PFOX letter to CA State Senator Ted Lieu
August 8, 2012
Edited text: “Dear Senator Ted Lieu: You claim that ‘sexual orientation conversion therapy is absolutely illegitimate’ and that’s why you ‘want to stop parents from sending their kids to it.’ … please read the 2010 CDC AIDS report: 77% of diagnosed HIV infections were attributed to MSM (men who have sex with men). Of those aged 13 to 24 youth, 89% was attributed to MSM. In fact, MSM aged 13 to 24 youth had the greatest increase in diagnosis (44%). Talk about harm to children! Why do you want to prevent youth from receiving counseling for unwanted same-sex attractions when those attractions can kill them?”
Full text of the PFOX letter:
Dear Senator Ted Lieu:
You claim that “sexual orientation conversion therapy is absolutely illegitimate” and that’s why you “want to stop parents from sending their kids to it.” The OC Register quotes you as saying: “The attack on parental rights is exactly the whole point of the bill because we don’t want to let parents harm their children…Reparative therapy hurts children, so this bill [legislation SB 1172] allows us to stop parents from hurting their children.”
Sponsoring legislation endorsed by the gay lobby to ensure that children only receive gay-affirming therapy is an act of childhood endangerment and an unconstitutional attempt to deny parental rights everywhere, but especially for parents in California and those in your Torrance district. Your bill will turn California into a nanny state by usurping the civil rights of parents who support their child’s right to receive therapy for unwanted same-sex attractions, especially when that child has been sexually molested. This smacks of fascism and ex-gay bashing.
As parents of gays and ex-gays, we are ashamed of your willingness to take action against parents, children, and the family in order to support gay activists. It is people like you who endanger children, and not their parents, whom you wish to dictate on how they raise their own children. California is not a socialist state and our children do not belong to the government, subject to the ideology of the state over the objections of their parents.
You endanger youth by denying their right to receive therapeutic help, promoting homosexual behavior to sexually confused youth, and conveniently ignoring the facts about the psychological and physical health risks of sodomy. By your comments, it appears you lack credible knowledge about changeable sexual preference and that you have obtained biased information without consulting the ex-gay community.
Are you aware that the American Psychological Association admitted at its August 2001 conference that no body of evidence existed to prove that sexual reorientation therapies are harmful? In 2009, the APA stated that research on harm from sexual orientation change efforts is limited, and some of the research that exists suffers from methodological limitations that make broad and definitive conclusions difficult. [Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation, p. 67 (APA, 2009)]
This same APA also stated that affirmative approaches [gay-affirming therapy efforts] have “not been evaluated for safety and efficacy.” Id. at 91. Therefore homosexual affirming therapy should be included in your SB 1172 as it has not been proven to be safe.
Senator Lieu, since you claim your concern is for the safety of children, please read the 2010 CDC AIDS report: 77% of diagnosed HIV infections were attributed to MSM (men who have sex with men). Of those aged 13 to 24 youth, 89% was attributed to MSM. In fact, MSM aged 13 to 24 youth had the greatest increase in diagnosis (44%). Talk about harm to children! Why do you want to prevent youth from receiving counseling for unwanted same-sex attractions when those attractions can kill them?
