Court blocks California’s “gay-to-straight therapy” ban

Another irksome (albeit predictable) development: After California officially banned “gay-to-straight therapy” for minors back in September on the basis that it’s a fat load of mind-warping bullshit, Christian-Right groups have successfully petitioned an appellate court to temporarily block the law:

In a brief order, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to a block the law, scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, pending a decision on its constitutionality.

The law would subject psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals to discipline by their licensing boards for providing minors therapy to change their sexual orientation.

The state says the therapy is ineffective and dangerous.

Therapists, minors and their parents, represented by a Christian-rights group, sued the state on the grounds the new law violates free speech rights.

Maybe the courts ought to ban Christianists from squealing about “free speech!” and “religious liberty!” every time they’re told to stop shoveling their dogmatic delusions down everyone else’s throats. It’s almost like they’re confusing the right to practice whatever brand of ritualized hocus-pocus they like with the right to force everyone else to abide by their regressive worldview. And if coercing impressionable and vulnerable youths into dangerous, self-repressing brainwashing doesn’t count as a textbook representation of the latter, then I don’t know what does.

On the other hand, I’m really quite curious to know which “minors”, exactly, are actually interested in preventing the ban from taking place? I expect the number of teenagers who claim to want to be deconverted from teh ghey without being pressured to do so by homophobic parents to be roughly equivalent to the number of people who’ve ever actually changed their sexual orientation. (None.)

(via @BreakingNews)