One of many Woke World freak-outs going on now is one over the strong signals the Supreme Court gave off during oral argument that it was going to overturn Colorado’s law banning so-called “conversion therapy” as unconstitutional. Naturally the progressive bloc on the court thinks the law is hunky-dory. Why would anyone not want to be gay?
One of the issue that came up in oral argument was whether there is any evidence that trying to talk someone out of being gay is harmful. There isn’t, but Court Dunce Sonia Sotamayor opined that “I don’t think the state has to provide a study to show that the advice is not sound,” comparing conversion therapy to a dietitian or counselor telling a client to do something that would harm their body. In other words, the banned therapy is just bad, and every right-thinking person knows it. This is consistent with Patton Oswalt’s certainty that whatever progressives favor must represent progress, hence opposing it is per se a problem. Progressives believe that being gay is just wonderful. That’s good enough for Sonia: treating someone for it is automatically harmful.
What an ongoing embarrassment she is.
Intelligent arguments came from, among others…
- Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who asked Colorado’s lawyers to explain whether the banned therapy truly causes harm with a better answer than Sonia’s “It just does, that’s all!” Colorado general, Shannon Stevenson, told the justices that the harm comes “from telling someone there is something innate about yourself you can change — and then you spend all kinds of time and effort trying to do that, and you fail.” Wow, what a terrible answer! I guess all psychiatry and talk therapy should be banned, not to mention 12 step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. My wife went to AA, but never was able to conquer her addiction, which eventually killed her. But it was AA that was causing the harm! I never considered that.
- Justice Alito and the other justices not pre-commited to the progressive agenda indicated that they believe that the law impermissibly interferes with free speech. Alito said the voluntary talk therapy ban “looks like blatant viewpoint discrimination” by government officials. After the state pointed out that the current medical position is that being gay is not a disorder or an illness, as was once believed, and that the psychiatric profession declares that conversion therapy doesn’t and can’t work, Alito asked whether medical consensus can be wrong or colored by ideology. Hahahaha!
That Sam, what a cut-up! Look no further than the Wuhan virus freakout for an answer to that question….and Democrats tried to punish American who didn’t bow to “medical consensus” then, too.
I am obligated to point out here that I am fairly certain that conversion therapy is a crock, and that favoring it is stupid and biased, requiring near complete ignorance of and and lack of contact with gay people. I also understand why gays find the whole idea offensive, as I explained in this post about Texas Republicans putting a pro-conversion therapy plank in their official platform, calling it “reparative therapy and treatment for those patients seeking healing and wholeness…:
“This is slander, no more, no less. Homosexuality isn’t a disorder, a malady or a disease, like gonorrhea or dementia, and it is degrading, insulting and marginalizing to characterize it as such. Nobody “heals” from homosexuality—it’s not like a broken arm— although many LBGT individuals require healing from the emotional abuse wreaked by these kinds of bigoted attacks. Cathie Adams, president of the conservative Texas Eagle Forum, and a major culprit in promoting this embarrassing, 19th Century position, has told the press, “I do not think homosexuals are born as homosexuals.” Well, Cathy, there are people who don’t believe in all sorts of facts and truths that their tiny minds and biased souls won’t accept, and that’s fine, for this is a free and tolerant country. That does not mean, however, that major political parties should ignore their duty to be responsible, fair and sane to such people.”
In another section of the Texas anti-gay screed was reference to “homosexual lifestyle,” the classic tell that a speaker is an anti-gay bigot.
Despite all of that, I concluded my critique by writing in part, “OK…we allow people to go to faith healers, acupuncture specialists and other forms of dubious medical treatments. As long as the treatment itself isn’t harmful—I have previously endorsed the right of stupid parents to send their gay kids to such counselors if it isn’t affirmatively damaging—I don’t like the government telling an adult that he or she can’t seek treatment for anything they want treatment for—insomnia, poor memory, being a Texas Republican.”
At the time I didn’t consider the First Amendment issue, because the post was about the platform’s flagrant bigotry. But someone voluntarily seeking out “therapist” to talk them out of being gay is, based on current evidence, only wasting money, like, say, Woody Allen paying millions to high-priced psychotherapists and remaining a sick bastard after 50 years.
One more thing: if this dispute doesn’t prove for all time that progressives are remarkably skilled at holding opposing beliefs in their heads without feeling any discomfort, nothing will. The Left is fighting like honey badgers to allow school personnel to talk kids into thinking they are girls trapped in boys’ bodies or vice-versa, resulting in life-wrenching hormone treatments and surgery, but insist that conversion therapy for gays must be banned as harmful.
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Ethics Alarms 
With respect to the issue before the court, this case is as much of a slam dunk as there is in Supreme Court jurisprudence. There is no question that forbidding speech, even in open defiance of “standard of care,” violates the First Amendment.
I offer no judgment on the efficacy of this “therapy,” because I don’t have to as it doesn’t matter in the instant case. Talking to someone about their sexuality in the doctor-patient context, whatever the content of that discussion, cannot be outlawed consistent with our Constitution.
Isn’t gender affirming care considered conversion therapy? Seems to me that trying to convert a male to female is a conversion and genital mutilation and hormone therapy can cause irreparable harm so it could be used to make the claim conversion therapy is in fact harmful.
