Bill would ban therapy to 'convert' gay youths LEGISLATURE

FILE- This file photo taken Sept. 9, 2011, shows California State Sen. Ted Lieu , D-Torrance , as he speaks before the Senate at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. Lieu is considering calling for a boycott of Lowe's stores after the home improvement chain pulled its advertising from a reality show about Muslim-Americans. Calling the retail giant's decision "naked religious bigotry," Lieu said Sunday, Dec. 11, 2011, he would also consider legislative action if Lowe's doesn't apologize to Muslims and reinstate its ads. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File) less FILE- This file photo taken Sept. 9, 2011, shows California State Sen. Ted Lieu , D-Torrance , as he speaks before the Senate at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. Lieu is considering calling for a boycott of ... more Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Bill would ban therapy to 'convert' gay youths 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

California could become the first state in the nation to ban therapy aimed at turning gay and lesbian youths straight, after legislators in a key policy committee approved the proposed law Tuesday and sent it to the Senate floor.

SB1172 by Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance (Los Angeles County), would make it illegal for therapists and psychologists to provide so-called sexual orientation change therapy - also known as conversion or reorientation therapy - to minors and require them to obtain written consent from adults who wish to undergo the counseling.

The bill cites a 2009 American Psychological Association report, which concluded this type of mental health therapy is "unlikely to be successful and involves some risk of harm," including depression, thoughts of suicide and anxiety.

If approved by lawmakers and signed into law, the measure would permit lawsuits and damages against therapy professionals who provide the treatment to minors or to adults who have not given written consent.

Lieu said Tuesday that the measure would regulate a form of therapy that has "no medical basis."

Therapy's harm

Testifying at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday was Peter Drake, a San Francisco man who underwent the treatment for three years and is now executive director of the COIL Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people come out of the closet and live without discrimination.

Drake said he was married to a woman for 28 years and almost killed himself before coming out in 2009.

"I have a personal, painful experience with the harm that can be done by reparative therapy," Drake said. "My depression worsened during the treatment, and there was no change in my sexual orientation. ... This is a form of medical malpractice, with practitioners who make claims about healing something that is not an illness."

But mental health groups are not ready to support the bill, even though most - including the American Psychological Association - formally oppose sexual orientation change therapy. Lieu told members of the committee, which passed the bill on a party-line vote with Republicans opposed, that he will amend the bill to address those concerns.

Concerns over wording

Tim Shannon, a lobbyist for the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, said Lieu should change SB1172's definition of sexual orientation change therapy, currently any "psychotherapy aimed at altering the sexual or romantic desires ... toward people of the same sex."

"If the bill were to say that it is unprofessional conduct to give therapy based on the premise that homosexuality is a disease or pathology, we would support it - we all believe it's unprofessional," Shannon said, adding that "currently it's too broad and could capture activity" that could be beneficial to a patient.

Others, including several members of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality - a group that believes gay people can become straight - also spoke in opposition. NARTH member David Pickup, a marriage and family therapist, said the measure would make it illegal for practitioners to help young boys and men who were sexually abused by older men and now have gay tendencies.

"I ought to know about this because I was one of those young boys," he said.

Ethical issue

But Ilan Meyer, a researcher at the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA who does not have a position on the Lieu bill, said the very idea of offering therapy to change someone's sexual orientation "is an issue of ethics."

"Why would you want to change someone's sexual orientation? The only answer is that you view it with disdain or disapproval," he said.

Meyer said there is no scientific way to determine whether this type of therapy works because adults undergoing the therapy have self-selected to participate - or, in the case of children, may have been forced into it by their parents. It is, however, proved to create "internalized homophobia" that can damage both children and adults, he said.

"The only thing it is possibly for is convincing a person that to be gay is a bad thing, and to tell them that they are bad internally," he said. "To the extent the purpose of this type of 'therapy' is to enhance self-rejection, it is damaging because we know therapy should not be doing that to people."