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发帖数: 7299 | 1 SAN FRANCISCO – A federal appeals court on Friday put the brakes on a
first-of-its-kind California law that bans therapy aimed at turning gay
minors straight.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an
emergency order putting the law on hold until the court can hear full
arguments on the measure's constitutionality. The law was set to take effect
Jan. 1.
Licensed counselors who practice so-called "reparative therapy" and two
families who say their teenage sons have benefited from it sought the
injunction after a lower court judge refused the request.
The law, which was passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown
this fall, states that therapists and counselors who use "sexual orientation
change efforts" on clients under 18 would be engaging in unprofessional
conduct and subject to discipline by state licensing boards.
The appeals court's order prevents the state from enforcing the law, SB1172,
while a different three-judge panel considers if the measure violates the
First Amendment rights of therapists and parents.
Liberty Counsel President Mathew Staver, whose Christian legal aide group
is representing reparative therapy practitioners and recipients in a lawsuit
seeking to overturn the law, applauded the court's decision to grant his
request to delay its implementation.
"This law is politically motivated to interfere with counselors and clients.
Liberty Counsel is thankful that the 9th Circuit blocked the law from going
into effect," Staver said. "This law is an astounding overreach by the
government into the realm of counseling and would have caused irreparable
harm."
Backers of the ban say the state is obligated to outlaw reparative therapy
because the practice puts young people at risk and has been rejected by
every mainstream mental health association.
After signing SB1172, the governor called the therapies it would outlaw "
quackery" that "have no basis in science or medicine."
Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights,
which helped fight for the law's passage, said the measure's supporters
shouldn't read too much into Friday's order.
"It's disappointing because there shouldn't even be a temporary delay of
this law, but this is completely irrelevant to the final outcome," Minter
said.
The brief order issued Friday did not explain the panel's thinking. The 9th
Circuit has requested briefs on the case's broader constitutional issues but
has not scheduled arguments.
"California was correct to outlaw this unsound and harmful practice, and the
attorney general will vigorously defend this law," said Lynda Gledhill,
press secretary to Attorney General Kamala Harris.
Earlier this month, two federal trial judges in California arrived at
opposite conclusions on whether the law violates the Constitution.
On Dec. 4, U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller refused to block the law
after concluding that the plaintiffs represented by Staver were unlikely to
prove the ban on "conversion" therapy unfairly tramples on their civil
rights and should therefore be overturned.
The opponents argued the law would make them liable for discipline if they
merely recommended the therapy to patients or discuss it with them. Mueller
said they didn't demonstrate that they were likely to win, so she wouldn't
block the law.
Mueller's decision came half a day after U.S. District Judge William Shubb
handed down a somewhat competing ruling in a separate lawsuit filed by a
psychiatrist, a licensed counselor and a former patient who is studying to
practice gay conversion therapy.
Shubb said he found the First Amendment issues presented by the ban to be
compelling. He ordered the state to temporarily exempt the three people
named in the case before him.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12/22/court-blocks-california-law-banning-gay-therapy/#ixzz2G4rEo6VA |
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