In early 2017, Tampa City Council passed an ordinance banning the debunked practice of attempting to "convert" lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other gender non-conforming youth to straight, cisgendered individuals.
As CL mentioned in late 2017, the ordinance, which Councilman Guido Maniscalco proposed, applied only to practitioners who sought to "counsel" or in other ways treat young people. Adults were not included as a matter of respecting self-determination.
Well, now a judge says that the Tampa ban on conversion therapy may violate therapists' First Amendment free speech rights. That’s according to The Hill, which shed light on a recent opinion issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Amanda Arnold Sansone, who partly sided with a Christian ministry organization and two marriage and family therapists — Robert Vazzo and David Pickup — in a lawsuit against the ordinance.
What’s more is that Sansone has recommended that the Tampa ban on conversion therapy should be partially blocked. Under her recommendation, “aversive” conversion-therapy techniques (ie: electroshock therapy) should still be banned.
It’s important to note that 14 other states and the District of Columbia have already barred the practice of conversion therapy for minors. In fact, the Supreme Court has twice upheld California’s 2012 version of the ban.
The issue, however, seems to have been revived after a recent Supreme Court decision — National Institute of Family & Life Advocates v. Becerra — ruled against a California law requiring crisis pregnancy centers to tell women about the availability of other services in the state, including abortion, effectively upholding the First Amendment free-speech rights of medical professionals.
Sansone’s report will now be sent to a federal district judge, who will issue a ruling.
This article appears in Jan 31 – Feb 7, 2019.