Federal Judge OKs Lawsuit Claiming Ban On ‘Ex-Gay Therapy’ Violates Constitutional Rights

A man who claims he can turn gay people straight, and several other “ex-gay” therapists, will be allowed to sue the State of California over its ban on the practice of conversion therapy.

Despite the fact that the law has already been upheld by a federal appeals court, despite the fact that a federal judge has ruled parents have no right to access reparative therapy, despite the fact that both state and federal judges have ruled the practice of reparative therapy is fraud, and despite the fact that reparative therapy has been deemed harmful by nearly every major medical association, several therapists who practice reparative therapy will have their day in court.

A federal judge has just ruled a case against the State of California may proceed.

David Pickup (photo), who bills himself as a “Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist” and “Reparative Therapist,” is claiming in his lawsuit that California’s ban on ex-gay, conversion, or reparative therapy for minors violates his constitutional rights.

Pickup, along with Christopher Rosik, Ph.D. and the American Association of Christian Counselors “claim the application of the law violates therapists’ right to free speech and the children’s right to receive information, and parents’ and minors’ right to free exercise of religion,” Courthouse News reports this morning.

The practitioners of the dangerous therapy “will get a chance to show how California’s ban on using gay conversion therapy on children has violated their constitutional rights, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.”

New Jersey, California, Washington, D.C., Oregon, and Illinois have all outlawed the practice of reparative or conversion therapy on minors.

Last year, Pickup, who is a board member of the infamous “ex-gay” group NARTH (now the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity,) was the subject of anger after he commissioned a billboard advertising his services as “authentic counseling,” and claiming “real therapy… really works.“

 

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Image: Screenshot via PFOX/YouTube