Following through on its promise to challenge California’s new ban on ex-gay therapy for minors, the Pacific Justice Institute has filed suit on behalf of a self-proclaimed “ex-gay” therapist-in-training, Aaron Bitzer, and two other therapists, Donald Welch and Anthony Duk, who provide reparative therapy. The suit is rife with spurious claims and meritless demands that essentially equate to whining about the law’s limitations, none of which comes close to meeting a Constitutional challenge. Here is a sampling from the complaint, aptly filed under “Plaintiffs’ Beliefs”:

Forced to discriminate?

If a minor’s objectives are to bring his or her sexual conduct and desires into conformity with the religious traditions, cultural norms, and moral standards of the minor, Dr. Duk can provide treatment so long as the minor is heterosexual. However, under the statute in question, a minor who has unwanted same sex behaviors or attractions cannot be treated with either counseling or prescription medications. [...] Dr. Duk is therefore required to discriminate against minor patients for no other reason than their sexual orientation.

The complaint refers to such conduct as “sexual behaviors, desires, and addictions such as pornography.” Under the law, there’s no reason that gay youth could not pursue therapy for the very same things so long as it’s not in the context of denying, repressing, or attempting to change their sexual orientation. These therapists are basically admitting that they would intentionally discriminate against any gay kid who still wanted affirmation for his or her orientation.

Violation of professional ethics?

The statute materially interferes with the plaintiff mental health professionals’ exercise of their independent professional judgment in providing treatment to minors who have unwanted same sex behaviors or attractions… This is in violation of these plaintiff mental health professionals’ obligations under the rules of professional ethics to provide treatment to persons regardless of their sexual orientation.

Providing ex-gay therapy is already a violation of their professional ethics, as all major professional psychotherapy organizations have condemned the practice as ineffective and harmful. That they seek to provide it nevertheless demonstrates that their “independent professional judgment” is severely compromised.

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Derek McCoy

Last month, when supporters of Maryland marriage equality gathered for a New York fundraiser, the head of the main opposition group denounced the star-studded event as an attempt to “celebritize” the issue. But now, the same group is readying a new ad highlighting a Baltimore Ravens player who opposes LGBT rights, relying on his celebrity for their own cause.

As Susan Sarandon, John Waters, Josh Charles, Ed Norton, Barbara Bush (daughter of President George W. Bush), Russell Simmons, and others joined Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-MD) to support Question 6, Maryland Marriage Alliance’s Derek McCoy accused the pro-equality group of “trying to celebritize the issue.” In a fundraising email, McCoy wrote:

Backed by Hollywood donors, homosexual activists are already proclaiming victory in their efforts to redefine marriage in Maryland. They are taking their fundraising out of state where they can attract major donors. We know that in spite of the millions that they will receive from movie stars, Marylanders WILL NOT allow marriage to be redefined.

But the McCoy seems to have quickly forgotten his concern. Monday, he told the Baltimore Sun that his group would release an ad this week featuring Ravens center Mark Birk voicing his opposition to civil marriage equality in the Free State. “We saved our videos for October. We’ll start doing more of them,” McCoy boasted.

“It Gets Better” founder Dan Savage recently lashed out at the Family Research Council again, saying that “every dead gay kid is a victory for the Family Research Council” and that “Tony Perkins sits on a pile of dead gay kids every day when he goes to work.” Savage’s concerns arise because of how FRC encourages parents to reject their children for being LGBT, contributing to a higher risk of homelessness, drug use, sexually transmitted infection, and suicide. Perkins responded in a conversation with Mike Huckabee yesterday, saying that Savage “has some issues” and that FRC is “pursuing everything possible to deal with him because he is out of control.” Now, Savage is calling Perkins’ legal bluff:

Sue me, Tony. I’d love to see you talk about my “issues” on a witness stand.

I realize that this isn’t how you think the world is supposed to work, Tony. You believe — and you’re old enough to remember a time when — people like you were free to say vile and disgusting things about people like me without anyone objecting. Certainly people like me weren’t allowed to call people like you out. You still believe you should be free to lie about me and other LGBT people with absolutely impunity — we’re all pedophiles and terrorists and Satanists — and that we should have to shut up and take it because… well, I’m not sure why you think we’re not allowed to respond when you lie about us.

