I’m not.
In 2018, the state of Washington adopted a law that prohibits any conversation between a counselor and a minor client in pursuit of a goal to “change” that young person's perceived gender identity or sexual attractions.
The enemies of freedom are trying to censor speech and force many Americans to violate their conscience, and to marginalize those who won’t bow to the cultural winds.
Under state law, a biblical or Christian counselor is not allowed to discuss or even mention any view on gender, sexual orientation, sexual behaviors, or gender identity that the government doesn’t like.
Washington’s law is censorship, plain and simple. It violates the First Amendment rights of counselors and clients who want their perspective and counsel. The Washington law censors simple conversations within a voluntary counseling relationship between a client and a counselor.
And while the State won’t allow counselors to help gender dysphoric individuals become comfortable in their own bodies, it praises counselors, doctors, teachers, and social workers who are peddling lies and false scientific claims to encourage children to undergo experimental, irreversible hormone treatments in order to “transition” to the opposite sex.
A biblical or Christian counselor can’t tell those lies. Many clients have a biblical or Christian faith and seek help from other Christians because they want to know what God thinks about various issues in their life.
The government has no place in the privacy of the counseling room, and Washington State has no right to censor conversations between counselors and their clients.
Significantly, the law only prohibits counsel in one direction: For example, it allows counseling conversations that aim to steer young people toward a transgender identity but prohibits conversations that aim to help that same person return to comfort with his or her sex. The law threatens fines of $5,000 per violation, suspension from practice, and even permanent revocation of a counselor’s license. The government has a clear agenda to push harmful ideology and harmful medicine onto us. In a word, it is evil.
If the government is given the authority to censor sensitive and private conversations, what’s to keep it from censoring your private conversations, such as those with your husband or wife, or your children?
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of Brian Tingley, a licensed marriage and family counselor unconstitutionally censored by this Washington state law.
The law violates Tingley’s freedom of speech and infringes on his religious faith and that of his clients by censoring and prohibiting certain private client-counselor conversations regarding sexual orientation and gender identity that the government disfavors while allowing—even encouraging—conversations the government favors.
This case is critical. If Brian’s freedom is not upheld, then all counselors’ speech risks being censored by the government. SDA religious liberty should stand on the side of liberty and oppose this Washington law.
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“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1).