Liberty Counsel Links Ex-Gay Torture Bans To Suicide

Via press release from hate group leader Mat Staver:

Liberty Counsel was in federal court today seeking to permanently block a city of Tampa ordinance which defies the Constitution, violates the First Amendment, and barges into the sacred trust between counselor and client. The Tampa ordinance intervenes between counselor and client.

It prohibits licensed counselors from giving talk therapy to minors who want to reduce or remove their unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, or identity. And the ordinance has teeth. It imposes hefty fines on counselors who give such talk therapy.

These professionals give life-saving counsel to minors who desperately desire to conform their attractions, behaviors, and identity to their sincerely held religious beliefs. But LGBT zealots in Tampa and elsewhere have worked furiously to pass laws prohibiting this vital counsel. And that can have serious, lifelong consequences—even suicide.

“If counseling bans had been law in 1989, blocking me from the therapy I was asking for, I probably would have killed myself. I would not have been satisfied with a government-mandated gay identity,” said Ken Williams, discussing his own journey out of unwanted same-sex attractions.

As you surely know, multiple medical and psychological associations have linked ex-gay torture to suicide, not the other way around.

Yesterday a federal court ruled against Liberty Counsel’s bid to overturn Maryland’s ban.

Liberty Counsel has lost at least a dozen of these cases, including twice before the Supreme Court.

But clearly, they believe that Trump’s stacking of courts with anti-LGBT judges will eventually work to their favor.