PHILADELPHIA, July 29, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – At last night’s Democratic National Convention, California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom called reparative therapy a form of “emotional torture.”
California is “proudly pro-gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender,” said Newsom, who hopes to succeed Jerry Brown in the governor’s mansion.
He then referenced a speech by PayPal founder Peter Thiel to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
“While it's refreshing to finally see an openly gay man speak at a Republican convention, it doesn't remove the stain of selecting Mike Pence, America's most anti-LGBTQ governor,” Newsom said.
“Pence supported overt discrimination and even advocated diverting taxpayer dollars to so-called ‘conversion therapy,” he continued. “That's not ‘praying away the gay’; it's emotional torture against our most innocent citizens, our children, telling them that to live, they must lie about who they are, and who they love.” “That's fundamentally un-American,” he said.
Newsom, who began issuing invalid marriage certificates to same-sex couples while he was mayor of San Francisco, said enacting the LGBT political agenda is “what America is about, and that's what makes America great.”
LGBT political activists and pressure groups have lobbied states to ban the therapy, which assists minors struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction.
They have also asked the United Nations to label the practice a form of torture.
However, its proponents say the therapeutic technique empowers young people to control their sexuality and banning it, especially in cases when homosexual attraction was triggered by molestation, is “a form of child abuse.”
Chad Griffin of the Soros-funded Human Rights Campaign (HRC) also mentioned “conversion therapy” in his remarks on Thursday.
New York Congressman Patrick Maloney made a reference to transgender restroom use, equating it with “equality.”
The convention also heard from:
- Sarah McBride, the first transgender person ever to address a major party’s national convention;
- Rep. Ted Lieu of California who said an “attack on parental rights” is “the whole point” behind a bill he introduced as a state representative banning reparative therapy for minors suffering from unwanted same-sex attraction;
- Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, a former pro-life Democrat who advocates teaching transcendental meditation in the public schools. He introduced himself during his speech as “a Catholic school boy”;
- Delores Huerta, an honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), whom Barack Obama awarded the Presidential Medial of Freedom; and
- Katy Perry, who performed a witchcraft-laden ritual on stage at the 2014 Grammys.
