If it passes the California Senate and the governor signs it, Assembly Bill 2943 would make the selling, advertising, describing, blogging, mentioning or even holding or phoning about a conference on gay conversion therapy to a consenting adult a violation of the state’s consumer fraud laws.
This is an expansion of the existing Californian law, which only addresses minors. Evan Low, an openly gay identified member of California’s Assembly proposed the bill, which would make it an “unlawful business practice to engage in any transaction intended to result or that results in the sale or lease of goods or services to any consumer that advertise, offer to engage in, or do engage in sexual orientation change efforts with an individual.”
He gave an emotional testimony (according to the website The Federalist) of his own experience as a gay man who had tried conversion therapy and had a negative experience. The bill defines sexual orientation change efforts as “any practices that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation. This includes efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”
But it is not merely California, the ultimate goal is the whole nation. This is the first article in a new series dedicated to this subject.
In an article “California Leftists Actually Want to Ban the Sale of Certain Books” (18th April 2018), Courtney Kirchoff writes,
“Today, the left wants to ban certain books which don’t agree with the LGBT agenda (does the Bible count?). The First Amendment gives people the right to write or say whatever they darn well please. It doesn’t give anyone the right to remove speech simply because said speech offends them. Furthermore, if an LGBT person doesn’t want to be LGBT, that’s their choice. If they want to research how to be straight, fine. Similarly, if a straight person wants to read about LGBT things, they’re free to do so. California leftists hate choice. They hate freedom. They can’t trust you to do the “right” thing. So they go full Nazi in response.”
Our comment:
The current legislation which already bans psychotherapy for minors (2012) is now expanded to include adults as well, as we suspected all along. The rhetoric to protect innocent “vulnerable youths” was only a decoy and a test case. The fact that such an adult may nevertheless be considered consenting and accountable for his/her own deeds, is to no avail for the gay-lib extremists. Furthermore, in case any citizen is curious about other views on the highly controversial subject of sexuality, then the extremists seek to ensure that dissident information is not available with which one could increase knowledge and broaden views.
The Principles of Sound Lawmaking, as taught at US law schools, define that proposed legislation as this, is only defensible in a free society if the assumed ‘harm’ can be substantiated and evaluated before and after the passing of the bill, and when the demonstrable harm is: 1) sufficiently huge, 2) veiled and inconspicuous, 3) irreversible, 4) contagious, 5) inevitable and 6) unavoidable, in order to necessitate the overpowering of the personal choices of the consenting adult him/herself by the community.
In this series, we will argue that the proposed legislation does not fulfill these requirements.
In the past week, a complete website has been created to accommodate the many comments that have emerged. The website www.ab2943.com contains an overview of the arguments and statements up till now to denounce this bill.
Although the passing of the draft has negative effects for basic American freedoms, it is above all necessary to address the content of the bill itself because it is highly fraudulent and deceptive.
Seeing that this bill will no doubt be used in other states, we do well to analyze each and every sentence. And we will do so from a secular and exclusively scientific point of view. In this series, we will chop the huge bill into smaller chunks.
In this first article, we present an overview of what we are aiming to prove, a general criticism. In the forthcoming articles, we will expand on these 26 statements, providing substantiation. This is not done for reasons of opinion or anger, but to provide sound arguments that can be archived and used for the decision making process at the Assemblies of other states.
GENERAL CRITICISM
In our view,
a) the draft is incorrect, in terms of presenting hoaxes and misconceptions,
b) the draft is incomplete, in terms of cherry-picking from a report from a gay Task Force of the American Psychological Association (2009),
c) the draft is one-sided in terms of not mentioning the counter report written by other members of the American Psychological Association (NARTH) a year later,
d) the draft contains pseudo-science from so-called LGBT-psychologists, a marginal and heavily biased professional fringe whose goals and tactics are not based on regular mental health standards but on the Anti-Psychiatry Movement, an obsolete movement of the previous century that has never been considered part of standard psychiatric research and therapy, but whose effects are considered harmful for client care,
d) the draft contains pseudo-logic when dealing with (read: annihilating) positive testimonies about therapy, rendering its outcome fraudulent,
e) the draft ends diversity of paradigms and non-ideological secular debate in the scientific community, thereby jeopardizing all possibilities for progressive insight, ultimately leading to harm of clients,
e) the draft is not in accordance with professional standards of the mental health community; under this punitive legislation, scholars may not seek, review or disseminate new (now ‘illegal’) insights in the future even if they are regarded as crucial to maintaining appropriate levels of knowledge and competence,
f) the draft does not apply its own standards of consumer protection when promoting Gay Affirmative Therapy, a therapy which has never been evaluated anywhere and by lack of research may very well be harmful to consumers,
g) the draft does not address the issue of sexual fluidity, but appears to take it for granted that such does not exist, damaging the interests of consumers who struggle with fluidity turmoil,
h) the draft offers no objective criteria by which the intended “harm”-reducing effects of the bill can be evaluated and weighed after any period of time, rendering it useless for monitoring a feedback loop of effectiveness for the executive state force,
i) the bill offers no, or does not refer to any baseline measurement of current alleged “harm”, making the bill to appear being motivated by subjective ideology and irrationality, thereby reducing effectiveness and evoking non-compliance,
