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Client Rights and Government Wrongs, Part One

Water of Life [Community Church in Fontana, CA] seeks to bring hope, healing and transformation to individuals through the power of the Gospel, including those who struggle with same sex attraction and gender confusion. Through AB 2943, Legislators are seeking to declare all fee-based resources offered to these individuals as consumer fraud. This means our counseling centers can no longer minister to these individuals and employees in our bookstores could face liability for guiding a person to books or other resources that address same sex attraction from a Biblical perspective. This is a direct threat to the religious freedom of Christian counselors, ministries, and churches. And it is also a direct threat to the freedom of individuals facing unwanted attractions or identity confusion to find help from a licensed counselor or support group. I could not sit silently by and watch this bill pass.…I am writing this letter to encourage you to get involved, while we still have a voice in the State of California.
—Water of Life’s Senior Pastor Dan Carroll, in an open letter to California’s Christian leaders, released to the public on Wednesday, July 25, 2018—

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Key point: Church involvement in the public policy arena helped turn the tide on AB 2943, proposed legislation that would have outlawed all counseling and therapy to address unwanted same-sex attraction and homosexuality. Likewise, preserving clients’ rights and religious liberty in the future will require an involved and engaged church.

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All the articles in this series are available here.

Last time we highlighted the good news that AB 2943, a proposed ban on pro-heterosexual counseling in California where payment is involved, is dead for this legislative session. Evan Low, author of the bill, pulled it at the last minute. In a statement, Low, himself a homosexual, wrote of how writing AB 2943 was a profoundly personal experience. Serving as an “elected official” at events such as weddings and hosting blood drives and Boy Scout merit badge award ceremonies were all scenarios that reminded him he didn’t quite fit in. In his younger years, finding support and understanding, he indicates in the statement, was difficult. He was “confused” about his feelings of attraction to members of the same sex and “was afraid of what others would think.” He felt “scared, alone, and even suicidal.”

Then, significantly, Low writes, “I wondered if I could change.”

I hid myself and my feelings because I was afraid of what others would think of me. This left me feeling very lost, scared, alone, and even suicidal.  I wondered if I could change.
—Evan Low—

Low decided to come out as gay, which, he admits, was “not an easy experience.” Even so, he says, he is thankful his

community embraced me as I was, a gay man. Many fellow members of the LGBT community are not as fortunate and do not have the support I did and have been subjected to the harmful and fraudulent practice of conversion therapy.

Low continued,

I authored Assembly Bill 2943 to ensure a remedy for those who are deceived by this deceptive practice. As the bipartisan bill progressed through the Legislature this year, opposition began to speak out against the legislation. I knew this was an emotionally charged issue, so I spent the past few months traveling up and down the state meeting with a wide variety of faith leaders.

The interactions Assemblyman Low had with religious leaders encouraged him. He went away “feeling hopeful.” Some in the faith community with whom Low talked “denounced conversion therapy and recognized how harmful the practice is while acknowledging it has been discredited by the medical and psychological communities.” Low affirmed his belief that “every person who attended these meetings left with a greater understanding for the underlying reason and intention of this bill to create a loving and inclusive environment for all. However, I believe there is still more to learn.”

Low went on to say,

The best policy is not made in a vacuum and in order to advance the strongest piece of legislation, the bill requires additional time to allow for an inclusive process not hampered by legislative deadlines. With a hopeful eye toward the future, I share with you that, despite the support the bill received in the Assembly and Senate, I will not be sending AB 2943 to the Governor this year. I am committed to continuing to work towards creating a policy that best protects and celebrates the identities of LGBT Californians and a model for the nation to look towards.

It is my obligation as a Legislator to make this difficult decision in the interest of finding common ground. The path towards full equality is a long journey, but a journey best traveled together. I invite you to join me.”

The Road Ahead

Against the backdrop of Assemblyman Low’s action—an action for which, by the way, we are intensely grateful—we must not let down our guard. In the future, and perhaps the very near future, the debate will heat up again. We need to be ready. In the next few weeks, we will examine five ways Christians need to respond. They appear below. In this post we will consider the first of these items.

