“Conversion therapy” can’t change sexual orientation. It can cruelly bully people to stop having sex, but it can’t change their attraction.
“Conversion therapy” of minors is illegal in 23 states.
But what if a minor comes to therapy convinced they’re trans–should it be illegal to discuss them possibly changing their identity away from trans and back to their birth gender? Not force, mind you–discuss.
The Supreme Court has started hearing arguments on this question, in Chiles v. Salazar.
The recent Supreme Court decision suspending Roe v Wade exercised so much gravitational pull on our collective attention that two equally devastating court decisions escaped most people’s notice.
They both concern the expansion of privileges Americans can now claim if they cry “religious freedom.” One requires…
The Supreme Court rules that a baker does not have to custom-make a cake for a gay wedding. There’s something fundamentally good about this decision–it protects free artistic expression.
The real Constitutional problem is that religious beliefs are considered so precious that they get special rights.
The lobbying group Morality In Media wants to eliminate adult pornography. But they have a problem: adult pornography is one of the most successful consumer products on earth, and it is generally protected by the Constitution. So MiM has resorted to a desperate measure—repeatedly connecting adult pornography to a reviled product (child porn) and a reviled behavior (child molestation). Of course there is no evidence linking adult porn with either of those things, but MiM has never let facts stand in the way of their Big Lie. In their latest press release, they admit that they have no evidence of…
It’s Thanksgiving, so let’s give thanks for sex. Not just the huffing and puffing, the in-ing and out-ing, the sloshing around and drying off. Let’s give thanks for all the sexual rights we enjoy here in the U.S.—which billions of people in Russia, the Arab world, and many parts of Asia and Africa will never enjoy in their lifetimes. Most of these rights have to do with privacy and autonomy. These always look dangerous to repressive or religiously-driven regimes. Science and technology look pretty frightening to such regimes when they can be applied for sexual purposes—which they inevitably are, throughout…
John Stagliano was set free last week when a federal judge ended his obscenity trial on procedural grounds. If convicted, John would have been jailed for 32 years and had his home and business confiscated. Instead, a few million dollars of your tax money was wasted by a Department of Justice investigation, purchase, viewing, and indictment of Milk Nymphos, Storm Squirters, and Fetish Fanatic. These are DVDs that depict legal activity, whose actors are all certified as over 18. Neither of these facts was challenged by the government. The charge was simply that the DVDs appealed to the average person’s…