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Pray The Gay Away: Conversion Therapy, Suicide, Religion, And The First Amendment, Eric Cody Bass

Golden Gate University Race, Gender, Sexuality and Social Justice Law Journal

In the United States, gay conversion therapy (GCT) has not been banned nationally, although twenty states have issued laws banning therapists from practicing it. While the Supreme Court has refused to hear several cases involving challenges to laws banning GCT, recently the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals found a local law banning the practice as an unconstitutional regulation on the First Amendment right of speech. This ruling disappointingly confuses ideas of First Amendment protections with what amounts to psychological torture of our youth. It must be noted that while bans on GCT have been successfully upheld as constitutional in other …