Oklahoma Legislators vs. Evidence-Based Therapy

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a trio of terrible bills from State Representative Sally Kern. It appears yet another one of them made it out of committee earlier this afternoon:

HB1598, conversion therapy bill, is being heard in Committee right now. You can listen at http://t.co/o245xQvuzB. Select Children & Youth. — Emily Virgin (@RepEmilyVirgin) February 24, 2015

Kern describing this bill as protecting children. — Emily Virgin (@RepEmilyVirgin) February 24, 2015

Rep. John Paul Jordan proposes amendment to specify that "touch therapy, pornography exposure, and vomit-inducing therapy" are prohibited. — Emily Virgin (@RepEmilyVirgin) February 24, 2015

Rep. Jordan also amended the bill to remove "pastors and youth ministers" from the definition of "mental health provider." — Emily Virgin (@RepEmilyVirgin) February 24, 2015

Both amendments were adopted. — Emily Virgin (@RepEmilyVirgin) February 24, 2015

Bill passes 5-3. One Republican, Pat Ownbey from Ardmore, voted against the bill. Two Dems, Young and Sherrer, also against. — Emily Virgin (@RepEmilyVirgin) February 24, 2015

(Many thanks to Rep. Virgin for keeping citizens in the loop in real time.)

While it is nice to see religious ministers removed from the list of mental health providers, HB 1598 remains deeply problematic inasmuch as it normalizes “efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex” and apparently immunizes practioners from malpractice suits just so long as they aren’t making the patient vomit or view pornography in the process.

I’d like to once again take the opportunity to mention that conversion therapy is a load of pseudoscientific hooey. If you’d like to read more about that, fellow Oklahoman Caleb Lack has a series of posts on the subject, and here is a brief from the APA (scroll down to the third and fourth bullets and click to expand).

For those of you who live in Oklahoma, it is time once again to contact your State Reps and try to knock some sense into them. Go to it, and good luck.