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Hateful bill in Mass. Legislature would ban needed counseling for youth on “sexual orientation” issues. Huge push by national LGBT movement.

Rejected by 20 state legislatures, the big target is now Massachusetts.

POSTED: July 23, 2015  UPDATED: Sept 1 2015

The fight to protect children from radical activists continues in Massachusetts. For the second time, the well-funded national LGBT movement is attempting to pass a bill that would ban professional counseling that would help youth deal with sexual-orientation or sexual identity problems. (And it's being pushed in states across the US.)

VIDEO: This very moving video David Pickup, a therapist who also testified at the public hearing for H97, tells his personal story: "Reparative therapy saved my life. I was one of those 5-year-old boys who was sexually abused . . . Very often homosexual feelings arise in puberty because of one's sexual abuse. . . I didn't know how to deal with those issues." From 2012 NARTH conference.

Bill H97, filed in the Massachusetts State House, is deceptively titled, “An Act relative to abusive practices to change sexual orientation and gender identity in minors.” Last session a nearly identical bill was filed and easily passed through two committees, but was finally derailed by strong last-minute lobbying by MassResistance activists. This year, the LGBT lobby is back with a vengeance. The public hearing was on July 28.

Putting vulnerable kids in danger to support an ideology

Homosexuality is very often a result of early sexual trauma such as sexual molestation, rape, exposure to pornography, abuse, etc., or serious issues with one or both parents. Young people who have emotional problems can be drawn into homosexuality by others. Skilled mental health professionals can often successfully help them work out the resulting same-sex attraction or gender-identity issues and heal their often severe emotional wounds.

If youth can be helped when they are starting down the road to same-sex behavior or gender identity confusion, it can save them years of pain, depression, disease, and even suicide. We've personally seen situations where such help has had incredible positive effects on teenagers and changed their lives wonderfully.

But the homosexual movement wants to make it illegal to help children. They are obsessed forcing all people to believe the false concept that they are "born that way." Passing this cruel bill in order to perpetuate and enforce that myth is a top priority for the Massachusetts homosexual lobby.

They also are fixated on attempting to discredit the growing numbers of ex-gays -- people who have been healed from their same-sex addictions. This phenomenon greatly angers the LGBT movement and there are great efforts made to deny the existence of ex-gays and to viciously attack them whenever possible.

Dishonest and deceitful lobbying tactics

Two years ago, at the July 16, 2013 public hearing for the previous bill and again at this year's public hearing held on July 28, 2015, we saw first-hand what we were up against. Major regional and national homosexual activists, organized by the state's homosexual lobby, came and testified about how “conversion therapy” allegedly harms children.

It's basically a campaign of disinformation, propaganda, and ginned up hysteria. They told lurid (and patently untrue) stories about children being electrocuted and other abuses by therapists. They told legislators that therapy CAUSES depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behavior – when it actually heals it. They claimed that virtually all the problems that homosexuals suffer through are caused by “prejudice” in society, not childhood experiences, abuse, or trauma.

They trotted out statements by professional organizations such as the American Psychological Association (APA) and American Medical Association “condemning conversion therapy.” But they don’t bring up the well-known fact that for years these organizations succumbed to the wishes of the LGBT lobby under intimidation and harassment, not through any scientific or medical inquiry. (A past president of the APA, Dr. Nicholas Cummings, has used this therapy and has said that the APA is now beholden to the "gay rights movement.")

They are lobbying even harder this year to pass it. That’s why it’s necessary for good people to join MassResistance and help stop this.

Text of Bill H97:

Note that, among other things, this bill uses the absurdly unscientific term "assigned sex at birth", as if sex is something than be changed or modified.

Organizing hard to pass it into law this session

The Massachusetts LGBT movement has been putting a lot of organizing energy into passing this bill.

It has 36 House and Senate sponsors – a veritable who’s who of the most far-left anti-family members of the Legislature (i.e., the same crowd that regularly fights for funding for Planned Parenthood).

To push this bill through, they’ve organized “Conversion Therapy Ban Coalition” to lobby for its passage. The Coalition is made up of the some of the most radical state and national groups, including: Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, BAGLY, GLAD, Human Rights Campaign, Mass. Transgender Political Coalition, MassEquality, PFLAG, The Trevor Project, the Mass Commission on LGBTQ Youth, and others. They also refer to the hateful Southern Poverty Law Center. Clearly, their mindset reflects a distorted and dysfunctional worldview, not concern for the well-being of your children.

Pushing these bills in states across the country, but getting stopped!

The national LBGT movement knows a win in Massachusetts would give them some momentum. They are spending considerable money to pass these bills in state legislatures across the country, but they have had a lot of defeats. In the past few years they’ve introduced similar bills in 24 state legislatures (including DC). But after initially winning in California and New Jersey, they run up against energetic pro-family opposition. As a result, they’ve only been able to get them signed into law in Oregon and Washington DC. It's been rejected in 20 states.

Many of the LGBT defeats around the country are due to the tireless work of ex-gay groups such as  PFOX, Voices Of Change, and EqualityAndJusticeForAll.  They’ve worked with local pro-family activists and helped them show the legislatures the horrible lies and deceptions that the LGBT movement is using at the expense of children. We hope to continue the good fight here in Massachusetts.

Your voice will help in this fight!

Status:  Bill H97 is currently in the Joint Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities. No action has been taken.

You can also still submit testimony directly to the Committee via email