Conversion therapy is dying across the country, and oddly enough this is happening on Trump's watch.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:

It’s hard to imagine the Trump presidency going down in history as a fantastic time for LGBT rights. And yet LGBT people have been scoring several successive victories on the state and local level on a particularly critical issue: making conversion therapy a crime. 

Since Donald Trump and Mike Pence took office, five states—New Mexico, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Nevada, Washington—have banned the medically condemned practice of trying to change a minor’s sexual orientation and gender identity, bringing the total number of U.S. states with such bans up to 10. 

Several Florida municipalities, major cities like Philadelphia and New York, and other smaller cities have also now banned conversion therapy during the Trump-Pence administration. 

These bans on conversion or “reparative,” therapy are still coming with seemingly accelerated momentum: As Amber Phillips noted in her recent Washington Post appraisal of state-level LGBT victories, it seems “likely” that over a dozen states and D.C. will have made it illegal to subject a minor to this ostensibly therapeutic but demonstrably cruel practice by the end of the legislative session.

To be clear this is happening DESPITE the fact that Trump and Mike Pence are in office, not BECAUSE they are in office.

I think it is far more appropriate to give President Obama the credit for moving things forward for the LGBTQ community, than to assign credit to Trump/Pence.

Still good news is good news, and this is indeed good news.

Washington has now banned conversion therapy.

Courtesy of the Seattle Times:  

A measure banning licensed therapists from trying to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity was signed into law Wednesday by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. 

Inslee signed the bill joined by lawmakers and other LGTB supporters, including Democratic Sen. Marko Liias, the bill’s sponsor, and Chad Griffin, the president of the D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign.

Inslee called conversion therapy abuse, and said that “we are today prohibiting the abuse of our children.” 

“We have always believed in civil rights in our state,” he said. “We believe in tolerance for all.” 

The new law, which takes effect in June, will deem it “unprofessional conduct” for a licensed health-care provider to perform conversion therapy on a patient under the age of 18. Under the measure, if the provider violates the law, he or she faces sanctions ranging from fines to license revocation or suspension. The measure does not apply to nonlicensed counselors operating as part of a religious organization, religious denomination or church.

While this is very good news I have to admit that I kind of assumed that Washington state, which I consider relatively progressive had banned this practice years ago. 

That led me to check to see just how many states or jurisdictions do indeed have these conversion bans in place.

That is a little disheartening.

This is the 21st Century. We know better. Or at least we should know better.

New York introduces new legislation to ban conversion therapy, names it after Mike Pence. Seems appropriate.

Courtesy of the Daily Dot:  

Erie County in Western New York will start debating a new piece of legislation this December that aims to locally ban the harmful practices of "conversion therapy," which falsely claims to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity with a series of mostly discredited treatments, including psychological abuse and psychotropic medication. 

The law's name also has a message. It's called PENCE: Prevention of Emotional Neglect and Childhood Endangerment. 

Vice President-elect Mike Pence is well-known for his anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and advocacy for conversion therapy. As governor of Indiana, he has supported government funding to institutions "which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior." He has also discouraged government support of the Ryan White Care Act, a federally funded program for people living with HIV/AIDS, saying that supporting it would mean funding organizations that "celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus." 

Of course conversion "therapy" is where a gay person is told they are a dirty sinner who will burn in a pool of fire if they don't start pretending to like the opposite sex.

Undoubtedly the same therapy that this guy went through so you can see it works like a charm.

This BS is already outlawed in Vermont, California, New Jersey, Illinois and Oregon, as well as the District of Columbia, and the is opposed by the American Psychiatric Association, but apparently there are still quite a number of states that have not yet received the memo.

I think naming it after Trump's VP choice Mike Pence is a brilliant move since it fairly clear this guy can barely tolerate people having regular sex much less gay sex.

President Obama calls for an end to "conversion" therapy.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

A 17-year-old transgender youth, Leelah Alcorn, stunned her friends and a vast Internet audience in December when she threw herself in front of a tractor-trailer after writing in an online suicide note that religious therapists had tried to convert her back to being a boy. 

In response, President Obama is calling for an end to such therapies aimed at “repairing” gay, lesbian and transgender youth. His decision on the issue is the latest example of his continuing embrace of gay rights. 

In a statement that was posted on Wednesday evening alongside a WhiteHouse.gov petition begun in honor of Ms. Alcorn, Mr. Obama condemned the practice, sometimes called “conversion” or “reparative” therapy, which is supported by some socially conservative organizations and religious doctors. 

The petition has received more than 120,000 signatures in three months. 

“We share your concern about its potentially devastating effects on the lives of transgender as well as gay, lesbian, bisexual and queer youth,” the statement, written by Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, says. “As part of our dedication to protecting America’s youth, this administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors.”

Currently 48 states still allow this barbaric practice, and even though there are efforts to ban it in many of them, so far only two have made a choice to protect the rights of the gay teenagers who are most often subjected to this cruelty.

With President Obama's endorsement this quackery might get the attention that it has long deserved and we can finally do away with it as we did electroshock therapy and treatments for so-called "female hysteria."

For the first time a US court has determined that homosexuality is not a mental disease. The first time?

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

 In a blow to the controversial practice of gay conversion therapy, a New Jersey judge has ruled that therapists who claim that homosexuality is a curable mental disorder are committing consumer fraud. 

