Posted on 12/08/2016 6:33:21 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog
Pittsburgh City Council on Wednesday advanced legislation that would prohibit licensed mental health professionals from subjecting minors to “conversion therapy,” the practice of attempting to change a person's sexual orientation.
The legislation is intended to protect gay and transgender people younger than 18 and was a response to the election of Republican Donald Trump and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as president and vice president, said council President Bruce Kraus, a South Side Democrat.
Kraus, who is gay, called conversion therapy “a form of soul murder.”
“I think it's obvious if anyone has followed national news there's clearly been a change in administrations, and there's a history that our vice president-elect has brought with him,” Kraus said. “He supports this barbaric practice of conversion therapy and funding of conversion therapy.”
National LGBT groups have registered similar complaints about Pence since the election, but a Pence spokesman has denied that Pence supports conversion therapy.
Councilman Dan Gilman of Squirrel Hill, who sponsored the bill with Kraus, said his office has received calls from a few people who said they were subjected to conversion therapy in the city.
He declined to provide the practitioners' identities.
“This is about being a city that protects children from mental and physical abuse,” Gilman said.
While critics claim conversion therapy sometimes comes in the form of physical and mental abuse, the New York Times reported last week that most current practitioners rely on psychoanalytic methods that include group therapy.
Groups including the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association have condemned conversion therapy.
City residents offered mixed opinions.
Mark Brentley Sr., 59, of Allegheny Center, a former Pittsburgh Public Schools director, said parents should be permitted to seek conversion therapy for their children. He told council members they were “overreaching” by proposing the ban.
Harriet Schwartz, associate professor of psychology and counseling at Carlow University who was accompanied by two Carlow students, praised council for voting to ban the practice.
“I think that the ban is important for the protections it provides and also because it sends an important message,” she said. “It tells the (LGBT) young people in our region that they're not someone who is broken and who needs to be fixed.”
Councilwoman Darlene Harris drew criticism from Kraus when she questioned whether the city had legal authority to enforce the legislation. Kraus accused her of supporting Trump's campaign. She called him the worst council president in city history.
Kraus said an assistant city solicitor approved the bill, but Solicitor Lourdes Sanchez Ridge said she would have to research it before providing a legal opinion. Downtown attorney Phil DiLucente said the city has authority under its Home Rule Charter to enforce the ban.
“They're permitted to pass laws that they believe would speak to the detriment of the health, safety and welfare of its citizens,” he said.
Harris abstained from a preliminary vote that passed 8-0. Council, which has nine members, all Democrats, is expected to schedule a final vote for Tuesday. If it passes, Mayor Bill Peduto's office said he intends to sign the bill.
Conversion therapy that may or may not have actually occurred. All based on some hearsay anonymous calls to Council.
Regardless of the fact that nobody seems to really know whether Pittsburgh City Council is even empowered to do such a thing.
And the one member of Council who had the common sense to object apparently lacked the courage to vote "no".
Not like there are potholes to fill, bridges to fix and garbage to be collected in Pittsburgh. The uber-liberal City Gov is obsessed with building bike paths and banning conversion therapy.
This is turning into San Francisco on the Monongahela.
Homosexual behavior is soul murder.
Most homosexuals were sexually molested as children.
These clown want to ensure they have access to your children.
How about individual freedom to pursue this therapy if one wishes to? We’re supposed to be a free country, right?
When this bill smacks up against HIPAA it could tie-up our entire court system for the next thirteen years.
[Bruce] Kraus, who is gay, called conversion therapy “a form of soul murder.” …Totally unbiased voice, there. Never mind being a Democrat.
Kraus - Theologian of the Ages
The Rainbow Flag now flies at City Hall,
alongside Old Glory, the Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh City flags.
Yeah, it's a mental disorder.
At least Kraus is out of the closet.
Unlike a certain Mayor I could mention.
Silly councilman, leading a soul down a path to spend eternity apart from God is soul murder.
I’m someone who tried to make her teenager go to therapy, not for same sex attraction but for various other things that I’m not going into here but including a court order. My memory is of standing in the drive way with her screaming obscenities at me. She would not get in the car. She was (I thought) too young to drive so I was going to have to take her. I gave up that day. Next day she stole my sports car and was gone all day.
She now is in her 30s and doing well. Still and always a challenge. But my point here is that no teenager goes to any kind of therapy against his/her will. Any therapy I’ve been involved with (and my profession brought me in contact with a lot of it) was 1) mostly useless; and 2) only of any use if the patient/client was engaged in it.
So I’m wondering - a kids is taken to therapy by his/her parent. The session starts, the kid blurts out that he/she has attraction to the same sex and wants to stop having those feelings. Does the therapist stop the entire process and call the authorities?
I’m a licensed mediator and there are certain things which if brought up in therapy stop the mediation cold. So as a retired lawyer who has to know the end result of things, what is the end result here? Any therapists out there doing continuing education on this subject?
Don’t know what happened to your link.
http://triblive.com/local/allegheny/11603390-74/therapy-conversion-kraus
so... if the kid thought they were a rock or a tree would this guy be against conversion therapy?
CONVERSION THERAPY is now PROHIBITED in ILLINOIS. DON’T let a ban of allowing children who desire counseling for sex identity problems pass in your state. It is only the tip of the iceberg of the LGBTQ agenda. Fight for the rights of parents and children.
The ILLINOIS FAMILY INSTITUTE is a good resource. They are on the front line in the battle for traditional family values. Don’t hesitate to call them.
https://illinoisfamily.org/
They’d rather commit actual murder via AIDS, substance abuse, and suicide...
He’s right in a way. Not soul murder but perhaps spirit expulsion (i.e. exorcism).
Maybe s/he should think of it as a soul-abortion. S/he’d probably be alright with it then.
Don’t there peeps have an Urban Utopia to run?
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