Free Republic

Transgender ideology is permeating society, including some religious institutions, despite being a relatively new concept deserving careful consideration. Contemporary Protestant Christianity lacks universal agreement on these matters, especially within oldline Protestant churches. Creator of YouTube series, “Transgender and Christian,” Austen Hartke identifies as a transgender person of faith who interprets biblical passages as transgender-affirming. Hartke is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and a graduate of Luther Seminary’s Master of Arts program in Old Testament/Hebrew Bible Studies. “I believe God made all of me—gender identity included—and intended for me to be a transgender person who sees the...

Germany moved one step closer to banning “conversion therapy” targeting transgender and gay people after its Cabinet approved a draft bill on Wednesday morning. The bill will next be presented to Germany’s lower house, Health Minister Jens Spahn told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland news group (RND). If the bill passes both houses of parliament, advertising or offering conversion therapy will be banned and infringements will carry fines of up to €30,000 ($33,000). After the proposed ban, only adults who freely seek out the controversial “therapy” will be legally permitted to undergo it. It is estimated that up to 2,000 conversion therapies...

German Health Minister Jens Spahn unveiled a draft law on Monday that largely bans “conversion therapy” for LGBT+ people. The practice will be completely banned for all youths under the age of 18, the newspapers of the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) reported, citing a copy of the draft law. The law stops short of a complete ban, however, with consenting adults allowed to seek “treatment” for their sexuality — albeit under restricted circumstances. The practice would no longer be legal, however, if the person ended up consenting to the therapy after being deceived, coerced or threatened. Under the law, the ban...

German Health Minister Jens Spahn sent a clear, important signal on Monday when he declared that “homosexuality is not a disease and therefore does not need therapy to be treated.” He fleshed out his plans to ban so-called gay conversion therapy in Germany. The practice purports to transform homosexuals into heterosexuals. According to Spahn, anyone still found offering such “conversion therapies” will face up to one year in jail or a steep fine. Spahn’s step is both important and, unfortunately, still rather timely. That’s because many Germans are probably not even aware that each year, thousands of teenagers and adults...

A New York City law banning so-called gay conversion therapy would be repealed under legislation introduced Thursday over concerns that a pending federal lawsuit could lead to a decision unfavorable to the LGBTQ community if the case were to make it to the Supreme Court. Council Speaker Corey Johnson introduced the repeal in what he called “a painful decision.” The council had passed the ban against the widely discredited practice, which aims to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, less than two years ago, at the end of 2017, and it took effect last year. The proposed repeal...

Israeli Education Minister Rafi Peretz has said he believes so-called "gay conversion therapy" can work, triggering widespread condemnation. "I think it's possible," Mr Peretz, an Orthodox rabbi, told Israel's Channel 12 TV channel. He added that he had "a very deep familiarity with the issue". PM Benjamin Netanyahu said such remarks were "unacceptable". Other politicians and gay groups also voiced criticism. "Gay conversion therapy" has been widely discredited around the world. The practice attempts to change an individual's sexual orientation through psychological, spiritual and sometimes physical means. What did Mr Peretz say?"I think that it is possible to convert [someone's...

In light of the latest attack on sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE), namely, Amazon’s banning of books on the subject, we do well to separate fact from fiction. Are these change efforts really so dangerous? Should they be banned and even criminalized?According to the critics, “conversion therapy” is dangerous and harmful because it tries to change something that cannot be changed, akin to trying to change a lefthanded person into a righthanded person. In keeping with this analogy, it would also say that there is something fundamentally wrong with being lefthanded.As expressed in California’s SB 1172, which was signed into...

German Health Minister Jens Spahn announced his plan on Tuesday to ban so-called gay conversion therapy nationwide. Although the practice is not as common in Germany as it is in other nations, it is still sometimes practiced in religious communities. “Homosexuality is not a disease and therefore does not require treatment,” said Spahn, presenting his findings after having consulted with an expert commission of 46 representatives from the field of politics and science on whether a ban would be advisable, legally and medically. Spahn added that despite being called “therapy,” the practice “makes you sick and is not healthy.” The...

“No one will help us.” This refrain is echoed in story after story of parents whose child has suddenly announced that they are transgender. The parent of a teen with Asperger’s grieves that she cannot find “a professional that would consider her diagnosis of ASD” as possibly contributing to her gender dysphoria. When her daughter declared herself to be a boy, an anonymous parent writing at The Federalist looked for a “therapist who could help her sort out what her gender dysphoria meant.” What was going on in her daughter’s life that might be making her feel disassociated from...

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who has called for defunding the entire Department of Homeland Security, expressed outrage over the crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border this week, calling the conditions that illegal aliens were being detained in "abhorrent and inhumane" and a "reflection" of "white nationalism." "This is abhorrent and inhumane," Omar tweeted of the conditions in which a group of detained migrants was being kept. "It's without a doubt a reflection of what white nationalism is doing to our country. As a country, we have to acknowledge that this is how people are being treated here and decide that we...

