Sexual Health + Identity

Supreme Court Upholds California Ban on Conversion Therapy

This is huge.

After a Christian minister challenged California's ban on conversion therapy, the Supreme Court decided the harmful practice is still against the law.

According to Reuters, the U.S.'s highest court threw out a challenge by Donald Welch, who is in charge of counseling at counseling at Skyline Wesleyan Church near San Diego, asking it to reconsider the ban on conversion therapy put in place across the state by a 2012 law. It's the second time in three years someone has attempted to overturn the ban.

The Human Rights Campaign characterizes conversion therapy as "a range of dangerous and discredited practices that falsely claim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression," despite there being no scientific evidence to support it. Because it's been shown not to change someone's sexuality, to be based in the wrongful idea that sexuality should and can be changed, and because it can harm those who go through it, various medical associations have [denounced] the practice.

California passed it's law in 2012, banning state-licensed mental health counselors like psychologists and social workers from offering services that claim to change someone's sexual orientation. Right now, New Jersey, Illinois, Oregon, Vermont, New Mexico and the District of Columbia also have laws in place regarding conversion therapy. And while conversion therapy has been shown not to change someone's sexual orientation, it's also seen as harmful to those who go through it. After it was revealed Vice President Mike Pence may have supported conversion therapy in the past, some took to social media to share accounts of their personal experiences with the practice. Some said they experienced suicidal ideation because of conversion therapy, while others said their friends died by suicide during the process. One account included teachings aimed at making the person loath themselves until they were wiling to do anything to change.

"I never finished step one, but when I left I was destroyed. I still hated myself because they didn't teach you to love yourself," one user wrote of conversion therapy.

The Supreme Court ruled the law banning conversion therapy does not violate religious rights.

Related: Bill Nye Uses Ice Cream Cones to Disprove Conversion Therapy

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