The Chicago Sun-Times, in an editorial today, urged state legislators to finish the job and pass current legislation that would ban so-called “ex-gay” or “conversion” therapy.
And in no uncertain terms.
Being gay is not an illness. It requires no cure.
And anybody who practices “conversion therapy,” purporting to be able to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, is a quack, engaged in medical malpractice. Conversion therapy does not work. On this, the scientific and medical consensus is strong. It can only do harm.
We urge the Illinois Senate to support a measure, sponsored by Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, and Sen. Daniel Biss, D-Evanston, that would bar mental health workers from engaging in treatments designed to change the sexual orientation of minors.
The bill passed in the House on Tuesday by a vote of 68 to 43. Biss tells us he is “optimistic” it will pass in the Senate as well, next week, but he’s still rounding up the votes. Conversion therapy is one of those issues on which there are not really two opposing credible views, and to claim otherwise is to create a false equivalency.
On the one side are defenders of the practice, their views usually grounded in religious belief, who can cite no credible evidence.
On the other side is the full weight of America’s mainstream medical and mental health communities, who come armed with facts.
The cure does not work, and nobody needs curing.
