This Drug Is Okay…
On October 29 the state of Tennessee essentially washed its 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…
(From The Cartoon Page… )
November 6th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Very powerful cartoon. May I post it on my site?
The State of TN caved. LIA didn’t win. It is just that the state does not have the resources and the moral will to pursue this. The question remains for me though, is it still illegal for LIA to have more than two participants with diagnosed mental illness in program at the same time. I believe state law insists that anymore would make the program a mental health facility and as such need to be under state supervision.
Of course that is no way to monitor what happens behind the closed doors of LIA, but do wonder if that rule still applies as it was not stated in the court documents I read.
November 6th, 2006 at 11:09 am
Hi Peterson! Yes, by all means feel free to use that cartoon on your site. I’m really glad you liked it.
That point about having more than two participants with diagnosed mental illness in program at the same time is something I hadn’t heard of before. But I would doubt that Tennessee is going to get back into another legal battle with LIA anytime soon. Not unless they suddenly discover an interest in impartial and secular democracy. Back in the 1970s the Feds would have been swarming all over a place that practiced mental health care without a license, let alone give their clients prescription anti-depressants. But the right has managed to de-fang the federal regulatory machinery. I’m sorry to say this, but from here it looks like it’s going to take some major calamity for these outfits to finally be brought under control. The best case is that it’s something like a money scandal or a scandal of some other sort involving the operators, but not the clients. You can figure what the worst case would be. God I hope it doesn’t take that.