The ruling, issued on Tuesday by Superior Court Judge Peter F. Bariso Jr., is part of an ongoing lawsuit filed on behalf of four men who say they were subjected to humiliating treatments by therapists affiliated with Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH), a gay conversion therapy referral service based in Jersey City. Bariso said it violates the state's Consumer Fraud Act to advertise conversion therapy services by describing homosexuality as a mental illness, disease, or disorder. 

"This ruling makes clear that when conversion therapists lie about the nature of homosexuality in order to lure these vulnerable clients into their services and their programs, they're committing fraud," says David Dinielli, deputy legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which filed the lawsuit for the plaintiffs. According to the SPLC, this marks the first time a US court has found that homosexuality is not a mental disease.

Just so you know I am embarrassed that I did not realize that the courts had not already made this determination decades ago. 

By comparison the psychiatric community stopped listing homosexuality as a mental illness back in 1973.

That is also somewhat shocking considering what we know today about sexuality, but the fact that it took the courts more than forty years to reach the same conclusion is mind blowing.

Nine former members of the "ex-gay" movement pen letter supporting a ban on conversion therapy.

Courtesy of Pink News:

Nine former leaders of the ‘ex-gay’ movement have published an open letter in support of the #BornPerfect campaign of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), which aims to ban ‘conversation (sic) therapy’ across the US within five years. 

The letter was signed by: Brad Allen, Michael Bussee and Yvette Cantu Schneider, formerly of Exodus International; Jeremy Marks, founder of Exodus Europe and Courage UK; Bill Prickett, founder of Coming Back; Tim Rymel and John J. Smid, formerly of Love in Action; Catherine Chapman, formerly of the Portland Fellowship; and Darlene Bogie, founder of Paraklete Ministries. 

“Together we represent more than half a century of experience, so few people are more knowledgeable about the ineffectiveness and harm of conversion therapy,” the letter reads in part. 

“We know first-hand the terrible emotional and spiritual damage it can cause, especially for LGBT youth. We once believed that there was something morally wrong and psychologically ‘broken’ about being LGBT. We know better now.” 

Today the idea that you can "cure" somebody of their sexuality by shaming them and demanding that they repress their desires seems almost like lunacy. But that is how we have treated the LGBT community for thousands of years.

Everybody needs love and acceptance. Especially when they feel different from what is perceived as "normal."

When I first began to realize that my daughter liked girls instead of boys, I made the decision to be supportive no matter what, and to open myself to accepting her as she was, and not how I imagined her to be.

When you love your child, you love them. There should never be conditions on that love.

If a gay child, or any child, has that from their family, then they are already on the road to acceptance and confidence with who they are.

Chris Christie just pissed off the Republican base, and left very little doubt he is running for President.

Courtesy of the AP:  

Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill Monday barring licensed therapists from trying to turn gay teenagers straight, making New Jersey the second state to ban so-called conversion therapy, along with California. 

The bill passed both houses of the New Jersey Legislature with bipartisan support in June. Assemblyman Tim Eustace, who sponsored the bill and is openly gay, described the therapy as "an insidious form of child abuse." 

In a note accompanying the bill, Christie said he believes people are born gay and that homosexuality is not a sin. That view is inconsistent with his Catholic faith, which teaches that homosexual acts are sins. 

The Republican governor also said the health risks of trying to change a child's sexual orientation, as identified by the American Psychological Association, outweigh concerns over the government setting limits on parental choice. 

"Government should tread carefully into this area," he said in the note, "and I do so here reluctantly."

As I alluded to in the headline the Evangelical base of the party is going to lose their minds, however as recently noted here their influence is waning.

So for Christie the possibility or attracting the Libertarians and conservative independents, over the snake handling, faith healing, speaking in tongues faking moron, may seem like the smart move politically.

Besides all of them will undoubtedly support Rick "Google me" Santorum anyhow.

I still don't think that Christie has much of a chance against Hillary in the general, but I will say that out of such an incredibly weak field he may have the strongest chance.

What? You mean it's NOT part of gay "conversion therapy" to cup a man's scrotum in your hand?

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

Charging documents released this week indicated that 55-year-old Rev. Ryan J. Muehlhauser was accused of eight felony counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct on at least two men during sessions about how to “escape the gay lifestyle,” according to KARE. 

Muehlhauser was a pastor at Lakeside Christian Church in Cambridge, but met the men through Outpost Ministries, which claims it was “formed over 30 years ago to meet the needs of men and women making the decision to break away from gay life.” 

The first victim told authorities that Muehlhauser had “blessed” him by cupping his genitals. The pastor required the victim to arouse himself for “spiritual strength” and later instructed the man to get naked and masturbate in front of him, calling it “spiritual guidance.” 

Muehlhauser told a second victim that he would “loose everything” if details of the abuse became public. 

“To seek comfort and advice and to help address the pain they were experiencing only to have them experience a more horrific type of pain, sadness,” Isanti County Attorney Jeffrey Edblad said. 

The alleged abuse began as early as Dec. 31, 2010 and continued until at least Oct. 31, 2012. 

“You have a defendant who spends a significant amount of time working with and grooming victims, these are often cases that take place over a period of months and years. They don’t happen in a vacuum,” Edblad explained. 

You know my first instinct is to laugh, but then I think of these poor young men who are  being told they are creatures of sin, and are made to feel so damaged as human being that they are willing to subject themselves to this ridiculous superstitious nonsense only to find themselves victimized by the very people to whom they have laid themselves bare, and I am instead disgusted.

You know California recently banned this so-called "conversion therapy" for teens and I think it is high time that the rest of the country follow suit.

Where was it that Governor Jerrry Brown said it should be banished? Oh yeah the "dustbin of quackery." Sounds about right to me.