WND Still Trying To Whitewash Anti-LGBT Conversion Therapy

WorldNetDaily’s Bob Unruh is trying yet again to rebrand anti-LGBT conversion therapy — this time by repeating an right-wing anti-LGBT legal group’s reframing of them as nothing but “conversations” — in a July 27 article:

Michigan has adopted a law that gives government officials the authority to censor, and actually insert themselves, into conversations between counselors and their clients.

And it’s unconstitutional, according to a statement from ADF, a legal team that has argued against the ideology that allows governments to ban counseling for individuals who have unwanted same-sex attractions.

Michigan joined nearly two dozen other states with similar censorship programs, but that doesn’t make it legal, according to lawyer Greg Baylor of the ADF.

[…]

Social and legacy media outlets consistently have adopted the description of such counseling as “conversion therapy,” when it actually does not do any “conversion” and is not intended as such.

Its goals are to deal with the issues that a client has, and if that is same-sex attractions that are unwanted, to include those.

The dispute has had mixed results in courts around the nation, and the Supreme Court has not yet ruled whether governments have such censorship authority.

[…]

Media outlets commonly call the practice “discredited,” and noted that the Michigan ban is for minors, under the plan signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

It is the 22nd state with the same, or similar, censorship ideologies now embedded in their laws.

Those laws, incidentally, often are used to promote the concepts found in the LGBT community, and counselors are encouraged to promote those lifestyle choices.

Unruh didn’t dispute that conversion therapy has been discredited — as we’ve noted, conversion therapy is typically conducted by anti-LGBT activists who are not licensed practitioners and has included techniques such as shaming, hypnosis and induced vomiting, and those who are subjected to it (typically minors forced to undergo it by their parents) see higher rates of depression, substance abuse and suicide. Being a right-winger, Unruh made sure to maliciously insist without evidence that being LGBT is a “lifestyle choice.” He concluded with more complaining:

The counseling bans have been complicated recently by those who are promoting transgenderism, mean exceptions now need to be carved out in the counseling bans to allow therapy for those who are male, who say they are women and want to “convert” to being female, for example.

He failed to mention that opposition to such bans are promoted by right-wing anti-LGBT groups, of which ADF is one. Neither Unruh nor the ADF explain why LGBT people must be forced to be heterosexual.