Legislation to prohibit Oklahoma from regulating the practice of so-called gay conversion therapy has been approved by a state House committee.
Without debate, the Children, Youth and Family Services Committee voted 5-3 and sent the bill to the full House.
In other states, bills have been filed to ban conversion therapy, a range of practices aimed at changing one's sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
The bill sponsored by Oklahoma City Republican Rep. Sally Kern, who chairs the committee, is opposed by medical and psychological associations who say conversion therapy involves abusive tactics and is a dangerous and discredited practice. They say Kern's bill is the first of its kind in the U.S.
The Freedom to Obtain Conversion Therapy Act, HB1598, as amended, prohibits state government entities from restricting any mental health provider from providing counseling or any patient or client from receiving counseling intended to aid patients or clients in their self-determined objectives of reducing, eliminating, resolving, or addressing unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, identity, or sexual and/or gender-identity expressions.
The bill also grants parents the right to obtain such counseling services. It prohibits the use of aversion therapy for these purposes. It also allows a mental health provider to engage in sexual orientation change efforts with a child less than eighteen years of age.
Amendments to the bill removed pastors and ministers from the definition of those qualified as mental health providers and expanded the definition of aversion therapy.
The measure likely faces more opposition in the full House and also in the Senate.
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