US Free Speech Win Could End Australia’s Conversion Therapy Bans
A legal battle in the United States between freedom of speech and Conversion Therapy bans (CTBs) could change Australian law.
Youth For Christ director Dr Paul Bedwell told The Daily Declaration that a ruling in favour of free speech would drive the change.
Currently before the United States Supreme Court, Chiles v. Salazar challenges state bans on helping people who want to get out of the LGBTQI+ lifestyle.
Kaley Chiles is a licensed Christian counsellor taking on the state of Colorado, arguing that the state’s 2019 Minor Conversion Therapy Law “violates her constitutional rights.”
Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, her legal team argues, places a “viewpoint-based speech restriction on counsellors.”
For Chiles, “the law censors any conversation between counsellors and their clients” that might contradict the state’s pro-LGBTQI+ views on sexuality.
As her legal brief states, “when Chiles counsels young people with gender dysphoria, Colorado allows the counsellor to speak if she helps them embrace a transgender identity.”
However, “if those clients choose to align their sense of identity with their sex by growing comfortable with their bodies, Chiles must remain silent or risk losing her license, her livelihood, and the career she loves.”
SCOTUS took on the case after a 10th Circuit Court ruled that laws banning conversion therapy “conduct” meant Chiles had to comply with state-sanctioned speech.
Free Speech vs Professional Regulation
Speaking with The Daily Declaration about Chiles v. Salazar, the Australia Youth For Christ boss said the consensus in the US is that SCOTUS will rule in Chiles’ favour.
When that happens, he asserted, Australia’s freedom advocates need to be ready to “speak truth to power,” because the free speech benefits will be global.
Chiles’ case shows that CTBs threaten the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship because they contradict evidence-based reasoning.
In this sense, CTBs are another example of the ever-increasing political takeover of medicine, Dr Bedwell agreed.
Dictating to the medical profession laws based on protecting the LGBTQI+ as a political class has the opposite effect.
Instead of providing healthcare, these laws prevent it.
Medical conduct, Dr Bedwell explained, is redefined to mean “any action that doesn’t align with the prevailing ideological whim of the state.”
This is why any SCOTUS ruling on Chiles v. Salazar in favour of free speech matters to Australians.
Australia now has similar “born that way” laws that are contradicted by both research and data on sexuality, Dr Bedwell said in the latest video for his Love Questions Podcast.
Client Choice and the Ongoing Ethical Debate
Although legislation is different depending on the state, “some of the major ethical challenges to the legislation here in Australia are identical to those in the US.”
This is, he added, “viewpoint discrimination.”
Like some states in the US, “we have a protection in Australia of any therapy that supports someone heading towards LGBT. And yet, that same legislation bans therapy for people moving away from LGBT.
“Consent, according to this law, is not a defence.
“Meaning that it’s illegal to help someone who wants therapy to help them live out a Christian sexual ethic.
“If you’re going from heterosexual to homosexual direction, from non-LGBT to LGBT. That’s fine. That’s protected.
“But if you want to go back the other way, then it’s illegal. It’s outlawed. It’s conversion therapy.”
Acknowledging the opposing argument and some abuses used to defend the law, Dr Bedwell said, he was sorry to anyone who had experienced that.
“Coercion, though, is never the intention of a Christian conducting therapy or discipleship.
“The goal is to follow Christ and to discover what He plans for our lives, and that includes sexual ethics.
“If you want to continue in a lifestyle of LGBT, you are free to do that.
“Someone who doesn’t want to follow a particular way, we say go your way, have it your way,” he declared.
However, “there are those who do want to follow Christian sexual ethic, an orthodox Christian sexual ethic. They want that. They’re choosing that.”
“There are people who freely and willingly – without any coercion – have decided themselves to live out Christian sexual ethics.”
To this, the former GP turned Youth Work Director added, unfortunately, the Conversion therapy laws in both New South Wales and Victoria don’t allow for that.
“How awful, then, and frankly, how wrong is it that we have a law that says no, you can’t help them?”
“If someone wants to leave the LGBT to follow Jesus, they’re on their own. You can’t help them.”
“If you do, it could lead to five years in jail.”
Patients’ Rights
Of course, there are good reasons to ditch coercive, violent therapy.
The problem is, as Dr Bedwell explained, “non-coercive, evidence-based, freedom-allowing, choice-allowing therapy got banned along with all the other dodgy stuff.”
Ultimately, these laws are invasive, all-consuming totalitarianism.
Conversion therapy bans gag debate by discouraging “people from wanting to go anywhere near the conversation.”
“We won’t do that,” Bedwell asserted.
“We won’t get bullied by really poor legislation into silencing, self-silencing our own Christian viewpoints.
Whether these be “Orthodox Christian, Jewish, or Islamic.
“We are absolutely entitled to speak and act in keeping with our ideology and our conscience.
“We would never want to enforce anything upon anyone. Freedom of choice is crucial,” he reassuringly affirmed.
“People accessing psychiatric care should be able to choose their own therapy goals.
“It’s called client-directed or client-centred therapy.”
