A California bill that seeks to limit
the selling or advertising of therapies that attempt to alter the
sexual orientation or gender identity of lesbian, gay, bisexual or
transgender people advanced in the Senate on Tuesday.
Such therapies go by names such as
“conversion therapy,” “reparative therapy” or “ex-gay
therapy.”
California was the first state in the
nation to prohibit such therapies to minors. Thirteen states and the
District of Columbia have enacted similar bans. (Delaware
is set to become the 15th
state.)
An earlier version of the bill cleared
the Assembly in April. The Senate Judiciary committee approved the
measure on Tuesday.
According to the AP, more than 350
people rallied at the state Capitol to oppose passage of the bill.
One of the protesters said that the
therapy helped him alter his sexual orientation.
“I did not want to be gay,” Jim
Doman, a pastor who has a wife and children, said. “Please do not
take away professional help programs that have helped people like
me.”
Assemblyman's Even Low's bill would
make it clear that such therapies run afoul of state consumer laws.
Low, an openly gay Democrat, has said the practice is ineffective and
harmful.
Senator Scott Wiener, an openly gay
Democrat from San Francisco, called the practice “psychological
torture.”
“There are people who want to erase
people like me,” he said. “It is shocking in some ways that in
2018 this is still happening.”
(Related: Vancouver
becomes first Canadian city to ban “ex-gay” therapy.)