One small step taken against a widely practiced form of child sexual abuse yesterday in California…

California governor signs gay conversion therapy ban

The thing to remember here is this only applies to licensed therapists, not pulpit thumping hate mongers who are still as free as ever to stick a knife in a kid’s heart and twist it in the name of Christ, and then twist it again in the name of love.   But already the usual suspects are screaming bloody murder…

In a statement on NARTH’s website, the group says the law will seriously jeopardize the livelihoods of “licensed therapists in California who would otherwise be willing to assist minor clients in modifying their unwanted same-sex attractions and behaviors.” It also will “supplant the rights of parents,” the group says.

Note the reliable appeal to the rights of parents.   But no parent has the right to subject their child to sexual abuse and ex-gay therapy is just that.   If you think that’s hyperbole I strongly recommend you listen to the stories of the survivors of ex-gay therapy and compare them to the survivors of other forms of sexual abuse.

Kendall said the therapy he underwent “led me to periods of homelessness, to drug abuse, to spending a decade of my life wanting to kill myself. It led to so much pain and struggle. And I want them to know that what they do hurts people. It hurts children. It has no basis in fact. And they need to stop.

The self loathing.   The shame.   The despair.   Blaming yourself for what happened.   People need to look at what this practice does to children.   And not just ex-gay therapy but the general cultural shaming and bullying of gay kids.   Really look at it.   This is sexual abuse.

But the abusers won’t stop of their own accord.   Oh no…the kids really wanted it you see…

…the law will seriously jeopardize the livelihoods of “licensed therapists in California who would otherwise be willing to assist minor clients in modifying their unwanted same-sex attractions and behaviors…

What those kids want is to be loved.   They don’t want to be abominations in the eyes of God.   They don’t want their parents breaking down in tears, screaming at them that they’re ashamed to be their parents.   They don’t want to be monsters.   But who told them they were?   No Mr. Nicolosi, those kids didn’t want you feeling up their souls, poking around in the most secret private places of their hearts, you just told yourself they did.   That’s how it usually is with the seducers of the too young to understand.

The only purpose this practice ever had is to make gay people hate themselves, and incidentally to excuse the righteous for hating them.   You don’t have to be gay, so it isn’t our fault for making your lives miserable, it’s yours for being gay.   You choose to be gay, so you choose to be persecuted. There’s a political side to ex-gay therapy, as justification and cover for anti-gay politicians, but beneith the surface there’s the core value: homosexuals must hate themselves, must accept they are society’s outcasts.

The pulpit thumping homophobe who gets caught preying on minors.   The bar stool moralizer with a gambling habit.   The family values politician who goes for a hike on the Appalachian trail.   It’s the homosexuals who are destroying the moral fiber of society, surely not any of these.   Our enemies say they are fighting against the normalization of homosexuality.   But it isn’t what society and culture think of us, it’s that we might stop hating ourselves they won’t endure.   If open homosexuality stops being the touchstone of moral decay, then where will the fingers point when another righteous culture warrior gets caught with their pants down? It’s having to look in a mirror and admit the crying wreckage they’ve made of their own lives was their own doing they’re fighting tooth and nail to prevent.

So the scapegoat must never think themselves worthy of being loved, must never know what it is to love, and be loved.   Because love is patient, love is enduring, love can nourish and sustain through the worst of times.   Because love can move mountains.   Because the one thing you never want the scapegoat to be able to do is move mountains.

To make a scapegoat, you have to cut the heart out when they’re young.