November 11, 2006

NEWS ITEM: On October 29 the state of Tennessee essentially washed it's hands of the question of whether or not Love In Action needed to be licensed in order to treat mentally ill "clients". Tennessee agreed to pay LIA's legal bills in exchange for their dropping a lawsuit that claimed they had a religious exemption from any department of health oversight. Tennessee is accepting the word of a man who said God could make him see blue walls were there were yellow, that he has not, and will not be dispensing drugs to his "clients".

The fact of their forcing ex-gay therapy on unwilling gay teenagers, which was what started the public outcry over LIA practices, was never at issue, unfortunately. At least one gay teen has publicly accused the ministry of forcing him to take Prozac, which he did not have a doctor's prescription for. LIA denied it, and apparently Tennessee never performed more then a perfunctory investigation of the allegations that they were giving clients drugs, let alone that they were forcing them on unwilling gay teenagers as part of their therapy to cure them of their homosexuality. What their dangerous mix of religion and invasive psyco-therapy does to adolescents, apart from any issue of drugging them, was never even looked into. So the abuse of gay youth in Memphis will continue. Probably until some catastrophe happens, at which point everyone will be wondering why nothing was done sooner...

Copyright © November 11, 2006 by Bruce Garrett
All Rights Reserved.

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