Let’s say a patient talks to a therapist and says “Doc, there’s voices in my head telling me to kill people.”
What would you think of a therapist who said “No there aren’t.” What should happen to him if the patient does wind up killing a lot of people? Should the victims families be allowed to sue?
According to 1770. (a): any consumer.
No.
Not remotely.
Paragraph 2 makes clear that “sexual orientation change efforts,” do not include psychotherapies that do or don’t do certain things. But your suggestion that paragraph 2 should be read to apply to paragraph 1, with the result that we conclude that we’re talking about psychotherapies throughout, has zero support in the canons of statutory construction.
Paragraph 2 simply excludes certain psychotherapies. Period.
The individual consumer reading it.
I thought this bill was about sexual orientation, not gender identity.
There’s only one person reading your book?
I do agree that someone could write a book that was subject to this law. However, I don’t agree with the characterization that this is a ban on books “about changing an individual’s sexual orientation.” Even if we call this a “ban,” it doens’t ban books about a topic. It bans books that advertise that they can convert your sexual orientation. These books are lies.
If you’re okay with banning conversion therapy itself because it doesn’t work and only harms people, I don’t see why you can oppose banning books that purport to provide conversion therapy. Those books are failing truth in advertising laws.
I would have no problem banning Bricker’s book, because it is, by its title, advertising that the book can be used to change someone’s orientation. That is untrue, and thus it is false advertising. If someone buys the book trying to change their orientation, and it causes them harm, I see no difference than if they bought a medicine that purported to cure their cancer but instead caused them harm.
And the workaround is quite similar. Bricker would need a loud disclaimer about how his book couldn’t treat anyone. Though, personally, it’d make more sense to write a book entitled “How I changed my sexual orientation.” Though then the author needs to have actually done so, or I would argue that’s also false advertising. Don’t lie to sell things.
Of course, all this said, this isn’t a ban. This simply means they can sue if following the advice in your book causes them harm. I see no problem in that at all. Yes, that may discourage you from selling books peddling your snake oil. But that’s entirely intentional.
Bricker’s hypothetical book would be snake oil, and thus it makes sense that damage caused by it should be reachable via suit. He’d better be sure that his book won’t harm anyone, even if it doesn’t work.
The presumption is that children are too young to make rational decisions and need the state to protect them. The damage that is mentioned in the bill is that the therapy could provoke guilt or anxiety which does not seem worth the state restricting minors access to this therapy but since the time between puberty and legal adulthood is only a couple of years it is not a big deal.
This new bill does not have any such justification.
Because it would be one hell of a slippery slope. People would be afraid to write books. The courts would be filled with people accused of breaking the law because they said something is beneficial for x in a book and it didn’t work for some. Say goodbye to health magazines, for instance.
I’m okay with medical professionals being barred from providing supposed medical therapies that are unproven and unaccepted as safe and effective by the AMA. I’m also okay with non-medical professionals selling books claiming that weekly enemas are the key to a long life. One thing is not like the other.
Can you quote those laws?
This isn’t about opinions. It’s about what the law says. Can you quote a truth in advertising law that makes Bricker’s book bannable?
Cite? I’ve seen books on black magic that don’t have disclaimers.
How about if the therapist had a disclaimer that his therapy couldn’t treat anyone?
Still looking for an answer on the question of whether a non-lawyer selling a book on the law constitutes practicing law without a license.
Before clicking on the OP’s link or reading any reply to this thread, I am going to write this reply with a bold prediction; it will in fact turn out that California is NOT proposing to ban books.
(reads link, thread)
I was right.
Sure it can. In my area, an immigration non-profit was threatened with prosecution because they put out pamphlets explaining how to create certain family law documents for people facing potential deportation. That prosecution probably would have succeeded if they actually wanted to take the political hit for going through with it.
There is a gray area between informing people about the law and practicing law. A book would constitute practicing law without a license if it purported to inform people how they should make legal decisions in particular factual scenarios at some level of particularity beyond “you should call a lawyer” or “you could file in small claims court.”
That makes sense, because the pamphlets would be part and parcel of an activity to advise people to do certain things.
So is it fair to say that laws that prohibit the unlicensed practice of law also ban books?
Yes.
To expand: lots of laws ban books. I think such laws are generally bad and suspect. But that makes me weird. Most of you all seem OK with such laws.
So again, it seems to me that most people (yourself excluded) are fine with regulating the behavior of non-lawyers in spite of the “OMG BOOKS ARE BANNED!!!” hysteria…
So what is the problem with regulating scientifically unsound “medical” practices in spite of the “OMG BOOKS ARE BANNED!!!” hysteria?
If that threat of prosecution had merit, then there were a lot of other issues involved that you’re not telling us. Otherwise, on the face of it, you would have us believe that any book giving how-to advice on the law would be illegal. That’s just silly. Bookstores are overflowing with legal self-help books – do-it-yourself books on incorporation, patent law, bankruptcy, business law – just about everything. And what about all those medical books you can buy, or websites that diagnose medical symptoms for you? Or financial self-help books? All those books deal in areas requiring an actual practitioner to be licensed.
What you cannot do is, after reading those books, set yourself up in business providing legal or medical or financial advice without a license. The books themselves are perfectly legal.
Similarly, while I’m not intimately familiar with the details of the California law in question, the idea that it “bans books” sounds like unfounded hysteria from the usual right-wing sources.
The proposed law prohibits advertising, offering to engage in, or engaging in, practices that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation, considering such practices as a commercial service. It is amending Section 1761 of the Civil Code which covers “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”
The article linked to in the op claims that such is an effort to “ban the sale of books expressing orthodox Christian beliefs about sexual morality.” That is complete and utter poppycock. Hysteria is putting it nicely.
Even the narrower claim that the law would ban books that offer a how-to guide to change ones sexual orientations rest on accepting a book as being a “practice.” Are there actual cases that classify a book as being a practice? Have the authors and publishers of books that gives medical guidance for specific conditions commonly been prosecuted for practice without a license? Ever?
I’m trying to understand what you object to. Let’s say that a judge’s secretary picks up on legal knowledge throughout the years. If she wrote a book with tips on how pro se litigants should practice in the courtroom, would the publication of that book not be considered an unlawful practice of law?
If so, you are opposed to that? And (again) if so, would you be opposed to the secretary simply telling litigants what to do?
In short, it seems as if any licensing law would be a First Amendment violation in your view.
The evangelicals over on FB seem to think this is about or will lead to banning the Bible.
I’m not sure characterizing this concern as hysteria is really helping your argument. But I guess the question is not directed to me.
I can’t speak to the medical or financial books. But what you will generally find if you crack one of those legal self-help books is that they are not offering legal advice. A book on incorporation or drafting a will will offer general legal principles and categories of things to think about. But it will not be a step-by-step guide to completing the process with advice targeted to different concrete factual scenarios. Even the ones that claim to offer step-by-step advice tend to be some general steps followed by calling an attorney.
I’m sure there are some that cross the line into legal advice, just like there are some message board posts that cross the line. But that’s not exactly proof that they are immune from the law. It just means that, typically, the subjects of enforcement under these laws are people holding themselves out to be lawyers.
The statute itself defines the word practice by listing all of the things that count. So you’d have a tough statutory interpretation argument to say that an effort at sexual orientation change isn’t a practice when the statute says it is.
It depends on the content of the book, but it may well be the unlawful practice of law. I generally think prohibiting sharing knowledge is bad, and such laws should be narrowed to avoid that application.
I am not making a legal argument. AFAIK, all of this is perfectly permissible under the First Amendment. I am making a policy argument. We ought not try to censor books, even when they are fraudulent or dangerous.