NYC's City Council Speaker Corey Johnson will introduced a bill Thursday that would repeal the city's 2017 ban on gay conversion therapy. The move is intended to thwart a lawsuit filed by a heinous anti-LGBTQ group.
The New York Daily News reports: “The repeal comes after an anti-LGBT Christian group, Alliance Defending Freedom, filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the ban this past January. Advocates worried that the case could reach the more conservative U.S. Supreme Court – and that a negative decision on the Council's measure could negatively affect other laws protecting the LGBT community.”
Gay conversion therapy would still be banned in New York City thanks to a statewide ban on the harmful practice.
Said Johnson to the NYDN: “The sad reality is the courts have changed considerably over the last few years, and we cannot count on them to rule in favor of much-needed protections for the LGBTQ community. To be clear, all of us still believe this alleged ‘therapy' is barbaric and inhumane, but repealing this law seemed to be the best path forward.”
