Nevada just banned harmful gay ‘cure’ therapy for kids
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 25: Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval listens to questions during a ‘State of the States’ event at the Newseum, January 25, 2017 in Washington, DC. The National Governors Association will hold their annual winter meeting in Washington next month. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The Nevada Governor has signed a bill into law which protects LGBT+ young people from harmful gay ‘conversion’ therapy.
Senator David Parks of Las Vegas introduced the bill to outlaw the widely condemned practice.
Senate Bill 201 will concern psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurses, family therapists and other clinical counsellors.
The bill stops short of banning religious ‘counsellors’ like pastors from attempting to ‘cure’ the sexual orientation or gender identity of a person.
Those opposed to the bill argued that adults and the parents of gay children should be allowed to opt-in to the practice if they so wish.
But, along the lines of many major medical bodies, Senator Parks argued that the practice can be harmful to recipients.
“I want to thank my colleagues in the Senate and the Assembly for their bipartisan support of Senate Bill 201,” said Nevada State Senator Parks.
“Conversion therapy is a dangerous, discredited practice that has been shown to cause anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and suicide among LGBTQ youth. By enacting this ban, Nevada will join eight other states and the District of Columbia in taking a strong stand to protect young people from psychological and physical abuse.”
Earlier this month Connecticut’s Governor Dannel Malloy signed a bill into law banning the practice on minors.
Since, a bill has been proposed by Wisconsin state Representative Amanda Stuck which would ban the practice for minors in the state.
Nevada became the tenth jurisdiction to pass laws to ban the harmful practice.
California, New Jersey, the District of Columbia, Oregon, Illinois, Vermont, New York, and New Mexico all have laws or regulations protecting youth from this abusive practice.
Cities in the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida have also enacted similar protections.
Hawaii also introduced legislation to ban the practice in 2016.
The controversial practice seeks to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of an individual.
It has been widely discredited, particularly by most major medical bodies. The American Psychological Association has stated that the practice can be damaging, and can lead to depression, suicidal thoughts and substance abuse.
Lawyers from the Liberty Counsel, who defended Kim Davis the clerk who refused to marry gay couples, said they would sue Palm Springs if the county moves to ban gay ‘cure’ therapies.
The UK government last year refused to make gay cure therapy illegal.
It responded to a petition signed by 33,000 Brits asking for the process, which has been widely debunked, to make the process illegal.
US Vice President has been an advocate of the debunked therapy in the past, though he has denied that since.
The pope has also criticised attempts to stop gay cure therapy, calling it an attack on ‘religious freedoms’.
Therapy to change a person’s sexual orientation has been denounced by almost every major medical associations, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Psychological Association.
