(LifeSiteNews) — Democrat Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky, issued an executive order this week banning so-called “conversion therapy” for minors. 

In doing so, he circumvented the Republican-led state’s legislature; it had previously blocked similar measures.  

The order calls any attempt to help adults and young people deal with unwanted same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria “inhumane” and “discrimination” against “our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters, including our LGBTQ+ youth” and is now deemed “unacceptable in this Commonwealth.” 

“Conversion therapy has no basis in medicine or science, and it can cause significant long-term harm to our kids, including increased rates of suicide and depression. This is about protecting our youth from an inhumane practice that hurts them,” Beshear asserted in a statement. 

While the executive order signed by Beshear makes it illegal to use state or federal funds to provide conversion therapy on minors, it also gives licensing boards the authority to take disciplinary action against licensees found to have practiced conversion therapy for minors. 

“At least 23 states and the District of Columbia prohibit the use of conversion therapy with minors in some way, either through barring its agencies from spending state and federal dollars for conversion therapy with minors, or by making engaging in conversion therapy a prohibited act or unprofessional conduct for licensed practitioners and subjecting them to disciplinary action for violating the prohibition,” notes the governor’s order.  

‘Governor Beshear: Leave the kids alone!’ 

The net effect of the governor’s action will be to deny many young people the help they seek to sort out disordered sexual impulses, while insisting that only affirmation of those impulses is legal in the bluegrass State.  

Conservative state legislators and family activists were quick to respond. 

“Why is Andy Beshear determined to keep vulnerable children confused?” Rep. Josh Calloway asked on social media. “I will fight this with every fiber of my being. If re-elected, I will file legislation on day one to stop this Governor from pushing his harmful far-left agenda on struggling kids.  I am also exploring other legal options to stop egregious overreach.”  

“Gov. Andy Beshear, leave the kids alone!” he demanded.  

“Parents have the right to raise their children in a manner that is based on biblical standards and to help their children receive faith based counseling,” wrote Senator Robby Mills on X.  The governor’s order “stands to chill and stigmatize Christian counseling in the midst of a mental health crisis in Kentucky.” 

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Muzzling Christian counselors 

“This order, like previous failed legislative efforts, is designed to promote false LGBTQ ideologies and muzzle Christian counselors, therapists and pastors from helping children struggling with sexual orientation or gender identity confusion,” said David Walls, executive director of The Family Foundation.  

The governor’s ban runs “roughshod over the First Amendment,” said Daniel Schmid, a constitutional attorney and the associate vice president of legal affairs with Liberty Counsel. This is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family. 

Former gay man: ‘Their definition of conversion therapy is not our definition of conversion’ 

The governor’s order ignores a growing body of evidence that many men and women, teen boys and girls, do escape the shackles of homosexuality and transgenderism, often benefitting from counseling by clergy or licensed professionals providing therapeutic aid.  

Men and women who have found Christ accept the reality of their same-sex attractions or transgender impulses. But they differ from other same-sex attracted persons in that they seek their individual self-worth in Christ, not in their sexual appetites. 

Their lives undermine the woke-identity politics which controls today’s increasingly Marxist Democratic Party.   

Their stories are not based on “reparative therapy,” so-called attempts to “pray away the gay,” or other efforts to change sexual orientation. They speak only about conversion to Jesus Christ and embracing their new identity as an adopted child of God. 

Elizabeth Woning of Equipped to Love — a ministry which draws upon the combined experiences of many who have walked away from homosexuality to help others — sees attempts to discredit and outlaw all resources aimed at helping those with unwanted same-sex attraction as an assault on Christianity.  

“Everybody should have the right to pursue the kind of counseling they want,” Woning told LifeSiteNews in 2019. “They should have the right to shape their own sexuality.” 

“The LGBT community has the right to pursue whatever they want,” she said. “We should also be able to do that.”  

Gabriel Pagan, who left homosexuality a dozen years ago, said those who dismiss the testimonies of people who have walked away from LGBT lifestyles just don’t understand that what he and others at the Freedom March are talking about is a “work of Jesus.”   

“I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life,” Pagan told LifeSiteNews.  

“No conversion therapy,” he added. 

Pagan and his wife now have three beautiful children.    

A survivor of the Pulse Nightclub massacre — where 49 gay men were murdered by a gunman — set the record straight about something secular media and LGBT activists consistently get wrong: conversion. 

“This is not conversion therapy,” said Luis Ruiz.  “This is not electrotherapy. This is not shock therapy.”  

“This is all the Holy Spirit” and about “a man who died on a Cross,” said Ruiz.   

“Their definition of conversion therapy is not our definition of conversion,” Ruiz told LifeSiteNews.  

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