is a violation of the First Amendment.
The law was adopted a year ago and is an effort to regulate a form of talk therapy. It prevents licensed therapists from trying to change the sexual orientation of people under the age of 18.
The absurdity of such a practice is beyond comprehension to the majority of mental health organizations and specialists. Kamala D. Harris, attorney general of California, wrote in the brief submitted to the court: "For more than 40 years, every mainstream mental health organization has agreed that same sex attraction is not a disease in need of a cure."
By now, it should be understood that there are limitations and restrictions to First Amendment rights. You can't scream the word 'bomb' on an airplane. You can't broadcast pornography on local television. You can't yell 'fire' in a crowded building.
The methodology to which freedom of speech can be controlled has historically constituted the time, manner and place of speech. For instance, any city in the United States can deny a musician a permit for a concert if the city has previously had problems with noise or crowd control. The city cannot deny the artist a permit if it disagrees with the content or the message of the music. Generally speaking, freedom of speech cannot be denied due to any type of indifference or disagreement with the content of some specific form of speech.
Gay conversion therapy, however, falls into a separate category that renders its prohibition well within legal grounds. The court should see the law as a well-founded and justifiable effort to thwart medical and therapeutic malpractice.
The licensed therapists who practice this form of therapy are way out of the mainstream. They are radicals practicing outside the realm of what decades of medical and psychological research has established; sexual orientation is inborn and not a choice.
Typically, it is not the choice of child patients to be treated with this type of therapy. They are minors under the age of 18 and are likely there under the coercion of their parents. As highly inappropriate and wounding as it is for parents to make children feel defective for their sexual orientation, it is highly appropriate for a state to step in and prevent a practice harmful to individuals.
If someone yells 'bomb' on an airplane, it induces panic. If someone yells 'fire' in a crowded building, it causes chaos. The speech brought forth in those examples is prohibited because it causes forms of psychological and emotional injury to those subjected to the speech.
The same applies to gay conversion therapy.
The small group of therapists who advocate this kind of treatment are under the belief that homosexuality is a result of gender confusion and comes from experiencing childhood trauma. This is nonsense and many gay men in particular have recounted experiencing conversion therapy as afflicting them with deeper feelings of anguish and guilt, according to The New York Times.
It is already well understood that LGBTQ youth are more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to attempt suicide - which inspired Dan Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, to establish the It Gets Better Project.
Conversion therapy adds more hardship to the already difficult position of being an adolescent homosexual. It is injurious and against the norm of accepted medical standards.
The state has the right to ban its practice for the sake of the people it will harm; it can detonate a bomb in a young person's life.
Email: editorial@ubspectrum.com
