Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel,
claims his group is opposed to California's law which bans “ex-gay”
therapy to minors because it allows gays to “entrap” children.
Last month, the full Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals let stand an earlier decision by a 3-judge panel of
the same court upholding the law, which prohibits so-called
conversion therapy that attempts to turn gay teens straight.
Christian conservative groups Liberty
Counsel and the Pacific Justice Institute filed the lawsuit to block
the law, enacted in 2012, from taking effect. They argue that the
therapies are beneficial and that the law violates the free speech
rights of counselors.
The groups have appealed the ruling to
the Supreme Court.
In comments to the Christian
conservative news site OneNewsNow.com, Staver claimed that the law
eliminates “an entire category of speech from any First Amendment
protection.”
OneNewsNow.com paraphrased Staver as
saying that “children are being indoctrinated in public schools
that homosexuality is normal.”
“And then when someone is either
abused or begins to struggle with these issues, when they're
bombarded with it day after day, they won't be able to get any help
from a licensed professional Christian counselor. So that's why it's
very dangerous,” he
said.
Staver added that the law allows gays
to “entrap” and “groom” children into “the homosexual
lifestyle.”
New Jersey has approved a similar law
and at least six other states are considering following suit.
Supporters of the law have called such
therapies “dangerous.”
“These dangerous, unscientific
practices have caused too many young people to take their own lives
or suffer lifelong harm after being told, falsely, that who they are
and who they love is wrong, sick or the result of personal or moral
failure,” Clarissa Filgioun, board president of LGBT rights
advocate Equality California, said in applauding the law's passage in
2012.