Posted on 09/14/2019 6:15:52 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The New York city council is planning to repeal a two-year-old ban on “gay conversion therapy” to avoid a costly uphill legal fight.
The New York Times reports that the city’s openly gay Council Speaker Corey Johnson introduced a bill on Thursday to repeal a measure passed in 2017 banning the sale of “services intended to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.”
With a conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court makeup, Johnson doesn’t seem to want the law to be tested in the legal system. He vowed that the council would act quickly to repeal the law.
“Obviously I didn’t want to repeal this,” Johnson was quoted as saying. “I don’t want to be someone who is giving in to these right-wing groups. But the Supreme Court has become conservative; the Second Circuit, which oversees New York, has become more conservative.”
The city's ban is being challenged by the conservative religious freedom legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which has won nine Supreme Court cases in the last seven years.
ADF’s lawsuit was filed in January on behalf of Dr. David Schwartz, a licensed psychotherapist and an adherent to the Lubavitcher Orthodox Jewish Community in Brooklyn.
Supporters of sexual orientation change efforts contend that laws banning conversion therapy will make it harder for individuals struggling with same-sex attraction to seek help if they desire to live their life in accordance with a biblical lifestyle.
They also say that conversion therapy bans essentially censor discussions between psychologists and their patients.
Some LGBT advocates fear that if the measure is challenged in court and struck down, it could damage nationwide attempts to ban efforts to change sexual orientation.
The news of the city council’s desire to repeal the ban was praised by both LGBT advocates and Christian conservatives, although for different reasons.
“We support the City Council's decision to pull back on a statute that could undermine efforts nationally to end conversion therapy, especially considering that the legal climate is less favorable towards the LGBTQ community at the federal level,” New York City’s LGBT resource organization, The Center, wrote in a tweet.
Mat Staver, the founder of the Christian conservative legal nonprofit Liberty Counsel, called the repealing of the city’s ban a “step in the right direction.”
“It’s only a matter of time, however, before one of these counseling bans is struck down before the Supreme Court,” Staver asserted.
“The law is a gross intrusion into the fundamental rights of counselors and clients. Every person should have access to the counselor of his or her choice. No government has the authority to prohibit a form of counseling simply because it does not like the religious or moral beliefs of a particular counselor or client.”
Although the city is repealing its ban, the state of New York, as well as 17 other states, have also banned conversion therapy.
Earlier this year, an ex-gay counselor filed a lawsuit against the conversion therapy ban enacted by the state of Maryland, claiming that the law violated his free speech and religious freedom rights.
“SB 1028 prohibits counseling to minors seeking to eliminate, reduce, or resolve unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, or identity by licensed professionals, which is causing immediate and irreparable harm to Plaintiff and Plaintiff’s clients,” that lawsuit states.
“By denying minors the opportunity to pursue a particular course of action that can most effectively help them address the conflicts between their sincerely held religious beliefs and goals to eliminate, reduce, or resolve unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, or identity, SB 1028 is causing those minors confusion and anxiety over same-sex sexual attractions, behaviors, and identity and infringing on their free speech and religious liberty rights.”
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision against a California law requiring pro-life pregnancy centers to inform women about their access to state-assisted abortions, that governments can fail to “preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas” when it polices the content of professional speech.
Earlier this year, however, a federal court judge in Florida recommended a temporary injunction against a gay conversion therapy ban enacted in Tampa bay, siding with two marriage and family therapists.
In that case, the judge cited the Supreme Court’s ruling last year in favor of the pro-life pregnancy centers.
In the past, however, federal appeals courts have ruled in favor of conversion therapy bans in California and New Jersey. Under different makeups in past years, the Supreme Court has declined to review cases favoring conversion therapy bans.
It’s a ban on personal freedom. Unconstitutional.
Hmmm.... you can check in but you’re not allowed to check out?
LOL.
Our crafty City Council is ahead of the pack in avoiding the inevitable lawsuit on this issue.
Real smart when they want to be.
This still needs to be fought in court.
The Q in LGBTQ stands for QUESTIONING.
This therapy would, in theory, be totally kosher for anyone not stone cold certain they were of a sexual persuasion.
But that would require logic.
Improving self control is good, in any category. I hope they are training folk to be less reactive, not just hetero. Oxytocin can also be gained by giving and receiving of gratitude. Telling jokes, a word well spoken, charity, etc. Fake gratitude disintigrates pretty fast.
This is a clear First Amendment violation.
The city's ban is being challenged by the conservative religious freedom legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which has won nine Supreme Court cases in the last seven years.
Praise God!
Their actions show they know they passed an unconstitutional law.
Thank God. Freedom of speech. Freedom of association. Freedom of religion.
FREEDOM
I thought it used to be Questioning but they changed it to Queer.
One of the very worst aspects of these laws is that they prevent counselors from effectively helping children who have suffered sex abuse by a same-sex perpetrator. Certainly they deserve a supportive counselor who is not prohibited by law from helping them get neutralize any same-sex attraction that may have resulted from same-sex encounter(s) having been their first and psychologically overwhelming exposure to sex.
Cute little strategy the Left is now using when it comes to court cases. They pass a law of questionable legality, enforce the law as it is being challenged, repeal the law just before it would have been struck down, and then tell the Supreme Court to drop the case because the law doesn’t exist anymore.
One the above is completed, the pass the same law again and start over. This is the second time I’ve seen NY do this, with the first one dealing with gun ranges.
Ironic - they openly foster and encourage gender change therapy to “modify” the gender of pre-pubescent children and then want to deny adults who have “issues” get help sorting it out....
“I thought it used to be Questioning but they changed it to Queer.”
Yeah, never know how that bunch is going to redefine their craziness, but Queer was handled with the L and G as far as I know.
My understanding was the G and L were too basic to encompass the self-identification of the Q.
They probably don’t agree among themselves. After all, the T are now demanding that the G and L redefine themselves as B.
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