1. Be gracious, but also wary, informed, and involved.
2. Expect similar proposals in the future.
3. Don’t compromise!
4. Acknowledge that some therapy and counseling Is beneficial, and support it. Affirm the rights of clients to get whatever therapy, treatment, or counseling they want. Don’t buy “conversion therapy” rhetoric and propaganda.
5. Stop misrepresenting what the Bible teaches about homosexuality—and stop being taken in by misrepresentations

Please note that the information in the following statement will be prominent in each of the articles we present covering this issue. These are vital facts for Christians to hear,  understand, and be able to share.

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When we speak of pro-heterosexual counseling and therapy, we are not referring to efforts that have homosexual attractions and activity as their exclusive focus, even though the client’s ultimate goal certainly can be to move from homosexuality to heterosexuality. When a client has other objectives, no competent therapist ever will push the goal of heterosexuality on him or her. Yet when client and therapist agree that heterosexuality is the goal, counseling efforts that achieve it, or that help a client move toward it, focus primarily on the underlying causes of same-sex attraction. These causes often  involve deep emotional wounds. When the wounds are addressed, healing occurs over time, and homosexual attraction automatically tends to diminish, often with a corresponding increase in heterosexual attraction. It is in this sense that such counseling is pro-heterosexual. Another important point: Effective counseling never, ever shames or coerces a client.

Experts at choosing words to maneuver for advantage in a debate, LGBT activists use the term “conversion therapy” to demonize and malign all pro-heterosexual change efforts: Sadly, 

those who profess to want to protect children from abuse, and relieve their suffering, actively advance legislation whose outcome is just the opposite. Many children want to be cured of same-sex attraction or being transgender. But because activists in our society a) refuse to accept that these are disorders, and 2) therefore, refuse to accept that such therapy can rightly be considered cures, they vigorously seek to outlaw such activities.

Be sure of one thing, whether or not electrical shock is employed is irrelevant. But don’t expect to hear that admission.

In other words, people who seek bans on “conversion therapy” aren’t primarily targeting shock treatments or other really harmful approaches. They are targeting any and all efforts to help people with unwanted same-sex attraction. The Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg expresses it well. After noting that bills like AB 2943 don’t just outlaw harmful techniques, he exposes supporters’ real intent: “When pressed, sponsors [of therapy bans] must admit that they seek to outlaw ordinary talk therapy as well. What these laws and bills target is nothing more or less than a goal: ‘to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.’ This is extraordinary.”

Thus, driving therapy bans is the reality that effective therapy is a threat to gay activists’ narrative. Anyone who has moved from homosexuality to heterosexuality, by his her very existence, counters the notion that gays are “born that way” and cannot change. 

A copy of this statement on a single webpage is available here.

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1. Be Gracious, but also Wary, Informed, and Involved

While we are indeed grateful for Assembly Member Low’s recent action, we must understand we cannot trust him. Just look at his statement announcing that he’s pulling AB 2943 from consideration. In the quotations below where emphasis appears, it was added. We are citing Low’s own words.

First, Low predictably refers to all pro-heterosexual encouragement, counseling, and therapy as “the harmful and fraudulent practice of conversion therapy.” As we have said previously (here and here), “Gay activists have misrepresented and demonized legitimate counseling approaches (also go here)…[that] help encourage heterosexuality. They have overtaken many professional groups and insist on pro-homosexual counseling regardless of the clients’ desires. The American College of Pediatricians stands out as the rare exception.”

How do we know that Low was referring to “all pro-heterosexual encouragement, counseling, and therapy” when he spoke of it collectively as a “harmful and fraudulent practice”? We know because of what the bill would have done had it become law. It was extremely broad: “The bill prohibits every individual, whether a pastor, clergy, or licensed therapist, from advertising, offering to engage in, or engaging in sexual orientation change efforts.” It also could have been used to ban certain books, including, some have suggested, the Bible itself. Yet, even if the law wouldn’t have been used to ban the Bible, using it to ban any book at all would be worse than unconstitutional. It would be totalitarian. So would banning therapy!

