A newspaper story by Ian K. Kullgren, The Oregonian, "Oregon House passes bill to ban 'conversion therapy' for LGBT youth," oregonlive.com posted Mar. 17, 2015 said, "Several people testified in support of a bill banning conversion therapy. The Oregon House approved a bill Tuesday aimed at banning "conversion therapy" for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. The bill would ban mental health care providers from using so-called conversion therapy -- a practice that tries to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity -- on people younger than 18."
This news seems to be flying below the radar because I heard only one brief mention of it by KEZI-TV news, a Eugene, Oregon TV station, and also my Google search did not yield any links to the story without me trying several different search phrases, which is a problem that hasn't happened to me with Google searches in years!
UPDATE Mar. 20, 2015: Trudy Rink, "Ex-gay Therapy: Anti-Conversion Therapy Bills Advance in Three States Oregon, Iowa, and Colorado have all seen one legislative chamber approve such a bill; the chance of further progress appears best in Oregon," advocate.com posted Mar. 20, 2015 END OF UPDATE Mar. 20, 2015.
I've written before about the politics of Christian Republicans using ex-gay therapy as a way to "prove" that being gay is an evil choice and therefore undeserving of equal rights, which is ironic because these same theocrats choose their religion and insist that the law protect them equally. The bigger problem is that many youth are subjected to ex-gay therapy, which has caused them harm before they discover that God has made them gay for a divine reason.
See previous posts John Becker ex-gay expose on Corvallis PBS TV tonight (9/5/12), "Wayne Besen ex-gay speech for OSU Pride History Month," (10/6/11) and my post for Jack Baker's "Gay Today" site: Thomas Kraemer, "Why Do Ex-Gays Matter?" GayToday.com posted December 08, 2003 plus Wayne Besen's book "Anything but straight", which is also available in the OSU library.
