Lousy Judge & Lawyer

Many states now band conversion therapy for minors including Connecticut well now those laws are in jeopardy thanks to probably a lousy judge and lawyer.

A federal court just found a First Amendment right to force kids into conversion therapy
LGBTQ Nation
By Alex Bollinger
February 1, 2019

A federal judge has issued an injunction against a conversion therapy ban because she says it likely violates the free speech rights of conversion therapists.

The hate group Liberty Counsel sued the city of Tampa, Florida, on behalf of two conversion therapists, arguing that Tampa’s conversion therapy ban violates the rights of conversion therapists.

Key to Sansone’s decision was the 2018 Supreme Court decision National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra (NIFLA). In that case, the five conservatives Supreme Court justices ruled that the state of California can’t force crisis pregnancy centers to give patients information about abortion and even rejected the idea of “professional speech.”

In her ruling, Sansone said that conversion therapy is speech, not conduct, as long as it’s limited to speech and doesn’t involve techniques like electric shocks.

Okay I am not a lawyer but it seems that this has nothing at all to do with the First Amendment but rather the safe and wellbeing children. The defense lawyer should have pointed it out and if the lawyer did than the judge ignored previous cases, one that the Supreme Court refused to overturn.

Case challenging gay-conversion therapy ban won't be heard by SCOTUS
ABA Journal
By Terry Carter
May 1, 2017

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a Christian minister’s challenge to a California law banning gay-conversion therapy for changing the sexual orientation of minors, Reuters reports.

The 2012 statute noted that homosexuality is not a disease and that gay conversion therapy is harmful. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that was on appeal to the Supreme Court, Welch v. Brown (PDF), had rejected the claim by Dr. Donald Welch that the law amounts to state interference with religion. The opinion noted that the statute “regulates conduct only within the confines of the counselor-client relationship.”

Initially, Welch and two others sued claiming that the law violated free speech in Pickup v. Brown (PDF), and the Supreme Court declined to take that case when an appeals court rejected the arguments.

The 9th Circuit said in 2013 that the law “bans a form of treatment for minors; it does nothing to prevent licensed therapists from discussing the pros and cons of [sexual-orientation change therapy] with their patients.”

Did you get that Ms. Judge and lawyer? “…it does nothing to prevent licensed therapists from discussing the pros and cons of [sexual-orientation change therapy] with their patients.”

Similar laws against gay conversion have passed in the District of Columbia, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon and Vermont. A challenge to the New Jersey law was rejected by the Supreme Court in 2015.

So there has been many precedent setting cases and this is not about "free speech" but rather preventing treatments that cause harm to young patients.

Conversion therapy increases risk of suicides,

Gay Conversion Therapy Associated with Suicide Risk
New study provides concrete evidence that gay conversion therapy is dangerous.
Psychology Today
By Jack Turban MD MHS
November 14, 2018

[…]
What most people don’t realize, is that whether or not sexual orientation conversion therapy for adolescents is harmful was never properly studied. Most argue it doesn’t need to be. Based on expert consensus, literature from the harms of conversion therapy on adults, and inference, nearly every major medical organization labeled sexual orientation conversion therapy unethical.

A new study published this month in the Journal of Homosexuality finally provides some concrete evidence, however, that sexual orientation conversion therapy during adolescence is associated with poor mental health outcomes.
[…]
Overall, the field of psychiatry continues to condemn efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation. We now have additional data to show that such efforts are dangerous. As I’ve written before, several states have begun to outlaw the practice. I hope this new data will help propel lawmakers in other states to do the same.

Given the fact that Liberty Counsel is involved this case is going to the Supreme Court! The notorious anti-LGBTQ Liberty Counsel is going to use this case as a test case. They don’t care that thousands of of children could die if the court overturns bans on conversion therapy.

Slate Magazine writes…

In light of the universal agreement among respected medical professionals that conversion therapy is both ineffectual and cruel, the 3rd and 9th Circuits did not hesitate to uphold laws that barred licensed therapists from inflicting it on children. Although each court’s rationale differed, both agreed that the government had broader leeway to regulate speech in the context of medical treatment. They noted that parents, churches, and religious counselors can still attempt to change LGBTQ minors’ sexual orientation or gender identity. The bans only apply to licensed therapists. And within the context of professional regulation, the government may prevent practitioners from offering “therapy” that is fruitless and even harmful.

Then came NIFLA. In that case, evangelical activists challenged a California law that compelled “crisis pregnancy centers” to disclose certain facts to patients. Unlicensed CPCs had to inform patients that they lacked a medical license; licensed CPCs had to provide information about low-cost reproductive services, including abortion care, offered by the state. In a 5–4 decision, the court struck down both requirements as a free speech violation. Writing for the majority, Thomas rejected the notion that “professional speech” generally receives less protection under the First Amendment. He asserted that governments have, throughout history, “manipulat[ed] the content of doctor-patient discourse” to “increase state power and suppress minorities.” Professional regulations that target the content of expression, Thomas concluded, must be subject to strict scrutiny—that is, they will be struck down unless they’re “narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests.”

As examples of lower court rulings that fail to apply this principle, Thomas cited the 3rd and 9th Circuit decisions upholding LGBTQ conversion therapy bans for minors. As ThinkProgress’ Zack Ford pointed out at the time, the justice appeared to be laying the groundwork to overturn these laws by wiping out the legal basis for their constitutionality. And on Wednesday, federal magistrate Judge Amanda Arnold Sansone took up Thomas’ call to arms. In a sweeping opinion, Sansone recommended that William F. Jung, the presiding judge in the case, block the Tampa ban’s application on “non-coercive, non-aversive” LGBTQ conversion “talk therapy” for minors. (Jung, a Donald Trump appointee, is not obligated to adopt Sansone’s recommendations, but will take them into serious consideration.)

This is a very dark time.

And ironically it will probably boil down to Chief Justice Robinson, he seems to be moving slightly to the left.

And I want to thank all those LGBT people who put their pocketbooks ahead of their human rights the deaths of the LGBT is on your hands.