Cincinnati group pushes back against city's conversion therapy ban

Opponents of the city’s new ban on reparative or conversion therapy for minors say they are mobilizing local parents and members of the clergy on how to provide the counseling, despite the ordinance.

The Sharonville group Citizens for Community Values is joining forces with a Washington, D.C., organization to hold a news conference Friday at Central Parkway Church of God, 3220 Central Parkway, to ask City Council to reconsider its Dec. 9 vote on the ordinance.

After the news conference, Arlingon, Va.-based group Equality and Justice for All will conduct a seminar for parents and clergy leaders “on how they can help those who enter the church doors who are struggling with same-sex attractions,” a news release said.

Phil Burress of Citizens for Community Values, said his group still intends to sue the city over the ordinance, although Burgess said the news conference and seminar would not discuss that potential legal action.

The news conference and seminar are “strictly to help people, to help others,” Burress said. “If the city of Cincinnati is going to stop counselors from helping young people who have unwanted same-sex attractions, then we have numerous pastors and others in the Cincinnati area that can help these young people. They may not be counselors, but they’re pastors, and they can help people.”

Burgess said the seminar would be recorded and made available for distribution.

Proposed by City Council Member Chris Seelbach, the ordinance is the first municipal-level action against the counseling practice. California, Oregon, Illinois, New Jersey and the District of Columbia have banned the practice, which also is called “sexual orientation change effort.”

The goal of reparative or conversion therapy is to get a patient to change sexual orientation or gender. Most professional organizations for licensed therapists and mental-health providers frown on the practice.

The ordinance passed 7-2, and one of the 'no' votes, Council Member Charlie Winburn, who also is a minister, published an op-ed column in The Enquirer this week saying the ban would do “more harm than good.”

“Because City Council does not like conversion therapy,” Winburn writes, “they whimsically took away the rights of parents to choose such therapy for their children and youth in Cincinnati.”

On Thursday, Seelbach said of the upcoming Friday event: “It’s sad that people want to continue the harmful practice of trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of a minor, a practice debunked by every single mainstream medical organization.”

Chris Link, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, said that while government does have the right to regulate public health and safety, those decisions usually are made by state-level governing boards, not city councils. The courts may ultimately have something to say about Cincinnati’s ordinance.

“I’ve got a raised eyebrow on this one,” Link said. “I’m a little concerned about the appropriateness. It’s reflective of a moment, that there’s a movement to ban conversion therapy because it’s so abhorrent and not based on fact.”

Earlier this year, a federal appeals court upheld the New Jersey ban, throwing out a challenge that the prohibition violated a minor’s First Amendment rights.

“The First Amendment does not give you an inherent right to promote quack medicine,” Link said. “On the other hand, should the city have the power to impose this kind of a ban? That’s what the courts will have to decide.”