Gainesville and Tallahassee are among the 25 cities that will be receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Liberty Counsel demanding that they repeal laws that ban counseling for people who are resisting same-sex attraction.
“They need to repeal them and not just leave them on their books as a symbolic gesture,” said Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver. “They need to take affirmative action, otherwise they'll be sued because they're all unconstitutional.”
Liberty Counsel received a $950,000 settlement on April 27 in Vazzo v. City of Tampa after it was determined by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals that it is unconstitutional to prohibit licensed counselors from providing elective talk therapy to minors seeking help to reduce or eliminate same-sex attractions.
"There were no complaints in any of these places of anyone who had gone to a counselor," Staver told the Florida Record. "These were motivated clearly by political ideology, not by science and not by need and the consequences are damaging because it interferes with the counselor-client relationship for clients who want this type of therapy."
It was the second time that the 11th Circuit had ruled on the issue.
“In Otto v City of Boca Raton, we held that city and county ordinances banning Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) were unconstitutional under the First Amendment,” the Feb. 2 opinion states. ‘The City of Tampa’s SOCE ordinance here is substantively the same as the ordinances at issue in Otto. Accordingly, we are bound by our prior-panel precedent rule to affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the Plaintiffs-Appellees.”
Robin S. Rosenbaum, Barbara Lagoa, and Ed Carnes were among the 11th Circuit judges who decided the case.
"We're pleased that our clients, counselors, as well as their clients, can get therapy without the City of Tampa sticking its nose into the privacy of a counseling room and telling them what they can and cannot say or hear," Staver said in an interview.
In Otto v. City of Boca Raton, which Liberty Counsel filed, the Eleventh Circuit ruled that similar bans preventing counselors from helping their clients in Palm Beach County and the City of Boca Raton were unconstitutional viewpoint restrictions on speech under the First Amendment.
“There wasn't a ruling when the city of Tampa enacted the ordinance,” Staver added. “These ordinances all came about close in proximity of time and we filed suits in Tampa and then also down in Boca Raton, Palm Beach County. So, we had two ongoing lawsuits.”