["Catholic" Governor] Brown signs bill to outlaw therapy which helps youth leave homosexuality
The ‘dustbin of quackery’
October 2, 2012
The following comes from an Oct. 1 story on LifeSiteNews.com.
A bill that was described as a deliberate “attack on parental rights” by its sponsor has been signed into law in California. On Sunday, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill banning sexual orientation change therapy for minors. It is set to go into effect on January 1, 2013.
In response, the pro-family law firm Liberty Counsel has said it is filing a lawsuit on behalf of counselors, parents and their minor children, and the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality against the legislation.
In signing the bill, Gov. Brown said that sexual orientation change therapy “will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery.” This summer in response to critics who said the bill was an attack on parents rights, the bill’s sponsor State Senator Ted Lieu said: “The attack on parental rights is exactly the whole point of the bill, because we don’t want to let parents harm their children….”
Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, agrees. “The California governor and legislature are putting their own preconceived notions and political ideology ahead of children and their rights to get access to counseling that meets their needs,” he said this week.
The law defines “sexual orientation change efforts” as any practice that is designed to reduce or eliminate same-sex attraction. Critics such as Staver say such broad language will prohibit any counseling that does not affirm and encourage experimentation with or acceptance of same-sex attractions, regardless of whether those feelings and attractions are unwanted by the counselee….
While the bill makes it an ethical violation for any counselor or therapist to engage in it, opponents have argued that if the counselor does not provide the client with such counseling, or at least a referral, upon request, the counselor will also violate their licensing ethical code.
You don’t expect them to admit that homosexuality is a correctable condition do you? The party line over the past decades, despite all evidence to the contrary, has been that homosexuality is genetic, unchangeable, and NATURAL: “They can’t help it, so don’t condemn it.” What a pack of misinformation.
It’s funny that these liberal meddlers want to manage people’s use of tobacco and even how much and what kind of food everyone eats on the grounds of health concerns, and yet at the same time seem determined to promote a behavior that is known to be at least as unhealthy as either smoking or overeating.
And by “funny”, what I mean is, sick.
Gay Conversion Therapy Still an Option, says World Renowned [Catholic] Psychotherapist
New law banning reparative therapy will limit under 18′s seeking way out of gay lifestyle, says Dr. Nicolosi
By David W. Virtue
October 3, 2012
www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=16598
World renowned California-based psychotherapist Dr. Joseph Nicolosi believes that teenagers who so choose can rid themselves of unwanted same sex attractions (SSA) despite a law passed banning reparative therapy for anyone under 18.
California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law this week banning reparative therapy for anyone under that age. It is the first state in the country to ban a controversial form of psychotherapy that has proven successful at making some gay teenagers, who choose it, to live celibate or heterosexual lives.
Democratic Senator Ted Lieu of Torrance said the law was designed to stop children from being psychologically abused. Mainstream mental health organizations have disavowed such therapy. A number of mental health associations in California – including the state’s Board of Behavioral Sciences, the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists and the California Psychological Association – supported the legislation.
However, Dr. Nicolosi, a Roman Catholic, heads the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic in Encino, California, and is one of the nation’s leading psychotherapists specializing in dealing with unwanted same sex attractions (SSA), believes reparative therapy can work for those who want to reduce or eliminate such attractions.
He says the new law has not outlawed reparative therapy but it has given patients the right to take action, through the mental health associations, for malpractice if a client UNDER 18 is given therapy aimed at reducing unwanted SSA or changing gender expression (i.e., if a boy is helped to feel more masculine).
“A Christian legal group is filing a lawsuit against the state and we will see where it goes,” Nicolosi told VOL in an e-mail. “A fair judge will throw out this law, but then, the last judge in CA who was appointed to vote on the legality of a citizens’ vote against gay marriage was himself gay, and he overturned the citizens’ vote. California is dominated by the Democratic Party, and their party platform is officially pro-gay. All the Democratic legislators voted against us, all the Republicans voted for us on this law,” he said.
“There are things that can be done to help clients under 18 feel more confident in male relationships, and then when they hit 18, therapy can proceed normally. But we shall see how this develops. I doubt that the mental health associations will see harm in a therapist’s working with a boy to feel better about his masculinity, and that they will agree to censure a therapist for that.”
The Democrat legislator who initiated this bill has made it clear that in the future he would like to outlaw ALL such therapy, not just for minors, in the future.
Nicolosi says that over the years he has seen hundreds of men come to his office for help in changing their sexual orientation. “Homosexuality doesn’t work in their lives. It just never feels right or true. To these men, it is clear that gay relationships don’t reflect who they are as gendered beings, and that they have been designed–physically and emotionally–for opposite-sex coupling.”
Nicolosi admits that reorientation therapy is a long and difficult process, with no guarantee of success. What if the man doesn’t change? Will he have gained anything of value?
“People are often surprised to hear that in reparative therapy, typically there is very little discussion about sex. In fact, it is a mistake for any psychotherapy to focus exclusively on one particular symptom. Clients come in with a difficulty that they want removed from their life–an eating disorder, gambling obsession, or unwanted same-sex attraction– but good therapy addresses the whole person.
“I typically tell my clients in the very first session, ‘Rule Number One is never accept anything I say unless it resonates as true for you.’”
The experience of the client, whatever that may be, must always trump any preconceived theory, says Nicolosi. “Reparative theory holds that the origin of SSA is in unmet emotional and identification needs with the same sex, and the client is free to accept or reject that premise. If that doesn’t feel true to him, he will usually decide to leave therapy after one or two sessions.
“What we are saying with young people is that they become aware that there are options in life, besides following their unwanted feelings; and we help them identify where their SSA feelings originated, and what they represent, and we give them tools to reduce their power over their lives if they choose.”
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