Oklahoma
moves to protect 'change therapy' Proposed
law declares right to counseling 'to control or end unwanted sexual attraction'
by Bob Unruh
Lawmakers in Oklahoma have proposed a law that would protect
the right of people with unwanted same-sex attractions to obtain counseling and
therapy.
WND
reported California and New Jersey lawmakers
and courts barred counselors from talking to minors about changing unwanted
same-sex attractions, even if it is requested.
The court fight over the censorship statutes in the two
states has been elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court.
A petition explains: “If the client’s gender identity,
mannerisms, or expressions differ from the client’s biological sex and the
client’s feelings are unwanted – meaning [that] he does not want to transition
from a male to a female identity – but instead wants to ‘change’ his female
identity, mannerisms, or expression to conform to his biological sex, then
[state law] forbids such counseling.
“Similarly, the statute permits the counseling of a client
to affirm same-sex attractions, but prohibits counseling a minor to change
unwanted SSA. Under no circumstances may a licensed counselor counsel a minor
to change unwanted SSA. Nor may the counselor counsel a minor to change
unwanted opposite sex mannerisms, expressions, or identity, even when the
client wants to change them based on sincerely held religious beliefs,” it
stated.
Attorneys with Liberty Counsel
have fought the provisions in both California and New Jersey.
House Bill 1598 is “an act relating to conversion therapy;
creating the Freedom to Obtain Conversion Therapy Act; defining certain terms;
providing right to obtain certain counseling or conversion therapy’ preventing
certain infringement by the state; providing certain rights of parents;
permitting mental health provider to engage in sexual orientation change
efforts with a child; providing for codification; and declaring an emergency.”
The
proposal states: “The people of this state have the
right to seek and obtain counseling or conversion therapy from a mental health
provider in order to control or end any unwanted sexual attraction, and no
state agency shall infringe upon that right. Parents may obtain such counseling
or therapy for their children under eighteen (18) years of age without
interference by the state.”
In an interview, Kern told WND the bill is preemptive,
aiming to prevent activists from coming into the state to press for the kind of
laws passed in California and New Jersey.
“The LGBTQ activists are really ramping up to make a
full-fledged attack,” she said. “So our thinking is, what better state than
Oklahoma to get this passed?”
She said supporters hope it will be a standard for other
states.
Kern noted elected officials overwhelmingly are Republican,
and she expects the bill to pass.
An important part of the effort, she said, will be providing
lawmakers with the facts about the issue so they are not misled.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld New Jersey’s
censorship plan, Liberty Counsel noted, but its discussion created a split with
another circuit on the appropriate level of scrutiny applied to regulators of
such speech and also on the issue of whether counseling even constitutes
speech.
The petition said that “without proper guidance from this
court on the appropriate categorization of communications between counselor and
client or doctor and patients, these professionals are constantly at risk of
statutes, such as A3371, that seek to remove their communications from the
requisite level of protection afforded by the First Amendment.”
Said Liberty Counsel in a statement: “The idea is not sound
that all speech by licensed professionals can be silenced simply by virtue of
the individual holding a professional license. Professional licensing statutes
do not give the state veto power of disfavored viewpoints and speech of
licensed professionals. The First Amendment simply does not tolerate such
overreach.”
The petition continues: “A3371 represents a gross intrusion
into the sacrosanct area of the relationship between counselors and clients and
doctors and patients. This relationship, and the therapeutic alliance that
develops between counselor and client and doctor and patient, is one of the
oldest and most protected in the nation’s history.”
Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, said: “If counseling
regarding change is banned today in New Jersey, tomorrow a different
legislature with an opposite political agenda could ban affirmation and allow
only counsel regarding change. The state thwarts self-determination when it
interferes with the counselor-client or doctor-patient relationship.”
Liberty
Counsel explained: “SOCE counseling has been singled
out for prohibition merely because the state is opposed to and disagrees with
the goal of some clients who want to change or eliminate their unwanted SSA and
to conform their identity, behaviors, and attractions to their own
self-perception or conform them to their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
The lower courts ruled that the state’s restrictions on
counselors’ speech “does not directly or indirectly implicate, regulate, or
target speech on its face.”
The Supreme Court needs to address the issue because, among
other reasons, the circuit appellate courts have issued rulings that disagree,
LC said.
WND
reported the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in California said the counseling is “conduct” and not speech.
In the New Jersey dispute, Liberty Counsel represents two
licensed mental health professionals, the National Association for Research and
Therapy of Homosexuality and the American Association of Christian Counselors.
When the 9th Circuit released its opinion in the California
case, there was a stinging rebuke in the dissent.
“May California remove from the First Amendment’s ambit the
speech of certain professionals when the state disfavors its content or its
purpose? – The Supreme Court has definitely and unquestionably said ‘No.’ It is
no longer within our discretion to disagree,” said the minority opinion from
Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain.
He was joined by two other judges in the dissent, which
said, “Legislatures cannot nullify the First Amendment’s protections for speech
by playing this labeling game.”
“Indeed,” he said, “authoritative precedents have
established that neither professional regulations generally, nor even a more
limited subclass of rules, remain categorically outside of the First
Amendment’s reach.”
Wrote O’Scannlain: “The panel cites no case holding that
speech, uttered by professionals to their clients, does not actually constitute
‘speech’ for purposes of the First Amendment. And that should not surprise us –
for the Supreme Court has not recognized such a category. … The Supreme Court
has chastened us lower courts for creating, out of whole cloth, new categories
of speech to which the First Amendment does not apply. But, that is exactly
what the panel’s opinion accomplishes in this case.”
http://www.wnd.com/2015/01/oklahoma-moves-to-protect-change-therapy/
