ABOVE: Aerial photograph of the Town of Palm Beach. (Photo by Michael Kagdis, from Wikimedia Commons)
Local ordinances banning the practice of so-called “conversion therapy” in both Palm Beach County and Boca Raton, Florida were found to be unconstitutional by an appeals court Nov. 20.
In a 2-1 decision, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated that while they “understand and appreciate that the therapy is highly controversial,” the First Amendment “has no carveout for controversial speech.”
Both judges who ruled against the “conversion therapy” ban were President Donald Trump appointees.
“We fear that today’s decision may be the tip of the iceberg in terms of the harm that may come from a federal judiciary that has been packed for the last four years with dangerous ideologues,” said Lambda Legal CEO Kevin Jennings in a statement. “The damage done by this misguided opinion is incalculable and puts young people in danger.”
Palm Beach County and Boca Raton both passed their bans in late 2017.
Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based Christian advocacy group, filed the appeal in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in April 2019 on behalf of therapists Robert Otto and Julie Hamilton who said the ban was a violation of their free speech.
“So-called ‘conversion therapy’ is nothing less than child abuse,” Jennings said. “It poses documented and proven critical health risks, including depression, shame, decreased self-esteem, social withdrawal, substance abuse, self-harm and suicide. Youth are often subjected to these practices at the insistence of parents who don’t know or don’t believe that the efforts are harmful and doomed to fail: when these efforts predictably fail to produce the expected result, many LGBTQ children are kicked out of their homes.”
