Baptist News Global: Supreme Court says conversion therapy is protected free speech

Brandan Robertson is a gay minister who was subjected to conversion therapy as a teenager. He founded the Devout Foundation to speak in favor of LGBTQ inclusion and against treatments such as conversion therapy.

“Today’s Supreme Court ruling is not a victory for free speech or religious freedom,” he said. “It is a victory for those who have long sought the legal right to harm queer children in the name of God, and we refuse to be silent about it.

“I know what conversion therapy does to a person. Because it happened to me. As a student at a Christian Bible college, I was subjected to so-called ‘healing prayer’ — taken to a dark, empty church where strangers poured holy water over my body, spoke in tongues and attempted to exorcise what they called the demon of my homosexuality. I left that room not healed, not changed — only ashamed, confused and deeply wounded. It would take years to undo the anxiety and depression that experience left behind.”

Robertson said he since has sat with “hundreds of people who gave conversion therapy a sincere try. Every single one still experiences same-sex attraction. They have not been healed. They have simply been taught to bury who they are. And that burial leads to anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation, outcomes documented not by activists, but by every major medical and psychological association in the world.”