Monday, July 09, 2018

Leave It To LePage

The contrarian governor of Maine has vetoed another bill, this time a bill banning Conversion Therapy.
Maine Governor Vetoes Bill Banning Gay Conversion Therapy
Maine would have become the 14th state to outlaw the dangerous practice.
NewNowNext
By Brandon Voss
July 8, 2018

Maine Gov. Paul LePage has vetoed a bill that would have prohibited state-licensed mental health professionals from subjecting minors to conversion therapy, which dangerously attempts to change the orientation or identity of LGBTQ people, the Portland Press Herald reports.

The far-right Republican governor, who vetoed the bill Friday, called it “bad public policy” that could potentially restrict therapist and patient interaction.
[…]
LePage, an anti-LGBT Trump supporter, is the first U.S. governor, Republican or Democrat, to veto a bill that would ban conversion therapy.

“This bill attempts to regulate professionals who already have a defined scope of practice and standard of care per their statutory licensing requirements,” LePage wrote in his veto.
[…]
Among his other objections to the bill, LePage criticized legislators for seeking to outlaw conversion therapy but refusing to pass a bill banning female genital mutilation, which is already banned by federal law.
The legislature is supposed to reconvene to discuss his veto.

Here in Connecticut the vote to ban on Conversion Therapy was unanimous in the Senate and in the House there were only a few votes opposing the bill.

LePage became governor because it was a three-way race, he received only slightly more than a third of the votes which was around 34 percent. I think in multicandidate election a run off should beheld of the two highest vote getters.

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