Liberty Counsel Sues Maryland Over Ex-Gay Torture Ban

Via press release from hate group leader Mat Staver:

Liberty Counsel filed a federal lawsuit seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction against Maryland’s new law which prohibits minors from receiving voluntary counseling from licensed professionals to reduce or eliminate unwanted same-sex attractions or gender confusion.

In Doyle v. Hogan, Liberty Counsel represents Christopher Doyle, a licensed professional counselor in Virginia and Maryland. Doyle is challenging Maryland’s SB 1028, which was signed into law by Maryland governor Larry Hogan and went into effect on October 1, 2018.

In June 2018, the Supreme Court gutted two lower court decisions cases that held similar therapy bans in California and New Jersey to be constitutional regulations of professional conduct that did not violate the First Amendment. Those cases, Pickup v. Brown and King v. Governor of New Jersey, have been relied upon by numerous other states and cities that have adopted similar bans.

With the Supreme Court’s rejection of Pickup and Brown, the therapy bans in California, New Jersey, and other jurisdictions are subject to constitutional challenge. Doyle is asking the Maryland federal district court to declare SB 1028 unconstitutional and to impose a preliminary and permanent injunction against its enforcement.

Staver, once again, is lying.

Here’s what really happened in June 2018:

The Court’s ruling in NIFLA v. Becerra found that the state cannot compel crisis pregnancy centers to share messages they disagree with — even though it can still compel abortion providers to share messages they disagree with.

In short, the state can only mandate what medical providers say when they are being honest, not when they’re trying to deceive their clients.

The Liberty Counsel used such free speech arguments to challenge bans on conversion therapy in both California (Pickup v. Brown) and New Jersey (King v. Governor of New Jersey). In both cases, the Liberty Counsel appealed to the Supreme Court and both times the Court declined to hear the cases.

Longtime JMG readers will recall my decade of reporting on the Liberty Counsel’s latest client, notorious ex-gay nutter Christopher Doyle, who launched a 2016 money beg to file an FTC complaint against LGBT groups under false advertising laws for saying that people are born gay.