Gov. Chris Christie signed legislation in August that banned the use of gay conversion therapy, which aims to help young people eliminate their sexual attraction to members of the same sex. Not everyone is happy with that decision. Opponents of the ban are trying to overturn his action. One of the people who hopes the ban is ultimately overturned is Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mathew Staver. He told NJ Today Managing Editor Mike Schneider that people should have the right to seek counseling how they see fit.
Staver said counseling clients have the right of self determination. “They have the right to be able to set their own counseling objectives and seek a counselor that aligns with those objectives or helps them reach those objectives,” he said.
According to Staver, individuals who seek conversion therapy have unwanted same-sex sexual attractions, behavior or identity. “These are individuals who are experiencing tension between their feelings or their behavior or their identity and their value system. And they want to ultimately seek a counselor to help them,” he said. “But this law says that they can under no circumstances seek a counselor that seeks to help them reach their goal of change. That is unprecedented and that is why this is unconstitutional.”
While licensed counselors are banned from practicing conversion therapy, individuals can still seek that type of counseling from an unlicensed member of a religious group. Staver said that doesn’t make sense, especially if opponents believe the therapy is harmful.
Staver disagrees that conversion therapy harms patients, saying American Psychological Association (APA) studies have even shown some benefits. “The very basis of this [ban] is not in science, it’s in ideology. It is in an intrusion into the counseling-client relationship that is unprecedented in nature,” he said.
Many, including Christie, have said that individuals are born gay, but Staver says that’s not based in scientific fact. “The APA has already found that there’s no scientific evidence that people are born that way. It is a multi-factor situation. There is no biological wired cause that you can point to in any study,” he said.
Staver said he believes the use of conversion therapy should be allowed so people who want align their values with their sexual orientation have the option to do so. “This is simply a gay agenda and it hurts counselors and it stigmatizes them and stigmatizes the clients who seek this kind of counsel which they should have the right to,” he said.
Staver said that since Christie signed the bill, he supported the gay agenda, though he vetoed a measure that would allow same-sex marriage. “He makes statements that are not supported by facts and signs this law into effect. He made statements that are clearly contradicted by all the medical and scientific studies,” said Staver.
He maintains that there is no evidence showing homosexuality is in a person’s makeup at birth. “It may have some biological components, it may have environmental, it may have other factors but the twin studies clearly undercut this biological, born this way idea. Even the APA task force itself that the legislature relied upon, that Gov. Christie apparently didn’t read, does not support the proposition that you are born that way,” Staver said.