As for the waiver, that was the part of the bill that I liked (though I would prefer that the APA draft the language rather than the politicians).

I’m all for informed consent. That, sadly, is not what we ended up with.

And then back to ignoring you. It’s better that way.

No. They are two separate issues. Something can be ineffective without causing harm. Read the Shido comment I quoted above.

When passing legislation, our guesswork may be useful, but we cannot ascribe it the same stature as researched fact.

Timothy, isn’t the “It doesn’t work” argument inseparable from “It causes harm”. I cannot imagine that failing God doesn’t leave some remarkable emotional scars. I have interest in your theological argument against it.

People benefiting from realizing they can’t change their orientation is not an argument in favour of allowing counselling to encourage them to suppress their orientation.

Once again, we have to ask “Which helps more people and harms them less, the availability of this “therapy” or the banning of it?”. Given that there is at best some harm and at worst a great deal of harm from this “therapy” and that this “therapy” is totally unnecessary to help people realize they can’t change, if you think about it honestly I doubt you can come to any other conclusion than that the greater number of people are benefitted by banning this “therapy”, particularly given that having this anti-gay “therapy” available promotes and re-enforces religious gay people’s feelings of self-loathing and an anti-gay societal atmosphere while banning it sends a message to them and society that such self-loathing is misguided, there is nothing wrong with being gay and one will be happier and better adjusted if one positively accepts that.

My opinion about harm is informed in part by this statement (ironically, linked to by Priya Lynn)

Shidlo: A lot of them were very hurt by it and required therapy to come to terms with their failure, who they were and the impact of their future and self-esteem. Many said they had a hard time forming relationships and suffered a lot of sexual dysfunction…. Another group felt very suspicious of all therapists. They felt deceived and betrayed. And a third group seemed to be psychologically resilient; their view was that the therapy had been a positive thing because it had helped them come to terms with the fact that they couldn’t change, and this was who they truly were, and that it was time to stop fighting with themselves inside.

Unfortunately, at this time we simply lack the data to quantify the amounts of harm or benefit. I dislike making broad, but unsupportable, statements about harm in SOCE therapy.