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Bill banning gay “conversion therapy” sent to Chris Christie

Fri, 28 Jun 2013 20:20:00 +0000

A New Jersey bill that would ban therapists from providing gay "conversion therapy" to minors has passed out of both chambers of the state legislature, and will now head to Gov. Chris Christie's desk for signing.

The Star-Ledger reports:

The Senate approved the bill (A3371), 28-9; the Assembly passed it Monday. It now heads to the governor's desk for consideration.

Gov. Chris Christie has publicly stated his opposition to conversion therapy, so supporters are hopeful he will sign it into law. Opponents say the bill violates the rights of parents to make decisions for their children.

If Christie signs the bill into law, New Jersey will become the second state to ban the practice, after California.

Brazil lawmakers vote to lift ban on gay “conversion therapy”

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:50:00 +0000

A Brazilian congressional human rights committee voted on Tuesday to approve legislation that would lift a ban on so-called gay conversion therapy and allow therapists to treat homosexuality as a pathology. The move was widely criticized by gay rights advocates, human rights groups and the country's psychologists' council.

Evangelical pastor Marco Feliciano -- who has called AIDS a "gay cancer" in the past -- heads the commission and led the initiative to reinstitute the discredited treatment.

"In practice, [the initiative's] result would be that a person over 18 years of age, responsible for his actions, who is homosexual and wants to reorient his sexuality, can be attended by a psychologist," lawmaker Joao Campos, an evangelical member of Brazil's lower house, told the Associated Press.

New York bill would ban gay conversion therapy for minors

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:58:00 +0000

Two New York lawmakers are introducing legislation to ban gay conversion therapy for minors, the practice of trying to "cure" people of being gay or lesbian. The bill is modeled after a similar ban in California that was signed into law last year, but has been temporarily blocked pending a review by the federal courts.

Lila Shapiro at Huffington Post reports:

Despite the unresolved legal challenge, two New York state lawmakers from New York City, Sen. Michael Gianaris and Sen. Deborah Glick, both progressive Democrats, said the time was right to propose a ban.

"There are often challenges to any manner of legislation that is protecting of the LGBT community and you can't sit on your hands and wait until things get resolved somewhere else," said Glick, who became the first openly gay legislator in New York in 1990.

According to the American Psychological Association website, ”To date, there has been no scientifically adequate research to show that therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation (sometimes called reparative or conversion therapy) is safe or effective.”

Gay son of “conversion therapy” founder on coming out to his dad

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 18:40:00 +0000

Richard Socarides is an openly gay attorney, writer and commentator who served as President Clinton's senior adviser on gay rights. He also happens to be the son of Charles Socarides, one of the controversial founders of so-called gay conversion therapy.

His father's status as a preeminent scholar on the "gay cure" made coming out a daunting prospect, to say the very least. And yet, Richard did it. After seeking advice from family, friends and his therapist, Richard sat down with his father and had "the talk":

I sat down and said, 'Dad, I think this is something we've known for some time together, but I'm gay and we have to find a way to be more honest with each other about this.' He was angry, but he certainly wasn't surprised and angry, and he was kind of a little surprised. So I kind of said I'm going to give you some time to think about it, to take this one, and I left. It did not last a long time and it did not have a good ending, at that moment.

Chris Christie opposes “gay conversion therapy”

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:28:00 +0000

After getting slammed for a waffling answer on whether he supports the practice of "gay conversion therapy," Gov. Chris Christie's office clarified that he is opposed to it.

"Governor Christie does not believe in conversion therapy," Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts wrote in a statement, the Star-Ledger reports. "There is no mistaking his point of view on this when you look at his own prior statements where he makes clear that people’s sexual orientation is determined at birth."

"I’m of two minds just on this stuff in general," Christie said earlier this week, regarding a bill that passed the state Senate that would ban the practice. "Number one, I think there should be lots of deference given to parents on raising their children. I don’t — this is a general philosophy, not to his bill — generally philosophically, on bills that restrict parents’ ability to make decisions on how to care for their children, I’m generally a skeptic of those bills. Now, there can always be exceptions to those rules and this bill may be one of them."

Christie clarified after his Democratic challenger Barbara Buono called it "disgusting," and the DGA started fundraising off of his comments.

The end of the rainbow for Dr. Oz?

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 20:04:00 +0000

When you're a famous doctor with a daily TV show, you've got to be careful about the claims you make. You've got to tread the line between giving entertaining sound bites for daytime viewers and knowing how to avoid giving any advice that could get you in hot water. So it was perhaps inevitable that cardiac surgeon, People Magazine Sexiest Man and television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz would find himself on the receiving end of a lawsuit from an unhappy viewer. What's surprising about it is the cause.

Earlier this week, 76-year-old Frank Dietl filed suit in Manhattan's Supreme Court, saying he'd received third-degree burns on his feet after sleeping with heated rice-filled socks as Oz recommended in a show last year. Dietl says he has neuropathy, which diminishes sensation in his feet and made him unable to realize he was being burned. The show's spokesman, meanwhile, issued a statement that it stands by "the content in our program as safe and educational for our viewers." Ah, good old educational Oz.

Judge temporarily blocks California’s ban on gay conversion therapy

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 22:18:00 +0000

A federal judge temporarily halted a California law that banned therapists from using gay conversion therapy on minors, ruling that the law could possibly violate the First Amendment.

U.S. District Judge William Shubb placed a temporary injunction on a law that Gov. Jerry Brown signed earlier this year that banned the use of "conversion" therapy on those under 18, known as "sexual orientation change efforts," which claim to be able to turn a gay person straight.

But three people filed suit against the law arguing that it was unconstitutional, including "a licensed marriage and family therapist who is also an ordained minister; a medical doctor and board-certified psychiatrist who works with people over 16 years old; and a man who was sexually attracted to other men but who wanted to practice conversion therapy to 'help' men like him," CNN reports.

Judge Shubb wrote in his order that the decision only applies to the three plaintiffs, and that "evidence that [sexual orientation change efforts] 'may' cause harm to minors based on questionable and scientifically incomplete studies that may not have included minors is unlikely to satisfy the demands of strict scrutiny."