For certain definitions of secular, anyway.
Might you be referring to this:
, and/or it’s association with Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out” ministry?
Would the law forbid sending children for religious studies that included a lot of anti-gay material? A law relegating conversion therapy to quackery is a good thing in my opinion. The people who run those anti-gay organizations will likely be able to get around the law in some way by citing their freedom of religion but at least they won’t be able to pretend like they’re practicing medicine.
I’m fine with making that illegal in the interest of equality. However, that type of therapy does not happen, so there’s little harm in not having the new law specifically refer to it.
I like this new law. As Der Trihs said, conversion therapy is tantamount to child abuse. Its proveably useless and has caused harm, both physical and psychological, to people who have underwent the procedure. Banning this kind of quackery is no different than telling people they can’t practice medicine without a license.
What counts as “conversion therapy”? Suppose a local RCC holds prayer sessions for teens who identify as gay for the purpose of making them non-gay? Suppose they have programs to enroll these kids in football teams and some sort of ROTC like boot camp?
Here’s a better way: Allow insurance companies to opt of paying for this type of therapy. I don’t see how we can disallow parents from spending their own money on teaching their kids nonsense when we allow them to enroll the kids in Sunday Schools that teach creationism and that homosexual acts will send you to hell.
To my eyes, the law applies to “mental health providers,” and it bans people like psychiatrists and social workers and guidance counselors from creating and participating in these programs. It wouldn’t apply to something like a prayer group. Here’s the text of the law.
I don’t see how this will do anything but drive the practice into the layman sphere (pun intended). Exactly how many licensed health care providers are practicing Conversion Therapy on minors in CA today?
Even one is too much
It makes sense that it should be illegal for anyone to enroll another person in conversion therapy, regardless of how old they are. If minors want to seek out therapy on their own to change their orientation, that’s their choice to make (does it ever happen?).
It’s rather limited as my understanding is those practicing conversion therapy run afoul of the medical ethics boards so they can’t maintain a license for long.
I think the states effort would be better used going after unlicensed individuals trying to sell themselves as legitimate therapists. Starting with those that advocate conversion therapy.
My understanding of this has the state stepping into a grey area where they police who parents can put their children into contact with.
If a priest is anti-gay and advocates that gays can be cured, can people no longer leave their child in that priests presence?
So far as I can tell, the law doesn’t prevent parents from doing anything. It prevents mental health professionals from offering a service to minors. Parents can do whatever they want.
The current set of regulations of mental health providers in CA runs to 632 pages (two columns of small font on each page). State regulation of licensed mental health professionals isn’t exactly a new thing in the US.
The law prevents psychiatrists and other caregivers from practicing these “techniques” on people under 18, so no, minors can’t seek “treatment” on their own. Enrolling a minor in a program like this is not illegal. It’s illegal on the mental health professional’s end. And to me that seems like a much simpler basis for the law. Rather than putting restrictions on parents and getting into arguments about the kinds of programs parents can put their children in, they banned some so-called therapies by saying psychiatrists and social workers can’t use them on minors.
So, any clowns can start up a conversion therapy business, so long as they are NOT licensed therapists? Um, I see some problems with that picture.
Are there any restriction on using the word “therapy” in a business title? Somehow I’m doubtful of this, given how many aroma therapists are out there stinking up the air.
And even if they can’t call it therapy, they can just pick another word – like “assistance”.
If only there were a law against killing children! We should get on that.
But no, it doesn’t seem that strange to me to ban an ineffective therapy from being practiced by therapists. If anything, there ought to be (and maybe is?) a ban on other ineffective therapies.
I guess. But this way you can’t provide “conversion therapy” under the guise of it being psychiatry. If people want to treat their kid with woo, they should be able to, so long as its clear to the people being treated that they aren’t getting scientific-based medicine.
So long story short, I think the law strikes a good balance between allowing people to raise their kids and protecting their kids from charlatans.
What problems are you seeing, other than people living in a free society being able to do what they want even if you don’t approve? As long as no is getting hurt, this isn’t any more dangerous than allowing fortune telling or allowing Catholics to go to confession.
:rolleyes: People ARE getting hurt. This “conversion therapy” is abuse, pure and simple.
Eh. Your definition of abuse is someone talking about something you don’t agree with. Unless you want to start controlling the content of conversations that people are allowed to have with each other, then you are never going to end “abuse”.
I’m picturing actual clowns.
:rolleyes: We are talking about people being severely traumatized, with a fair number killing themselves. Perhaps you don’t consider homosexuals human enough for that to qualify as abuse, but I do.