The California State Assembly is slated to vote on legislation that has been interpreted as broad enough to ban the sale of books that address helping people overcome unwanted same-sex attractions.
AB 2943 adds “[a]dvertising, offering to engage in, or engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with an individual” to the state’s list of illegal “unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices undertaken by any person in a transaction intended to result or that results in the sale or lease of goods or services to any consumer.”
“Sexual orientation change efforts” are defined as “any practices that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation.”
The bill makes no exceptions for adults who actively seek such efforts, or minors whose parents have given their consent.
The bill passed the assembly’s Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee 8-2 and the Judiciary Committee 8-1, clearing the way for a floor vote. That vote has yet to be scheduled, but the California Family Council says it could take place as soon as Thursday.
“Conversion therapy as a practice implies an inherent wrongness in who I am,” Democratic Assemblyman Evan Low, who introduced the bill, declared on April 10. “There is nothing wrong with who I am or with anyone in the LGBT community. This legislation sets California apart as a state of inclusion, not exclusion.”
Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), disagrees.
“Traditional medical ethics, enshrined in the Oath of Hippocrates, requires physicians to prescribe according to the best of their ability and judgment, and to avoid doing harm. And patients have the right to choose their therapeutic goals,” she said. “These bills impose on all Californians, by law, the opinion of an activist lobby that same-sex attraction or the belief that a person is imprisoned in a body of the ‘wrong’ biological sex is always normal, healthy, and immutable.”
Pro-homosexual lawmakers in other states, such as Washington, have pushed similar legislation prohibiting treatment for unwanted sexual attraction, but critics say the scope of AB 2943 is unprecedented.
National Review’s David French, an attorney who specialized in religious liberty with the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) and the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), wrote Tuesday that by classifying the subject under prohibited “goods,” the legislation would “actually–among other things–ban the sale of books.” He added on Twitter that it was “terribly drafted.”
Full story at LifeSiteNews.
So much for “pro-choice” — one is censored from seeking wanted conversion therapy. The inmates have definitely taken over the asylum!!
1) People generally want legislation that protects them from quack therapies and products that don’t perform as expected, and that is the intention of this legislation.
2) Most of the people who don’t want people to have “homosexual attractions” aren’t homosexuals, or don’t need therapy to suppress those attractions.
3) Even if desired, there is no known therapy short of sexual mutilation that can change people’s sexual attractions, whether for people of the same sex or opposite sex.
So you are saying that the man, and others like him, who became confused about his sexuailty because his grandmother put dresses on him when a toddler, told him he was pretty, and made him think the only way he could get her love was to be a girl, had no right to get help sorting out his confusion. I disagree. I think people who dress children in opposite sex clothing, except in emergenices, and doctors who tell normal bodied people that they can change their sex, are the quacks and child abusers.
Anne TE You are so wise.
I thank you for your compliment, but I often pray the prayer from the book of Sirach, “Lord give wisdom the attendant at thy throne,” hoping He will put some sense in my head. I am not disapprovingf ladies wearing ladies slacks or jeans when necessary nor Scotsmen wearing kilts, nor a woman throwing on her husband’s jacket to take out the garbage, but making a little boy wear strictly girls clotning or vice versa is a no, no.
I beleive good parents should insist that their underaged children wear the clothing proper to their own sex, either male or female. The only exception would be a child born with a genital deformity who really would need good professional help, but that is rare. As far as I know such harmful methods as shock treatments and lobotomies are forbidden or should be, but so-called sex change operations on normal bodied people are just as harmful.
Word it any way you want this bill is wrong on so many levels. On the one hand you deny parents the right to keep their children from being preached at and influenced by the LGBT community in school under the guise of anti-bullying instructions while on the other hand you use the strong arm of the law to bully the rest of us. You’ve tread on our constitutional rights for religious liberty and now you want to tread on our freedom of speech.
I never heard of legislation like that you mention. Sometimes regulatory agencies ban products or restrict how they can be marketed.
Sexual attraction can change. People can change. If someone has something about themselves that they want to change, they should try. They may give up on changing it if it is too difficult or they may have no success in changing it but may find coping techniques so that it can be managed. It can take years or decades.
There are always quacks and people trying to make a quick buck so caveat emptor…
Anonymous, please let us know if you addressed your post to the one who calls himself “Your Faithful Catholic” or to me as I am not sure what legislation to which you referred, and I agree with agree with some of your post.
It was to YFC. I have never heard of legislation banning quack therapies or products that don’t perform as they should.
The FDA does it all the time. The Federal Trade Commission does it all the time. The Consumer Product Safety Commission does it – which is why products are recalled all of the time because they cause injury to innocent people. You can’t market a drug that claims to cure people of things unless it endures three thorough phases of testing. You can’t market a product that performs a certain way if it doesn’t perform in that way. These are government agencies empowered to shut down scams. That’s their job. See, for example: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/features/scam-alerts
Correction: I agree with some of your post. The rest I do not quite understand if it was addressed to me.
Ultimately, this law will be struck as violative of (at least) the First Amendment, in several respects.
Done for political purposes, the law will only exist to confuse. Perhaps CA voters should look at the kind of fools that they are sending to Sacramento.
This man and Richard Pan serve the god Pan. Just as there are noble people with the last name Pan, there are those who serve evil, but they can change through God’s grace. There is another Asian woman who has chosen to serve Christ. She is called the “Napalm Girl”. We who remember the Viet Nam War and lived through those times remember her well. She has written an article entililed “These bombs led me to Christ.” I recommend it, and I pray for forgiveness against my enemies and to help others understand that all life is worth living.
Tired of all this sinful nonsense leading us on a path to hell? Then vote the bums out in your districts in the primary. Get them the heck out of the State and Federal Legislature, Executive Branch, and Judiciary! Enough is enough. I want California to be a great state again. Then after their voted out, have them investigated for subversion and all corruption they are alleged to have been involved in.
That sir is easier said then done. At least the Democrats, along with Republicans have gotten rid of one Democrat senator who was pushing some of this trash, but often those who are put in are just as bad.,