The Senate voted 21-8 on Thursday to snuff out gay conversion therapy for minors in Oregon, with a trio of conservative Republicans joining all Senate Democrats to block licensed health professionals from deploying psychological therapy aimed at changing a juvenile client’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Before signaling his support, Republican Sen. Tim Knopp of Bend, one of the upper chamber’s most reliable conservatives, exchanged a volley of constitutional questions with chief sponsor Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, affirming his belief that House Bill 2307, which bans the discredited and harmful therapy, does not infringe upon freedom of speech or religion.
“I take quite seriously some really foundational beliefs -- religious beliefs in God and the Holy Bible, political beliefs in the Constitution,” Knopp said in the dramatic rhetorical exchange, which ended in a surprising closing line. “Religious freedom is protected in this bill, and therefore I will be voting ‘Yes.’”
HB 2307 does not affect the practice and use of religious teachings that may oppose homosexuality, and does not bar the expression of negative counsel about gays, bisexuals and transgender people -- it merely stops professionals from offering therapy designed to change orientation or identity. Similar bans in New Jersey and California have been upheld as constitutional by the federal court system.
Gelser quoted another Republican -- New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who signed a similar ban into law -- as she encouraged her colleagues to support an Oregon ban: “exposing these children to health risks is not appropriate.”
“Not only does it not work, it hurts, it harms,” she said.
Having already passed the House, the bill awaits the signature of Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, who is widely expected to sign it, although her spokeswoman Kristen Grainger said as a matter of policy that the governor does not comment on legislation before it reaches her desk.
Knopp was joined in support of HB 2307 by just two other Republicans -- Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli of John Day and Sen. Chuck Thomsen, who represents parts of outer East Portland, Sandy and Hood River.
During committee hearings in both the Senate and the House, people who had survived conversion therapy testified that attempts to alter their orientation to heterosexuality had not only failed, but left them with years of depression, anxiety and panic attacks.
Public opposition to a ban was slim in the House, although in the Senate Human Services Committee, a group of conversion therapy proponents flew to Oregon from around the country to try to stop the state from becoming just the third to end the practice.
Jayson Graves, a marriage and family therapist in Colorado, told The Lund Report he would never coerce a client to deny one’s true self, but banning this kind of therapy would prevent him from helping guide a client who wanted to change or limit their sexual expression, including bisexuals whose attractions are not limited by gender.
He claimed to have had only same-sex attraction before undergoing the therapy. He is now married to a woman and has two children.
But Jim Hanson, the school psychologist at Portland’s Lincoln High School, told The Lund Report that there have been at least 45 peer-review studies showing that methods attempting to change someone’s innate sexual orientation or gender identity do not work, and 12 studies show it can lead to harmful psychological effects. “There is no evidence it works.”
Hanson said it would be completely unethical for him to push a student and even attempt to change them in a way this type of therapy would require.
Conversion therapy is sometimes called “reparative therapy” by its proponents -- a euphemism that Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, took particular issue with: “I find that term, ‘reparative therapy’ both telling and deeply offensive. It implies that there is something broken that needs to be fixed -- and nothing could be further from the truth.”
Dembrow shared with his colleagues that he had the recent pleasure to attend a female relative’s wedding to another woman. She is an emergency room doctor in New York City, and her bride is working to become a nurse practitioner. Both are passionate about serving underserved patients. “These are not broken people."