Second, Evan Low was “heartened” that “[a] number of religious leaders denounced conversion therapy and recognized how harmful the practice is while acknowledging it has been discredited by the medical and psychological communities.” In a future post, we will explore just how dangerous and wrong it is for Christians to buy into the lie that pro-heterosexual counseling “harmful” and wrong.

Third, Assemblyman Low remains “committed to continuing to work toward creating a policy that best protects and celebrates the identities of LGBT Californians and a model for the nation to look towards,” even as he, ironically and deceptively, describes the “underlying reason and intention of this bill” as an effort “to create a loving and inclusive environment for all” (emphasis added).

Former seminary professor Robert A. J. Gagnon said this in a Facebook post about Low’s withdrawing the bill.

Surprising news, an answer to prayer that happened because the church mobilized. My guess is that the combination of potential voter fallout and US Supreme Court developments (recent cases, plus the appointment of Gorsuch and a replacement for Justice Kennedy to come [Kavanaugh]) led to some erosion of support for the bill among legislators, which in turn precipitated the withdrawal. Low is not to be trusted. Imagine Low loosening the noose around the neck of Christians but neither removing the noose nor pulling down the gallows.…Low will draw on the gratitude of the church for his “gracious” withdrawing of the bill this year so that he can get their support for a revised bill that will lay the groundwork for the whole ball of wax. My concern is that next year many Christian leaders will buy the argument that “this is the best you are going to get” and they will support the new bill on that basis. Christian leaders should not support any version of the bill.

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Dr. Gagnon is right! Note carefully what he said at the beginning of his Facebook post: “Surprising news, an answer to prayer that happened because the church mobilized” (emphasis added). We are reminded of this statement by Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

Christian leaders, as well as rank and file believers themselves, must be involved! If anyone knows this well, Dan Carroll, the Senior Pastor of Water of Life Community Church in Fontana, California, knows it. The top of this post carries a quote from a letter he wrote to Christian leaders in his state. In the same letter, Pastor Carroll indicates that when he saw the threats to religious liberty and the gospel that AB 2943 posed, he felt compelled to speak to the issue publicly at his church. He encouraged his congregants to get in touch with their Assembly Member, Eloise Reyes, and oppose the bill. “This was the first time in 28 years I has ever spoken publicly about politics,” he admits. His efforts bore positive fruit. Assemblywoman Reyes contacted him and requested a meeting to discuss the proposed legislation. Three thousand Californians associated with Water of Life Community Church had reached out to her by phone or email expressing opposition to AB 2943!

Pastor Carroll gladly met with Assemblywoman Reyes and spoke with her for more than an hour. Subsequently, she invited him to accompany her to Sacramento to meet personally with Assemblyman Evan Low to further discuss his bill. He gladly did so. Pastor Carroll writes,

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The whole experience has been way out of my comfort zone, but it has shown me that if we get involved, and walk this out thoughtfully and kindly, we can make a huge difference in our state and help stop legislation that undermines our ability to share the Gospel.
—California Pastor Dan Carroll—

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Frankly, I was shocked at both Assembly members’ willingness to thoughtfully sit and discuss this bill. Low even agreed to delay the bill, until there were further discussions with the opposition. The whole experience has been way out of my comfort zone, but it has shown me that if we get involved, and walk this out thoughtfully and kindly, we can make a huge difference in our state and help stop legislation that undermines our ability to share the Gospel.

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown  out and trampled underfoot by men.” Moreover, Paul wrote, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how to answer each one.”

Kudos to Pastor Dan Carroll! We need hundreds, even thousands, of pastors like him across America. If you’re a pastor or other church leader, will you be involved?

We also need millions like the members of his church who were responsive to his leadership. Will you do your part?

Liberty’s survival depends on you!

Part 2 is available here.