FRANKFORT, Kentucky (LifeSiteNews) – The Republican-controlled Kentucky Legislature voted by veto-proof margins to undo Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear’s ban on counseling for minors’ unwanted same-sex attraction, hailing it as a victory for free speech and against executive overreach.
In September, Beshear issued an executive order calling any attempt to help adults and young people deal with unwanted same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria “inhumane” and “discrimination” against “our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters, including our LGBTQ+ youth.” It made it illegal to use state or federal funds to provide conversion therapy on minors and gave licensing boards the authority to take disciplinary action against licensees found to have done so.
Now, the Associated Press reported that the legislature has voted to invalidate that order, with super-majorities that will render Beshear unable to sustain a veto.
“I am thankful that the General Assembly has taken these important steps to push back against Gov. Beshear’s brazen ‘conversion therapy’ executive order that attached free speech and religious freedom,” responded David Walls, executive director of the Kentucky Christian advocacy group the Family Foundation. “Further, the idea that state taxpayers should be footing the bill for gender transition treatments of any individual, but especially those who have perpetrated harm against our Commonwealth, is outrageous.
“The passage of HB 495 and SB 2 are a positive development, but there is much more that needs to be done,” he added. “We continue to believe that no taxpayer dollars should pay for any gender mutilation of any person anywhere in this Commonwealth. To use taxpayer funds for such purposes is not only poor stewardship but encourages individuals to undergo irreparable harm to their person. It’s not possible to change a person’s sex, and government has no place in promoting or subsidizing such madness.”
Opponents of conversion therapy commonly elicit opposition to the practice by invoking fringe, abusive practices such as electric shock and other forms of physically harmful junk science. But in reality, modern reparative treatment consists largely of simple counseling, the effectiveness of which is backed by studies and testimony from those who have benefited.
Liberals have long opposed conversion therapy as a harmful, activist influence on impressionable children. In recent years, however, conservatives say their opposition has taken on a particularly hypocritical quality given left-wing activists’ widespread embrace of not only actively encouraging transgenderism in gender-confused children but also subjecting them to potentially irreversible surgical and chemical transition procedures.
The U.S. Supreme Court announced this month that it will be reviewing the constitutionality of conversion therapy bans, stemming from a case in Colorado.
