By OLIVIA DIAZ
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia officials have agreed not to fully enforce a 2020 law banning conversion therapy for minors as part of an agreement with a faith-based conservative group that sued over the law, authorities said earlier this week.
The Virginia Department of Health Professions, represented by the state’s office of the attorney general, entered into a consent decree with the Founding Freedoms Law Center last month, saying officials will not discipline counselors who engage in talk conversion therapy.
Shaun Kenney, a spokesperson with the Virginia Attorney General’s Office, said on Tuesday his office was satisfied with the consensus.
“This court action fixes a constitutional problem with the existing law by allowing talk therapy between willing counselors and willing patients, including those struggling with gender dysphoria,” Kenney said in a statement. “Talk therapy with voluntary participants was punishable before this judgment was entered. This result—which merely permits talk therapy within the standards of care while preserving the remainder of the law—respects the religious liberty and free speech rights of both counselors and patients.”
A Henrico Circuit Court judge signed the consent decree in June. Two professional counselors represented by the law center sued the state’s health department and counseling board last September, arguing that the law violated their right to religious freedom.
The term “conversion therapy” refers to a scientifically discredited practice of using therapy in an attempt to convert LGBTQ people to heterosexuality.
The practice has been banned in 23 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ rights think tank.
The practice has been a matter of dispute in several states. A ruling is expected any day from the Wisconsin Supreme Court over whether a legislative committee’s rejection of a state agency rule that would ban the practice of “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ people was unconstitutional.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided in March to take up a case from Colorado to determine whether state and local governments can enforce laws banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ children.
According to the law center, the Virginia consent decree applies not only to the two counselors but to all counselors in Virginia.
“We are grateful to the Defendants in this case and to the Attorney General, who did the right thing by siding with the Constitution,” the law center said in a statement.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, who backed the 2020 bill, blasted the decree.
“This was a statute that was enacted to save lives,” he told reporters during a Zoom session on Tuesday. “All the research, all the professional psychiatric organizations have condemned conversion therapy. They say it doesn’t work, and they say it’s counterproductive.”
