I am against this proposal to regulate and ban licensed counselors from providing reparative or “conversion” therapy to children. Reparative therapy is simply talk therapy used by the counseling profession to assist children or adults to work through struggles with unwanted same-sex or mixed-sexual attractions.
This is a parents’ rights issue, not a “state” issue. Parents should have the right to choose who they want to counsel their children, and the type of counseling given.
This ban would bypass the parents and the citizens of this state; allowing the Board to impose counseling choices of their own choosing on children, who are most vulnerable of our population. It leaves out parents from a most important decision.
If parents wish to have reparative or “conversion” counseling; that is their right and their decision. They know their own children the best; and, this is a decision that clearly belongs in the parents’ domain.
I I also believe that this is a First Amendment issue, and this ban seems to undermine it. I ask the Board of Social Work to reject 140-20.