Funny, these lawyers for those seeking to retain the ban did not think to use the clinical data from gender affirming care.
This is one of the reasons why many of the LGs are seeking to separate from the TQs. “What if they’re not transgender, but just gay?”
You are probably right. If surgical procedures can turn a man into a woman or a woman into a man it might be possible to create a surgical procedure to “rewire” people into heterosexuality. I really don’t think that would be a good thing in any case.
In revisiting the issue raised by conversion therapy, I’d like to throw my two cents in with a bit more scientific backing than Steven Mark Pilling did in the previously referenced post.I believe there is ample evidence that many homosexuals are indeed “born that way”, but there is also mounting evidence that this is not always the case. In a particular study cited by The New Atlantis:
Now you could argue that these kids who reversed themselves did so without conversion therapy, but I can imagine scenarios where a person with psychological issues indentifies somewhere along the lines of LGBTQ in order to make sense of their feelings, but may not continue to feel like they qualify as LGBTQ if the other issues are properly addressed. Again, this may not be the case with everyone on the LGBTQ spectrum, but the possibility of other issues pushing someone that way shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.
There are also the social factors to consider. Various societies throughout history had varying degress of tolerance for homosexuality, but the concept of homosexuals or the BTQs having their own seperate culture is relatively new. Zoebrain and I have previously brought up the case where a strong homosexual undercurrent is found among the men in Pashtun culture, yet the individuals in question tend not to consider themselves homosexual; they’ll flirt with guys, act effiminate, and maybe even have sexual dalliances, but they still get married to women. I admit I don’t know how conversion therapy is supposed to work, and I’ll grant it’s at least as sketchy as any other psychiatric practice, but if someone finds themselves on the LGBTQ side and decide they don’t want to be there, it strikes me that getting professional help in that regard isn’t so crazy.
I think it is stupid to ban conversion therapy, but I also think it is permissible.
My understanding is that conversion therapy is banned for certain professionals (psychiatrists? psychologists?). I do not see how the ban violates the First Amendment when you are talking about a regulated profession.
An example would be lawyers. The speech of lawyers is highly regulated. We can’t disclose confidential information; we can’t disclose privileged communications; we cannot advise clients to break the law; we are compelled to inform the Court if we have stated something to the Court that turns out to be false. These would typically be considered First Amendment violations, except that the legal profession has determined that the privilege of holding the professional license requires certain behavior and that those mandates are necessary, even if it infringes on a lawyer’s First Amendment rights.
So, I leave the other professions to regulate themselves.
-Jut
It has been clear to me for decades now that ABA and the Bar associations are terrified of the Rules of Professional Conduct coming under First Amendment scrutiny. And that judges do not have the integrity to fairly apply the law against the legal profession.
“There isn’t, but Court Dunce Sonia Sotamayor opined that “I don’t think the state has to provide a study to show that the advice is not sound,” comparing conversion therapy to a dietitian or counselor telling a client to do something that would harm their body.”
And, yet, I’m sure Justice Sotomayor would have no problem with a dietician or counselor being replaced with a teacher or school advisor in the following scenario.
“One more thing: if this dispute doesn’t prove for all time that progressives are remarkably skilled at holding opposing beliefs in their heads without feeling any discomfort, nothing will. The Left is fighting like honey badgers to allow school personnel to talk kids into thinking they are girls trapped in boys’ bodies or vice-versa, resulting in life-wrenching hormone treatments and surgery, but insist that conversion therapy for gays must be banned as harmful.”
My long-time (twenty-five years) lesbian very good friend and erstwhile piano teacher flummoxed me once by saying of an acquaintance of hers who was struggling with whether she was a lesbian, “She’s afraid to take a walk on the wild side!” I didn’t say anything, but I think a “Wait. What?” would have been in order.
Maybe HT can weigh in and enlighten us in his articulate, concise and oft times brazen, in the sense he’s not afraid to wander off the reservation, manner.
Well, this will open up a complete can of worms… look up the stories of Becket Cook and Rosaria Butterfield.
I’m sure there are other stories of people changing their life and leaving the lifestyle that aren’t the same path the two above took, and not unlike de-transitioners pressured early on, don’t you DARE speak of these things (leaving the trans community).
I think the Alphabet Mafia has been drinking a little too much of their own Kool-aid, and that pride has morphed in to arrogance. Especially, as others have noted, the “T” portion of the group. But that arrogance and militancy means that any question of the dogma “born that way” means you’re homophobic, and thus a Nazi, and we saw what happened to Charlie Kirk. And science and psychology have been wrong, just not in this case. Given above, are you really going to get honest and robust investigation on this topic?
In some sense, we’re all “born that way”, and nobody can force us to change, especially if we like or love what we’re doing.
You do you, but if you decide that you don’t like what you’re doing and want to change, you shouldn’t be prevented from seeking help to achieve that.
Colorado general, Shannon Stevenson, told the justices that the harm comes “from telling someone there is something innate about yourself you can change — and then you spend all kinds of time and effort trying to do that, and you fail.”
Something innate like … biological sex? To the best of my knowledge, humans lack the ability to change xx to xy, or xy to xx. So that is an innate characteristic. So the entire transgender policy position is conversion therapy that should be outlawed according to democrats?