transgender
Licensed professionals who offer counseling and therapy to those experiencing unwanted same-sex attraction are now unwelcome in some Florida cities.

The City of Boca Raton and Palm Beach County have joined more than nine Florida cities in banning "conversion therapy."

The Human Rights Council has worked in Palm Beach County to get City Ordinance 5407 passed for quite some time, labeling these counseling sessions as "extremely dangerous."

The Christian Family Coalition fought against this initiative when the Miami-Dade County Commission passed it in October.

"The ban would have prohibited parents, pastors, and doctors from counseling minors to help them reduce and eliminate unwanted homosexual urges and transsexual confusion," the Coalition wrote on its Facebook page.

CFC's task force co-chairman Christopher J. Doyle said scientists have not proven that "people are born gay," and that young people suffering from unwanted same-sex attraction deserve access to professions who can help them "understand the medical and psychological risks associated with homosexual and transgender behavior."

Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit litigation group, is suing the City of Boca Raton and Palm Beach County on behalf of two Christian counselors whose practices have been shut down because of this new law.

Liberty Counsel said that the law allows the cities to not only invade the practices of licensed mental health professionals, but it also allows them to violate minors' right to receive treatment methods they believe to be best.

"[These ordinances] are a gross intrusion into the fundamental rights of counselors and minors and represent government run amok," said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. "Boca Raton and Palm Beach County have no authority to prohibit a form of counseling simply because they do not like the religious beliefs of a particular client.

"The ordinances are unconstitutional and cause harm to countless minors in Boca Raton and Palm Beach County. Liberty Counsel will not stand by while an authoritarian council blatantly ignores the First Amendment."