Free Republic

The New York city council is planning to repeal a two-year-old ban on “gay conversion therapy” to avoid a costly uphill legal fight. The New York Times reports that the city’s openly gay Council Speaker Corey Johnson introduced a bill on Thursday to repeal a measure passed in 2017 banning the sale of “services intended to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” With a conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court makeup, Johnson doesn’t seem to want the law to be tested in the legal system. He vowed that the council would act quickly to repeal the law. “Obviously I didn’t...

Make no mistake about it. The news from California is very big and very positive. As reported in the LA Times, "California legislator shelves bill to ban paid 'gay conversion therapy' for adults."In a somewhat unprecedented move in the history of gay activism, Assemblyman Evan Low, himself gay, has withdrawn AB2943 from a final vote.The bill, which would have made it illegal for people of any age to receive professional help for unwanted same-sex attractions, was almost certain to pass the Assembly, having been approved by the Senate 25-11. But to Low's credit, he took the time to meet with faith...

Just when you’ve finally recovered from the gut-punching Carell–Chalamet performances in the Beautiful Boy trailer, Lucas Hedges and Nicole Kidman have arrived to shatter your heart. In the first trailer for Boy Erased, Hedges stars as Jared, the song of a Baptist pastor who has been outed to his family (Kidman and Russell Crowe). In response, the family sends Jared to a conversion therapy program run by Joel Edgerton. Welcome to the fall of Lucas Hedges winning every award imaginable — it’s what he deserves! Boy Erased co-stars Joe Alwyn and Troye Sivan, who contributes an original song for the...

May 1 - The US Supreme Court on Monday left intact California's ban on "gay conversion" therapy aimed at turning youths under age 18 away from homosexuality, rejecting a Christian minister's challenge to the law asserting it violates religious rights. The justices, turning away a challenge to the 2012 law for the second time in three years, let stand a lower court's ruling that it was constitutional and neither impinged upon free exercise of religion nor impacted the activities of clergy members.

A leading American Jewish group promoting therapy it said could turn gays to heterosexuals was ordered shut in December by a New Jersey court, amid growing efforts in the U.S. to curb the generally discredited practice. But therapists with ties to the shuttered group say they have found a haven for their work in Israel. Israel's Health Ministry advises against so-called "gay conversion" or "reparative" therapy, calling it scientifically dubious and potentially dangerous, but no law limits it. In Israel, practitioners say their services are in demand, mostly by Orthodox Jewish men trying to reduce their same-sex attractions so they...

Oregon became the third state in the United States to ban gay conversion therapy, a practice that has attracted much debate. Democratic Gov. Kate Brown signed the bill into law earlier this week, though an ex-gay group has protested and called the bill "child abuse." CNN reported on Wednesday that the bill signed by Brown, the first openly bisexual governor in the U.S., will block therapist from offering conversion or reparative therapy on individuals who are younger than 18. Laws against the practice have also been made in California, New Jersey, and Washington D.C. While the American Psychological Association has...

The world is blowing up, the U.S. economy is still in the pits, and the administration is demonstrating an incompetence rare even for Washington.  So, naturally, the president has turned his attention to the pressing issue of transgender rights.  It is vital that transgender people get to use the bathroom of their choice and that nobody rag on them, or make fun of them, or ignore them.  Valerie Jarrett wrote the press release: In a statement that was posted on Wednesday evening alongside a WhiteHouse.gov petition begun in honor of Ms. Alcorn, Mr. Obama condemned the practice, sometimes called...

A new push to end the practice launched on Tuesday Sam Brinton says that his father first tried physical abuse to rid his young son of homosexual feelings. When that didn’t work, Brinton’s parents turned to something called reparative therapy. Some of the memories are hazy more than 10 years later, but Brinton does remember the tactics the counselor used. There was talk therapy, about how God disapproved, and there was aversion therapy, during which pictures of men touching men would be accompanied by the application of heat or ice. “It was pretty much mental torture,” Brinton says. “To this...

A proposed ban against New York health professionals trying to change a child’s sexual orientation through therapy comes too late for Matthew Shurka, a 26-year-old Long Island man who says he remains emotionally scarred from five years of attempts to “cure” his homosexuality. “My anxiety was at its worst,” Shurka said of the therapy that began when he was 16. “I never attempted suicide, but I had a lot of suicidal thoughts and dreams and thinking about it, considering it.” […] New York’s Democratic-led Assembly is set to consider a bill on Wednesday that would ban the therapy on minors....

" Change for the homosexual is difficult, but still possible, researchers of a newly released study say. "The Thomas Project: A Study of Religiously-Mediated Change in Exodus Group Participants" presents evidence that there are people who have successfully changed, or experienced "conversion," from homosexuality to heterosexuality. The study,... " I know that this is old, however I want to get other's opinions on gay conversion. I believe in it. However, I want to see how other conservatives feel about it. My hypothesis is that conservatives will approve of it and that hopefully, will spread the notion of gay conversion.