j) the (well-timed) crying spells of the young gay representative, Evan Low, at the Assembly when he argued for the passing of his bill (drama-queen, anyone?), do not automatically reflect the emotions of others; the moral quality of a democracy lies not in the authority of a majority, but in the way that the interests of equally present small, voiceless minorities are ensured during that legislative process and thereafter, and the LGBT activist circles do not form the smallest minority in California,
k) the bill assumes that all mental health problems of individuals with same-sex attractions (SSA’s) are caused by licensed therapists, without providing any scientific data to substantiate this assumption, thereby reinforcing slander causing much fear in clients and damaging mental health care,
l) the bill drives client care underground because it is not in alignment with the goals of many potential clients, thereby damaging client interests,
m) a number of Californian laws seek to ensure that youths and adults can receive unconstrained access to treatment and recognition of their so-called gender identity. Surgery can be implemented after informed consent. The current bill undermines citizens’ right to be fully informed on all aspects of the issue, therefore jeopardizing their ability to execute their legal right to self-determination on irreparable surgery and often dangerous hormone treatment. The information they will receive is deliberately kept one-sided so as to ensure that as many ‘transitions’ as possible take place, and at an earliest age as possible,
n) the bill facilitates the persecution by gay-lib extremists of moderate gay activists whose rejection of the unsubstantiated ‘born that way’ ideology is now considered illegal; these moderate gay activists include a number of lesbian professors of Gender Studies who publish a great array of books on the matter (the so-called nurture/nature debate or essentialist/social constructivist debate, meaning “You were/were not born that way”); in short, the bill leads to the persecution of gays and lesbians, the so-called LG community,
o) the bill assumes that youths who are questioning, constitute a homogeneous population. There is no scientific study which backs up this stance. A UK study in 2014 showed that 49% of 12 year-olds admit having same-sex attractions in one way or another, compared to 3% doing the same at age 23. This fact counteracts the ‘born-that-way’ ideology. Were any male youths to publish their personal journey (for example, “Glad to have a girlfriend after all”), then the publication of this glorification of the diminishment of same-sex attractions, or giving advice on the matter, constitutes a criminal act. You are no longer allowed to be who you are, no “Pride” for you. The bill therefore discriminates against the ‘Questioning’ community,
p) the bill assumes that transgenders form a homogeneous community, but studies show that up to 20% of individuals who have undergone surgery, wish to be operated back to their pre-operative gender. Many do so. Were such an individual to write a book on his/her motives, and to advise others in the community to give the matter a lot more thought, then they violate the legislation if they promote restraint. You are not allowed to be who you are, no “Pride” for you. Therefore, the bill discriminates against the ‘Transgender’ community,
q) the bill denies the existence of the “detransistioning community”. Never heard of them up till our current research, staggering! But they are out and proud on Youtube. Check them out. All highly illegal, of course, under the new ‘born that way’ California legislation,
r) the bill assumes that all bisexuals are “Glad to be gay”. But many people who initially identify as having same-sex attractions, ultimately end up enjoying heterosexual relationships. Were the bisexuals to openly tell their tale, other than becoming full-blown gay, then their story promotes the diminishment of same-sex attractions. Publishing a book on the subject of bisexuality now becomes an illegal act. Therefore, the legislation discriminates against the ‘Bisexual’ community,
s) the bill opens the door to the gay-lib tactic of sending undercover clients (widely practiced in the UK), who seek to discredit a therapist by use of hidden video recorders (pencameras), in order to successfully incriminate them; potential clients who raise suspicion will increasingly be sent away (“Don’t burn your fingers on a questioning gay guy, think of your license. Dump him!”), necessitating new protective legislation and even more regulation, surveillance and punitive measures,
t) the bill undermines professional autonomy because it does not address HOW the therapist works, but WHAT he is talking about; it penalizes the subject matter itself and above all the outcome (‘Still gay, boy? Grabbing the good old bulge? Thank heavens for that. Phew, that was close!’),
u) the bill may lead to a rise in the number of inappropriate sexual actions of Catholic clergymen, due to the therapy ban on decreasing homosexual feelings (towards the young) and the promotion of the expression of homosexual feelings (‘Go for it!’). After all, gay-lib recognizes only social injustices; by definition psychological problems do not exist with SSA’s, so they insist,
v) the bill encourages clients to meticulously inspect the therapist’s bookshelf to evaluate the presence of criminal material (anti-LGBT “awareness” campaigns), undermining the doctor-client trust relationship,
w) the bill encourages gay-lib members not only to protest with big signs (“We will not be silenced”), but to photograph citizens going to a conference on forbidden subject matter, and if necessary informing the police or the NCLR headquarters (this organization has called for such information) to come around and silence them, creating public tension,
x) the bill encourages the patrolling of bookstores and the use of smartphones to collect criminal evidence, possibly leading to disturbance of the peace,
y) the bill will lead to the internalization of the controversial “born that way” ideology in all children in California, in the same way that the youth movements in pre-war Germany (Hitler-Jugend) and post-war East Germany ensured that the boat of the powers that be, would not be rocked
z) the bill will lead to ignorance of the subject matter, and therefore, prejudice and ultimately violence toward fellow citizens and scholars who adhere to social-construct theories of sexuality and gender.
In the next articles, we will expand on these statements.
To be continued.
Job Berendsen, MD