Licensed therapists in New Jersey have been prohibited since 2013 from engaging in conversion therapy, an attempt to change a child’s gender identity or their sexual orientation from gay to straight. But encouraged by a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year, Liberty Counsel, a national religious legal organization, just asked the nation’s highest court for a chance to prove New Jersey’s law violates the free speech rights of counselors who believe the treatment works. The ruling in June struck down portions of a California law that required crisis pregnancy centers to tell pregnant women about the availability of publicly-funded family-planning...

German Health Minister Jens Spahn said Friday he will seek to ban conversion therapies that claim to change sexual orientation. “Homosexuality is not an illness, which is why it does not need to be treated,” Spahn, who is gay himself, told the Berlin daily left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung. He hoped that a German law banning such therapies could be adopted by the middle of the year. […] “I do not believe in these therapies, mainly owing to my own homosexuality,” said Spahn, who represents the right wing of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU party. …

A prominent gay conversion therapist and active member of the “ex-gay” scene has announced his intentions to start a new life as a homosexual. David Matheson, author of the book Becoming a Whole Man and creator of several experimental programs which seek to “address incongruous same-sex attractions” revealed he is now seeking to date men. The announcement was revealed by fellow gay conversion advocate Rich Wyler, founder of the People Can Change organization, in a post to a private Facebook group obtained by Truth Wins Out (TWO), a group who fight against anti-LGBT prejudice and discrimination. “David…says that living a...

Chloe Grace Moretz's new film tackles the controversial issue of gay conversion therapy - an issue that's close to home for the actress. In The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Moretz plays a teenager sent away to a Christian gay conversion camp in the 1990s.

A French doctor claiming he can treat homosexuality using alternative therapies like homeopathy was on Wednesday placed under investigation by the Swiss canton of Geneva where he has been practicing. Regional health minister Mauro Poggia asked a commission overseeing health professionals and patient rights in the canton to open an investigation into the practice of Dr. Jean-Yves Henry, he told the Le Courrier daily in an interview. “For him, it would seem that homosexuality is an illness to cure. This element is enough to justify opening an investigation,” Poggia was quoted as saying. […] Henry, who is a licenced general...

When the topic of “conversion” or “ex-gay” therapy comes up, it invokes images of sad, lonely, and desperate gay men and women praying to cease being who they are. It can conjure the image of a domineering religious figure shouting to the heavens of hell and demons over a terrified child. Others, especially in the LGBT media, revel in the anticipation of catching well-known ex-gays in sexually compromising positions. But for the most part, the practice seems like a relic from another time, and only a small number of the religiously devout ever encounter it. In 2014, only 8 percent...

There are problems with impeaching Donald Trump. A big one is the holy terror waiting in the wings. That would be Mike Pence, who mirrors the boss more than you realize. He’s also self-infatuated. Also a bigot. Also a liar. Also cruel. To that brimming potpourri he adds two ingredients that Trump doesn’t genuinely possess: the conviction that he’s on a mission from God and a determination to mold the entire nation in the shape of his own faith, a regressive, repressive version of Christianity. Trade Trump for Pence and you go from kleptocracy to theocracy. That’s the takeaway from...

Maine Governor Paul LePage has vetoed a bill that would outlaw so-called “conversion therapy” aimed at changing the sexual orientation or gender identity of a minor, sending a blistering message to state legislators chiding them for not passing an unrelated bill that would have outlawed female genital mutilation. LePage, a Republican, pointed out that supporters of the bill didn’t provide evidence that any licensed therapists in Maine are practicing conversion therapy, but he said Maine hospitals see cases of botched genital mutilations “gone horribly wrong.” “Legislators who could not stand up and outlaw the permanent mutilation of young girls’ sexual...

Controversial "gay conversion therapies" are to be banned as part of a government plan to improve the lives of gay and transgender people. A national survey of 108,000 members of the LGBT community suggested 2% have undergone the practice with another 5% having been offered it. It also found more than two-thirds of LGBT people avoid holding hands in public, for fear of negative reactions. The prime minister said nobody "should ever have to hide who they are". A 75-point plan to improve the lives of LGBT people, costing £4.5m, has been produced in response to the survey. It includes...

It's not unusual for a writer to dedicate a book to their parents - but for Garrard Conley to have dedicated Boy Erased to his mother and father and thanked them in the acknowledgements is more surprising, given that it is all about what they put him through. They are the ones who told him he had to go through "gay conversion therapy" or leave the family forever. Conley had been outed to his parents by his rapist after being assaulted in college. But, to his Baptist preacher father and his mother, the crime was in him being gay. They...