Illinois rejects ban on reparative therapy for minors with same-sex attraction
SPRINGFIELD, IL, April 17, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Illinois House voted last week to reject a bill that would have banned reparative therapy for minors with unwanted same-sex attraction (SSA). It is the fifth state to vote down a ban on the practice in recent months, following high profile debates over the issue in California and New Jersey, which both instated bans last year.
Christopher Doyle, an ex-gay activist and president of Voice of the Voiceless, said following the vote that he thought the decision was a win for free speech and individual medical rights.
“It’s clear that even the most progressive states do not want to pass laws that take away the rights of individuals when the foundation of such legislation is based on lies and misinformation,” Doyle said. “There is not one research study published in the scientific peer-reviewed literature that has studied the outcomes of minors undergoing SOCE [Sexual Orientation Change Effort] therapy – any attempt to ban clients from receiving help for unwanted SSA is pure political propaganda from gay activists.”
Homosexual activists maintain that reparative therapy is damaging to children who, they argue, are born with same-sex attraction and cannot be ‘cured’ of it.
The failed ban in Illinois was proposed by Kelly Cassidy, an openly lesbian legislator who argued that reparative therapy is “horribly and humiliatingly” abusive.
During last year’s battle over the New Jersey ban, a transgender activist testified she was sent to a “conversion therapy torture camp” that used electroshock therapy to punish her until she turned straight. However, a later investigation found that her story was not only untrue, but sto
 |
| Cover of RuPaul |
len from a 1997 movie by drag queen RuPaul.
Despite the objections of homosexual activists, a growing number of ex-gays say the therapy can be successful, and that it helped them to work through their confusion about their sexuality and go on to lead normal heterosexual lives. Some of them spoke to Illinois politicians in the weeks leading up to the vote, an action Doyle credits with the failure of the ban.
“Legislatures around the country are now waking up to the reality that ex-gays are a fact and gay activists’ stories of ‘therapy torture’ are fiction,” said Doyle. “We applaud the many lawmakers in Illinois who met with ex-gays, heard their stories of change, and refused to listen to the lies of anti-ex-gay activists like Wayne Besen, who is now headquartered in Chicago and failed miserably in his own liberal-dominated state to get this legislation passed. It goes to show that truth really does win out – when ex-gays speak up, politicians listen.”
