Pinch Yourself: New York City Walks Back LGBT Counseling Gag Rule
by Cathy Ruse, The Stream:
The LGBT movement has asked for the repeal of its favorite new law in New York City. In a public statement on Thursday, the Speaker of the City Council agreed.
Why? Because free speech matters. And elections have consequences.
Sweeping Speech Bans
In 2017 the City Council passed a law that punishes counselors who engage in LGBT-related speech from a certain viewpoint — the viewpoint of a patient seeking to overcoming unwanted transgender feelings or same-sex attraction.
It bans “any services” that “seek to change a person’s sexual orientation” or “gender identity.” The language is so broad that it covers even patient-led, private conversations between a counselor and a patient.
LGBT activists have persuaded 18 states and the District of Columbia to pass similar laws, sometimes called “conversion therapy” bans.
In New York City and elsewhere, legislative hearings feature activists who describe nightmarish scenarios of cruel methods used on “gay” people to make them “straight.” They never provide any hard evidence of these practices because they don’t have any.
But it doesn’t matter. They get what they want. Sweeping bans that outlaw not only cruel methods, but all methods. Including private conversations between counselor and patient.
New York City passed its counseling censorship law in December 2017 by a vote of 40-2.
The City Just Blinked
Then an elderly counselor challenged the Capitol of the World. And the city just blinked.
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