Expert: Ban on “conversion therapy” in Michigan violates religious freedom

CV NEWS FEED // Michigan's recently passed pro-LGBT laws violate the constitutionally protected religious freedom rights of Catholic therapists and health care providers, according to a Catholic analyst with the Religious Freedom Institute.

Nathan Berkeley wrote for Public Discourse that several Michigan laws embrace LGBT ideology, including one that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity and two others that prohibit “conversion therapy.”

In the case of the first law, codified in Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, religious institutions could be forced to hire employees whose lives do not align with the same religious values ​​as those of the employers.

Christian Healthcare Centers filed suit on these grounds, arguing that the law could also force religious health professionals to prescribe cross-sex hormones or use a person's “preferred pronouns,” which would violate their conscience.

“Civil rights law is designed to protect against shameful discrimination in key areas of society, not to promote certain views of sexual behavior and gender expression and punish others for them,” Berkeley wrote. “And yet that is precisely what civil rights laws that define 'sexual orientation' and 'gender identity' as protected classes do in practice.”

Berkeley also pointed to the two laws signed by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last year banning “conversion therapy” for minors in the state, but noted that the vague definition hurts religious therapists who are looking for ways other than medical intervention to help their young patients.

“[T]The term is defined to cover virtually any therapeutic practice or treatment that refuses to force a child to act out his or her perceived 'sexual orientation' or 'gender identity,'” Berkeley wrote, adding:

In other words, Michigan law requires that when counseling minors, an LGBTQ-promoting approach is the only permissible response.

Another lawsuit was filed by several Catholic therapists who argued that they were now prohibited from offering services that they had personally found to be helpful and effective with gender-ambitious children.

Berkeley pointed out that pro-LGBT laws seek to “confuse psychological tendencies and outward expressions in the areas of sex and gender,” using obscure and confusing language to address an already complex issue.

“Michigan’s ban on conversion therapy essentially forces religious therapists to treat certain psychological tendencies –and their expressions– as inalienable values ​​that should be promoted when counselling their minor clients,” he wrote.

He also argued that the ban “obliges” religious therapists to “compromise their professional judgement and commits them to a faulty view of humanity.” Consequently, the ban undermines the right of therapists to have a view of humanity that is consistent with their religious beliefs.

“For Catholics and many other religious people, men are not subject only to their desires and inclinations,” wrote Berkeley:

Rather, we are responsible moral beings created by God with the capacity to recognize and pursue the good in the midst of our many and varied inner experiences. At the deepest level, this is the basis on which the free exercise of religion (and freedom of expression) of the Catholic therapists is undermined in this case.