The kinds of help labelled ‘conversion therapy’ has helped countless people find peace in their God given sexuality. So why are some people against it? Paul Huxley from Christian Concern comments on the recent US Supreme Court ruling.
The international push for ‘conversion therapy’ bans is really an attempt to stop people receiving support to live as the man or woman that God made them to be.
This week, this campaign was dealt another blow as the US Supreme Court ruled against Colorado’s ‘conversion therapy’ ban.
It ruled 8-1 that the ban violated licensed counsellor Kaley Chiles’ right to free speech by stopping her from being able to have voluntary conversations with young people helping them to deal with their gender distress. Chiles was supported at the Supreme Court by lawyers from Alliance Defending Freedom.
The decision comes shortly after Matthew Grech was declared not guilty of violating Malta’s law by expressing his ex-gay testimony and sharing his opinion on the validity of therapy. His acquittal, taken together with the United States Supreme Court’s judgment in Chiles, underscores increasing judicial scrutiny of frameworks which rely on imprecise or overly broad language and which risk impermissibly encroaching upon lawful expressions of belief and protected speech.
Viewpoint discrimination
The Supreme Court’s majority opinion was written by Justice Gorsuch.
He explained the extent of the ban in Colorado:
The term “conversion therapy” may evoke physical techniques such as “‘electric shoc[k]’” therapy aimed at changing an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity. But Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy reaches further, forbidding “any practice or treatment . . . that attempts . . . to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The law forbids as well any “effor[t] to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex. ” At the same time, the law explicitly allows counselors to engage in “practices” that provide “[a]cceptance, support, and understanding for the facilitation of an individual’s . . . identity exploration and development. Likewise, the law allows counselors to provide “[a]ssistance to a person undergoing gender transition.”
Colorado’s ban was wide-ranging – any practice, treatment or effort relating to sexuality or gender identity. Chiles did not take issue with banning aversive attempts like electric shocks – she simply wanted to have consensual conversations with people.
Her legal claim was that
the law permits her to speak in ways that encourage a client “‘undergoing gender transition,’” but the law prohibits her from speaking in ways that help a client “realign [his] identity with [his] sex … With respect to sexual orientation, Ms. Chiles continued, Colorado’s law similarly allows her to affirm a client’s sexual orientation, but prohibits her from speaking in any way that helps a client “change” his sexual attractions or behaviors.
The USA’s First Amendment gives a strong constitutional protection of free speech. On the surface, this would seem an open-and-shut case – counsellors like Chiles were allowed to give support that affirmed a trans identity but not one that helped someone seeking to be reconciled with their real male or female identity.
However, the lower courts had accepted Colorado’s claim that its law was rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest – that it was “best understood as regulating ‘professional conduct’.”
Gorsuch’s opinion rejected this noting (p16):
If a government could reclassify talk therapy as speech incident to conduct, it might just as easily do the same for speech incident to “teaching or protesting.”
Because the law upheld one view within the medical establishment at the expense of another, he made clear that:
…it censors speech based on viewpoint. Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety. Certainly, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same. But the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country. It reflects instead a judgment that every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth.
Safety shouldn’t be an excuse
The arguments for a ban on these voluntary conversations centres around the idea that saying certain things is really dangerous.
Christians know that words can, indeed, be dangerous. Life and death are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21). It can do real good, and real harm:
For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. (James 3:7–9 ESV)
Nevertheless, using the government’s power to restrict speech is itself dangerous. You only need to look at the recent bloodshed in Iran following protests against the government to see where it can lead.
Like in the US, Europe has free speech rights recognised in the European Convention on Human Rights. On paper, these are reasonably strong – restrictions must be “prescribed by law and necessary in a democratic society”. However, the phrase “for the protection of health or morals” provides a wide target for ‘conversion therapy’ bans to aim for in Europe. Convince enough people that some forms of speech harm other people’s health and you can censor away.
That’s why it’s particularly important here to understand emphasise that consensual talking therapy to help people address unwanted same-sex desires or behaviours is not harmful.
The so-called scientific consensus on this is based on thin air. Evidence from poorly conducted trials is accepted despite clear problems with the methods and data. Conclusions from these studies are then taken further out of context and made to say things that even their authors didn’t claim. Meanwhile, higher quality studies are left off the record – either with criticisms that would apply twice as much to the accepted studies or ignored altogether.
I understand that not many people have a burning to desire to read through the studies. Because of the word ‘therapy’, many Christians are also suspicious, believing that there is no need to stand up for these counsellors who are seen as being compromised by anti-Christian ideas.
I’d encourage Christians to change their mind on that in two ways.
First, the studies being cited are wide-ranging and not only considering the one-to-one conversations you might expect. Many of the ‘sexual orientation change efforts’ (SOCE) in the literature are faith-based and often Christian. They cover activities like support groups and prayer – not just psychotherapeutic models that you may be wary of. Like the proposed ‘conversion therapy’ bans that are being pushed, they extend far beyond counselling rooms.
Second, I’d invite you to listen to Dr Rosaria Butterfield. A well-known author, before finding salvation in Jesus Christ, she had lived as a lesbian and promoted Queer Theory as a university professor. Although her autobiographical Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert demonstrated her commitment to Christian sexuality in general, she wrote in 2014 for the Gospel Coalition that:
“[Reparative Therapy], a heresy [is] a modern version of the prosperity gospel. Name it. Claim it. Pray the gay away”
To her credit, after investigating the subject more, she retracted this view saying “this ranks among the most misguided words I have written as a Christian.” She spoke to the IFTCC about her change of mind at the time.
Pursue truth
If these voluntary conversations really do harm people, Christians would be right to be wary. But I fear that many people are afraid of the topic because they carry niggling doubts that supportive prayer and ordinary counselling session really are good for people.
If I can’t persuade you to look at the evidence yourself, could I at least remind you that God’s pattern for our lives as men and women is good for us? It was Satan who tempted Adam and Eve with the idea that God did not have their best interests at heart by forbidding them to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
God didn’t dish out arbitrary rules about sexuality to stop us having fun – it’s because he designed us to live one way and abandoning that hurts us.
So when you think about simple groups and counselling sessions where Christians (and others) support each other to live out their sexuality or gender identity in a way that matches the body God gave them, we should anticipate that this will help them. It ought to take overwhelming evidence to convince us otherwise – evidence that simply doesn’t exist.
Resist bans
Campaigners for ‘conversion therapy’ bans are not going to give up.
That makes it important, now, to help others understand these issues. You can read our web page that goes into detail on some of the evidence or go into even more detail on the IFTCC archive.
You can also read and watch many testimonies from ex-LGBTQ Christians from Changed and X-Out-Loud.
Know and believe that change is possible – and defend the freedom of others to seek that change.