On Tuesday, the Supreme Court struck down a Colorado law that banned conversion therapy for minors in the state. The court ruled the Colorado law a violation of therapists’ free speech. Only one justice (Ketanji Jackson) dissented, meaning the ruling was not divided on ideological lines.
That ruling now has implications for the 20 other states that ban the practice because of its harm to the mental health of LGBTQ minors. If you were wondering, the American Psychiatric Association agrees that conversion therapy is harmful.
Cody Sanders
Specifically, the Colorado law prohibits any practice or treatment aimed to change a minor’s gender expression or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic same-sex attractions. The Colorado law included a religious exemption for those engaged in the practice of religious ministry. And, notably, the state never has enforced the measure against a licensed counselor.
To state it simply: Conversion therapy harms LGBTQ young people, sometimes to the point of making life seem unlivable. Conversion therapy, when practiced from Christian convictions, is theological malpractice (even if states don’t deem it therapeutic malpractice).
“Conversion therapy, when practiced from Christian convictions, is theological malpractice.”
If you want to read first-person accounts from survivors of conversion therapy, check out the excellent book by scholar and conversion therapy survivor Lucas Wilson, Shame Sex Attraction. If you want a psychological and theological perspective into the narratives of soul violence many LGBTQ people experience in religious settings, see my book, Christianity, LGBTQ Suicide, and the Souls of Queer Folk.
This ruling will perpetuate harm against LGBTQ minors, and churches have a role in responding to alleviate that harm. Here are a few ways to undertake that work.
Visibly and unequivocally celebrate LGBTQ lives
Long before I ever entered the doors of an LGBTQ-affirming church, I knew the names of a few in other cities. As a closeted queer kid growing up in a Southern Baptist setting, even the knowledge that churches existed to which I could belong as a queer person pursuing a call to ministry was liberating. One day, I knew I would find my way to one of them.
Picture a kid in the backseat of his mom’s minivan on the way to his weekly therapy session where his family’s unaffirming perspective on his sexuality or gender and his church’s messages of his sinfulness as a queer or trans kid will be reinforced by a counselor practicing conversion therapy. As that kid passes the local Baptist church, the local Presbyterian congregation, the local Lutheran church and sees rainbow and trans flags waving from lawns and steeples, or reads yard signs that say, “LGBTQ Lives are Sacred,” and “Trans Lives are Beautiful,” ministry is happening in that moment.
That’s why one friend of mine, serving as pastor of a small-town church, keeps hanging the rainbow flag on the church lawn over and over against when it is stolen and vandalized as the only congregation in town displaying any sign of LGBTQ affirmation. Queer and trans kids in that town (and adults too) need to see a church that supports them.
“Queer and trans kids in that town (and adults too) need to see a church that supports them.”
Signs of your church’s affirmation for queer and trans people aren’t badges of honor or signs of your progressiveness. They are lifelines for people in your community who need to know you’re there, even if they never get the chance to enter your doors. Display them visibly.
By the way, no one knows what your denominationally coded language of “Open and Affirming,” or “More Light” or “Reconciling in Christ” means. Say it plainly in a way anyone can understand: You love and support LGBTQ people as beloved of God.
Pastors, thoroughly vet your referral sources
Before they even graduate seminary, I have my students in their congregational care course create a robust referral network for the geographic region they currently serve or hope to someday serve. This list includes aging support services, child abuse and domestic violence resources, food assistance organizations, homelessness services and shelters and, of course, counseling and mental health services.
You cannot trust a therapist simply because they hold a license to practice from the state. I need to drill that into my students’ minds because many of us just assume if someone has a license to practice as a professional counselor, marriage and family therapist, licensed clinical social worker or psychologist, then they’re a legitimate professional to whom we may refer those in need of psychotherapeutic support.
The counselor who brought the case against the Colorado law to the Supreme Court is a licensed professional counselor. Pretty much anyone practicing conversion therapy is a mental health professional licensed by their state. (Other religious professionals and laypeople often practice other forms of “ex-gay ministry,” which have a history of crumbling not because of legal pressures but because the “ex-gays” running them recant their views, repent of their harmful practice and shutter the ministry.) Conversion therapy is largely the domain of licensed professionals.
Know the therapists you are referring congregants to. Get to know them before you ever send anyone to see them. Ask your colleagues about their professional reputation. Find referral sources from local LGBTQ organizations. Call and have a conversation with them about their practice.
“Know the therapists you are referring congregants to.”
Do they work with couples and families, or just individuals? Does their scope of practice include addiction? Do they work on a sliding scale? And, importantly, what are their commitments about LGBTQ affirmation, and what training or experience do they have in working with queer and trans clients?
Having a license means you earned a licensable degree, passed a test and practiced under supervision for a specified number of hours. That’s all. It’s not magic. It doesn’t mean the therapist is highly skilled, just that they have a baseline competence. And it says nothing whatsoever about whether they will be an appropriate therapist for an LGBTQ person.
Please do your own research and verification to engage in responsible referrals so you aren’t sending your congregants into harmful situations even with licensed therapists.
Integrate your commitment to LGBTQ affirmation into all of your ministries
Affirming the lives of queer and trans people isn’t something you can do once a year on Pride Sunday, or Reconciling in Christ Sunday, or More Light Sunday or whatever your denomination calls its annual celebration of affirming ministries. It happens all the time in every expression of ministry.
Preach sermons that foreground LGBTQ lives and experiences, even when it’s not Pride month. Invest in the Queer Bible Commentary if you need some help looking at the Bible through queer eyes. Find ways to honor and celebrate other days, like Trans Day of Visibility, and tell the stories of queer faith ancestors, like those of the Eucharistic Catholic Church or MCC San Francisco.
Cultivate an intentionally affirming youth ministry in which every volunteer has some basic information on how to best support queer and trans youth.
I have a friend in a small town who runs the only LGBTQ-affirming youth ministry in a 40-mile radius. Her youth often bring other youth who need a place to belong. Parents report to her the stark changes they witness in their kids’ mental health once they find a place of belonging there. Once, a nonaffirming pastor a few towns over called her and said: “I’ve got this kid in my church’s youth group who I know is not going to do well here. Can I send him to you?”
She is doing life-sustaining ministry with the youth in her county. It’s not big or flashy or well-resourced. But there are adults there affirming queer and trans kids and know how to cultivate belonging for youth who may not find it anywhere else.
We need churches like these willing to move beyond statements of affirmation into the cultivation of ministries that integrate that commitment into all the arts of ministry. That’s how lives are changed by God’s radical love and embrace.
Trans and queer kids need churches that embody that love and embrace right now. If you’re upset by this Supreme Court ruling, then please go and be that church.
Cody J. Sanders serves as associate professor of congregational and community care leadership at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn, and .co-host of the “Working Preacher Sermon Brainwave” podcast. An ordained Baptist minister, he is author of several books addressing spiritual care, congregational ministry, and LGBTQ concerns.
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Supreme Court says conversion therapy is protected free speech
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