Washington State Senate Votes to Ban Conversion Therapy

[RandySF]

After the DLCC helped Senator Manka Dhingra flip the Washington State Senate in a critical special election last November, the brand new Democratic majority in the state Senate has brought a major victory for LGBTQ advocates with the passage of a bill to ban conversion therapy. With champions in both chambers of the legislature and in the Governor’s office, LGBTQ children will soon be safe from the detrimental and discredited practice. The Senate bill will likely pass, making Washington the eleventh state to ban conversion therapy. Joining Democratic-led California and Oregon, West Coast kids from the border with Canada to the border with Mexico will no longer live in fear of being punished for who they are. As state Democrats’ blue wall expands protections on the Pacific, the DLCC is working to flip majorities in state legislative chambers throughout the country in the hope of protecting many more at-risk citizens in 2018.


http://www.dlcc.org/friday-five/friday-five-january-26-2018

[samnsara]

1. yay cuz we got rid of the damned 1 seat senate majority..

...now we can move forward!

[Aristus]

2. I'm surprised it took this long.

We're Washington State, not East Cornhole, Arkassippi or someplace.

But thank God it finally passed. Our collective determination to treat human beings like human beings.

Proud to be a Washingtonian!

[Mister Ed]

3. Maybe the "Conversion Therapists" can find new work.

If they can really turn gay people into straight people, then may be they can be hired to turn people into other things that they're not.

Like me, for instance. I wonder if they could turn me into a giraffe, at least for a while. I've always thought it would be fun to be a giraffe. I'd pay money to find out.

[jmowreader]

4. They'll just move to Idaho and pick right back up where they left off

This is a good law, but unless there's either a nationwide ban on this atrocity or a ban on transporting children across state lines for it, Washington parents who want the gay prayed away will simply haul their children to Idaho to have it done.

FWIW, Rep. John Crostie, D-Boise, has introduced a bill that seeks to ban conversion therapy in Idaho.

https://www.eastidahonews.com/2018/01/bill-would-make-conversion-therapy-for-gay-juveniles-illegal-in-idaho/

[Mister Ed]

5. You're so right. "Atrocity" is the word, and those guilty of it should be in jail.

I realize, upon reflection, that the flippant mockery of the "Conversion Therapists" in my post above is perhaps out of place.

This is an atrocity whose savage cruelty is on a par with the female genital mutilation practiced by certain isolated and extreme Islamic sects. If the damage were physical, or if the practitioners were Muslim instead of self-avowed "Christians", then there would already be national outrage and a federal ban.

Those guilty of this barbarism deserve jail rather than mere mockery. I'm tempted to remove my earlier post, but I think I'll leave it in place so that readers will understand what it is I'm apologizing for.