Maybe that’s something we could get to the bottom of during the depositions.

Savage’s original comments obviously occupy a rhetorical extreme that few tread upon, but they still bear truth. It’s notable, as Savage himself points out, that Perkins did nothing to rebut the remarks or clarify any particular concern for children’s well-being. He couldn’t genuinely do so anyway; by proliferating the junk-science idea that gays can and should change, FRC is causing exactly the kind of harm to which Savage refers.

The raw nature of Savage’s rhetoric illuminates how little accountability hate groups like FRC take for their anti-gay advocacy. Perkins’ new campaign against the Southern Poverty Law Center for the “hate group” designation — a flip for many of the conservatives rallying behind the effort — is the same kind of umbrage that obfuscates the harmful miseducation such groups churn out on a daily basis. Similarly, one of the National Organization for Marriage’s chief argument against equality is that conservatives will be labeled as “bigots,” but it then has no problem painting LGBT activists as violent or endorsing the harmful quackery that is ex-gay therapy.

Savage’s approach might not always be the most elegant, but it certainly does cut through the rhetorical muck and focus attention on the harm caused by anti-gay groups like FRC.

Our guest blogger is Elena Caple, intern with the Center for American Progress.

Conservatives across the country continue to bemoan the alleged attack on their religious liberties.  As Mitt Romney stated last February, “I don’t think we’ve seen, in the history of this country, the kind of attack on religious conscience, religious freedom, religious tolerance that we’ve seen in Barack Obama.” With regards to relationship recognition, for example, many opponents of marriage equality believe that extending marital rights to same-sex couples would somehow threaten “religious liberty.”

However, the facts beg to differ. Today, the Center for American Progress released a report affirming that the freedom of religion and the freedom of marriage are perfectly compatible with one another. This report — “Twin Freedoms: The Facts About Freedom of Religion and the Freedom to Marry” — offers for the first time a comprehensive state-by-state analysis of marriage equality legislation and the religious exemption provisions lawmakers passed.

Notably, every single state that has passed marriage equality legislation has included some kind of religious exemption provision within the legislative text of the bill itself. All of these states, for example, have used exemptions to reiterate and clarify clergy’s First Amendment rights, by stating that no religious leader will be forced to marry a couple whose arrangement violates that leader’s faith.

These states have also instituted further exemptions that allow religious institutions to deny goods, services, and accommodations to same-sex couples in certain instances. Additionally, each state that has passed marriage equality legislation has included at least a narrow version of a public-accommodations exemption, which essentially allows religious institutions to prohibit a couple from using wedding-related accommodations. For example, in such states a church may refuse to rent a banquet hall to a same-sex couple looking for a space for their rehearsal dinner.

Other states have instituted broader exemptions that go beyond the wedding itself and give religious institutions the ability to deny services such as marriage counseling to same-sex couples, even if such services are made available to the public. These kinds of provisions could also give religious institutions license to turn away same-sex couples from homeless shelters and food pantries.

Religious exemptions have been useful in securing marital recognition for same-sex couples in numerous states. It is important, however, to recognize that these exemptions can often have a negative impact on same-sex couples seeking a range of goods, services, and accommodations from religiously affiliated organizations, with some having a more pronounced effect than others. For the most part, the religious exemptions that have been adopted by states thus far have not come at a high cost compared to the benefits of recognizing marriages between same-sex couples. At the same time, many of these religious exemptions have not been in place for very long, especially those that have become increasingly broad in scope. Therefore, their ultimate impact is still not completely clear.

Even with the exemptions that have been included so far, some conservatives argue these provisions do not go far enough. They contend that for religious freedom to be fully “protected,” state lawmakers actually need to give individuals a legal right to discriminate against gay people. Conservatives argue that lawmakers should enact so-called “individual conscience” exemptions that would, for example, give license to restaurant owners to deny service to a same-sex couple, simply because they are gay. Luckily, no state has gone so far as to include such harmful provisions.

Opponents of marriage equality argue that marriage equality and religious freedom are incompatible, that marriage equality somehow weakens “religious liberty.” In actuality, marriage equality is simply about allowing gay men and women to marry the person they love. And while including religious exemption provisions has often been helpful in getting marriage equality across the finish line, CAP’s report makes clear that lawmakers must be careful not to privilege the freedom to worship at the expense of equality.