Concluding, Dr Bedwell told The Daily Declaration that this approach was the gold standard when it comes to providing high-quality healthcare.
“Individuals having the right to choose which type of support they want was extremely important.
“Ultimately, individuals choose what their therapeutic goals are, what they want to get from therapy.”
As Bedwell further explained, “patient-driven outcomes” are the beating heart of healthcare.
That’s why these conversion therapy bans are wrong, he argued.
“They eliminate the freedom of an individual to choose what they want to get out of therapy.”
This is “state-mandated, one-directional pro-LGBT advocacy made law.”
This is “totalitarian, and it needs to be overturned.”
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Our church by and large stopped doing this harmful practice about 20 years ago. It was officially banned in 2011 – I guess that was mostly in reaction to all the psychological and spiritual trauma that had been caused by groups such as Exodus.
Exodus closed in 2013 and issued a public apology for the harm they had caused due to their malpractice.
Sadly some churches continued this abhorrent ‘therapy’ and other Exodus-like groups still remained.
There’d be no need for these laws if it all churches stopped these harmful practices like we did.
Great article Rod!!!!!
Thank you Rod and Paul for speaking the truth. The truth sets us free.
God created us will with sexual desires, we need to deal with that regardless of who we are attracted to.
I’m attracted to women, and if a pretty girl walks into the room I will notice. Nothing wrong with that, it is how God made me. It only becomes an issue if I take things further in my mind and/or actions; then it becomes lust or more.
The Bible doesn’t discuss gay feelings, but it does discuss gay sex. There are only a handful of passages which mention same-gender sexual relationships, and all of them are negative.
Lets back off and look at human sexuality as God intended and created us for.
The ideal is a marriage of a man and a woman committed for life with a satisfying relationship including sexual intimacy. The path to marriage is Godly courtship and betrothal.
Anything less than this is likely to be sin.
Some would say we can’t control falling in love (and more often than not lust), but this is not the issue… the real issue to committing to Godly marriage and family.
So being same sex attracted or not is not the real issue. The real issue is aligning your fleshly desires with God’s truth. This is regardless of who you feel you are attracted to.
Eph 4:28 Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.
If we truly understand sin (any sin) we see that our self-life / self-will / selfishness is the core issue. Ref: Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
We cannot argue away from the truth of the word or that fact the God is the absolute moral ruler of the universe. Simply, regardless of who we feel attracted to it is how we think and act that matters, and if we sin we need to repent.
Just because a person struggles with same-sex desire doesn’t mean God made them gay, any more than a person struggling with anger means God made them a murderer. You have a choice about what you do with every temptation.
Why does there seem to be such focus on this sin and not so much other sins?
Because it is blatantly being thrown in societies face and attempted to be imposed on the Church and Christian life and values.
The consequences are the worst possible, i.e. eternal separation from God.
Hence calling for repentance in grace is the primary loving thing we can do.
We do not celebrate, accept, or endorse the sinful life choices of the LGBT? community. We love the people and tolerate their choices.
In the end homosexuals, trans-genders, etc. are no different to any other of us sinners. Don’t make it a special case, we all need to turn from our sin and repent.
Trans-gender can be many things, eg. it can be lust/perversion, or and expression of self hatred, or mental illness. It is complex, but the outworking is from denying what God made is good, and that is where it is a sin.
99.9% of transsexuals I see (via outreach in the sex industry) is just perverted lust.
For so called trans children – it is being forced on them for grooming purposes – and that makes me angry because it is perverted child abuse.
** Same sex marriage is an outworking of sin, rebellion against God, and ignoring God’s clear word. **
That said, Being Christian is essentially being libertarian. We allow people to do what they want (which has consequences), we pray you change your path and I’ll pray for you and help you, but it’s your right to choose your path and do your thing. Most Christians have gay friends, it’s rarely the Christians that push people away. It’s just trendy to call certain groups bigots right now.
As for gay marriage or pronouns, Christians don’t care if you marry, we care if you demand a Christian minister to marry you against their beliefs and likewise we care if someone demands we go against our beliefs in reference to recognising you trying to be a gender you are not. Still basically you do you, we’ll love you still and tolerate your right to do you, but we can’t go against our beliefs to accommodate or celebrate you.
Likewise, a Christian school or business must be able to decide if people’s values align and employ or provide a specific service. E.g. if I’m a cake maker, I will sell you a cake (generic), but not decorate it to affirm your choices as this forces my speech.
On the question of conversion therapy: can gay people be converted to normal people?
Wrong question due to a wrong premise!
The real question is: Can we via repentance and renewing of the mind come to be who God created to be?
Answer: YES !!!
And I have seen it happen many times. I.e. a person living a homosexual lifestyle coming to being fully heterosexual, married, with children!
The wrong premise is that gays are abnormal, rather than just normal sinners like all of us!
Once we understand that conversion therapy is pointless. We really underestimate the power of redemption in Christ.
Most importantly, marriage in the Bible is a portrait of Christ and His church, which is His bride. The perverted agenda of the world seeks to destroy the image of God and the church. We do need to speak the truth on this issue.
Very well said Kym. 👍