Matt Barber: Jerry Sandusky Laws (Banning Reparative Ex-Gay Therapy): ‘Sick and Twisted’

Sounds alarm over criminalization of ‘gay’ change counseling

This column was first published by WND.com two days ago

By Matt Barber

In recent months, “progressive” lawmakers, activist attorneys and militant homosexual pressure groups have launched a fierce campaign to ban therapeutic help for child victims of monsters like homosexual pedophile Jerry Sandusky. California has already passed such a law (SB 1172).

On Friday, Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver challenged this twisted ban in federal court, seeking a preliminary injunction to halt the law from taking effect on Jan. 1. Judge Kimberly Mueller will likely issue a decision within a week or so.

SB 1172 would make illegal any counseling to diminish or eliminate same-sex sexual attractions or high-risk behaviors, even when, as is often the case, those attractions and behaviors derive from sexual abuse.

Thousands of people, many of whom once identified as “gay,” have received positive, life-changing benefits from such counseling. Yet, among other things, the fact that people can, and do, leave homosexuality bulldozes the politically motivated, scientifically discredited “born that way” meme.

Liberty Counsel represents several parents and children who are receiving and benefiting from such counseling; a number of licensed counselors who provide such counseling; the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH); and the American Association for Christian Counselors (AACC), an organization with about 50,000 professional counseling members.

Recently, on our nationally syndicated radio program “Faith & Freedom,” Mat Staver and I discussed the degree to which such bans, or “Sandusky Laws,” come between counselor and client, hurt children, and trample the rights of religious freedom and sexual self-determination.

Despite intense, politically motivated denials from many on the left, research has established the astonishing frequency to which a “gay identity” or “sexual orientation” stems from childhood sexual abuse.   Sandusky Laws abuse these children all over again.

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for instance, found that “gay” men are “at least three times more likely to report CSA (childhood sexual abuse).”

The Archives of Sexual Behavior determined in a 2001 study that nearly half of all “gay”-identified men were molested by a homosexual pedophile: “46 percent of homosexual men and 22 percent of homosexual women reported having been molested by a person of the same gender. This contrasts to only 7 percent of heterosexual men and 1 percent of heterosexual women reporting having been molested by a person of the same gender.”

The connection between homosexual abuse and “gay identity” is undeniable.

Under Sandusky Laws, if children begin to experience sexual confusion – such as unwanted same-sex attractions stemming from sexual abuse, trauma or any other factor – these bans force, under penalty of law, parents and therapists to tell the children that they are now “gay” or “transgender” and must live with it – even if they don’t wish to live with it and are otherwise recovering from the abuse-caused sexual confusion.

Wherever one stands on the issue of “gay rights,” any reasonable, caring person should be appalled by these selfish adult activists’ sickening and hateful stunt. What kind of person politicizes the lives of children, treating them as throwaway pawns in a cynical game of political chess?   Well, people like Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., for one. She has introduced the first federal bill – the first national Sandusky Law – modeled after SB 1172. In a twist of sick irony, she has dubbed the bill the “Stop Harming Our Kids” resolution.

To get these propagandist laws introduced and passed, Speier, along with a number of hard-left outfits like the Human Rights Campaign and the Southern Poverty Law Center, have exploited a handful of “gay”-identified individuals-turned-activists who now allege to have been harmed by such counseling.

Even though, no doubt, the highly liberal American Psychological Association (APA) supports these Sandusky Laws for political reasons, the group’s own task force on change therapy – led entirely by members who themselves are “gay”-identified or known activists – has had to admit that homosexuality “refers to feelings and self-concept.”

Relative to change therapy, the APA has confessed “varying degrees of satisfaction and varying perceptions of success.” It acknowledged within its own skewed, very limited “study” that some people had “altered their sexual orientation. … [P]articipants had multiple endpoints, including LGB identity, ex-gay identity, no sexual orientation identity, and a unique self-identity,” noted the APA. “Individuals report a range of effects from their efforts to change their sexual orientation, including both benefits and harm.”

Reports of “both benefits and harm”: exactly what might be expected from any type of counseling.   But to the left, this is not just “any type of counseling.” The political stakes surrounding the irrefutable existence of former homosexuals are simply too high.

And so, anti-choice liberals pretend they don’t exist while, at once, frantically endeavoring to ensure that no more ever do.

Of SB 1172, Mat Staver recently said, “A number of minors who have struggled with same-sex attraction have been able to reduce or eliminate the stress and conflicts in their lives by receiving counseling that best meets their needs and religious convictions.

“Banning change therapy harms children, stresses families and places counselors in a catch-22, because they will be forced to violate their licensing ethical codes,” continued Staver. “This law forces counselors to overrule their clients who choose to prioritize their religious or moral values above unwanted same-sex sexual attractions.”

Staver called these Sandusky Laws, “an astounding violation of the right to free speech and religious liberty. Clients have the right to receive information that aligns with their values, and counselors have the right and the duty to provide information to help the clients in pursuit of their right to self-determination.

“Under SB 1172, a young boy sexually molested by the likes of a Jerry Sandusky who develops an identity crisis, emotional stress and who begins to experience unwanted same-sex attractions will be further hurt by a law that deprives him and his family of the option of receiving counsel that aligns with their religious and moral beliefs.

“The issue is not a battle of experts, and, if it were, California’s experts woefully failed to justify such an intrusive law,” noted Staver. “This law is politically, not scientifically, motivated.”   But, then again, it has always been politics over science that drives the radical cult of “LGBT” activism.

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Matt Barber is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as vice president of Liberty Counsel Action. He is also Board Chairman of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality.