Williams: Ex-Gays Fight LGBT Power Play to Outlaw Conversion Therapy

• Williams: Ex-Gays Fight LGBT Power Play to Outlaw Conversion Therapy
  by Thomas D. Williams, http://www.breitbart.com/
  A group including former gays who benefited from reparative therapy is fighting a California bill that would label such therapy a fraudulent business practice and ban counseling aimed at helping people who are unhappy with their same-sex attraction.
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  More than 350 people rallied at the state Capitol this week to oppose the proposal, claiming that the legislation unfairly limits people’s options to seek psychological help. The protesters included 30 former gay and transgendered people who spoke at a podium outside the California statehouse against the proposed law.“I did not want to be gay,” said Christian pastor Jim Domen, who said the therapy helped him to marry his wife and have children. “Please do not take away professional help programs that have helped people like me.”
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  “This legislation actually takes away rights from those who are questioning their sexuality,” said Ken Williams, co-founder of Equipped to Love. “We don’t want to see an America where the government is controlling how people identify sexually.”
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  Another demonstrator, pro golfer Kris Olsen denounced the bill for making it illegal for former homosexuals like her to freely seek counseling. “AB2943 violates my right to choose,” she said. “It is a blatant violation of my first amendment rights and I believe there’s a reason why our Founding Father chose to put these rights in the very first amendment.”
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  The new legislation would ban “advertising, offering for sale, or selling services constituting sexual orientation change efforts to an individual,” which it would include in its list of “unfair or deceptive acts or practices.”
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  Dr. Joseph Nicolosi is a licensed clinical psychologist who runs the largest reparative therapy clinic in the world. He told Breitbart News that his clinic uses evidence-based treatment interventions, the same interventions used by other clinics throughout the world, to treat trauma and sexual addictions.
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  “In the client-therapist relationship, the client is in the driver’s seat,” Nicolosi said. “Politicians have no business telling people their therapy goals are illegal.” “Thirty years of science has shown us that sexuality is fluid and can change for many people,” Nicolosi told Breitbart.
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